Once again, Bristol Palin is using her teen mom status to garner more attention on the fact that she is, in fact, a teen mom (for a little bit longer, anyways):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtcm9R-J3Bk
“What if I didn’t come from a famous family?” Bristol starts the video.
Perhaps the real question that should be asked here is, “What if my mom hadn’t run for vice-president?” After all, had Sarah Palin not been John McCain’s running mate in 2008, no one outside of the great state of Alaska would have known who Sarah Palin was, let alone Bristol.
It’s not the first time that the eldest Palin daughter has spoken out about her accidental pregnancy either. She’s becoming a teen Super Mom lately, warning kids that teen pregnancy is not all fun and games (she’s even guested on the The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a show about teen pregnancy). Next thing you’ll know she’ll be pointing her disapproving finger at the real teens on 16 & Pregnant.
Is Bristol speaking out about the challenges of teenage parenthood a good thing? Perhaps. But I don’t think many American kids get pregnant because they think it’s going to be easy.
In fact, most teen pregnancies likely come from the kids who, like Bristol, are taught abstinence-only education. Meaning they are not taught about birth control (condoms, pills, shots, patches, etc.). Instead they are taught to just say no — don’t have sex. Not til marriage. The end.
Well that’s great, but studies (and Bristol) have proven that these abstinence-only programs do not work. Kids taught to simply not have sex are at a higher risk for pregnancy and STDs because they don’t know any better when they do have sex before marriage.
And who’s a great pusher of that program? Sarah Palin.
And that is where this ad ultimately fails. Sure, the kicker line is “Pause before you play,” which one could take to mean to use protection (it’s the 2010 version of “No glove, no love”), but Bristol never makes that part clear.
Instead the ad makes it seem that if she didn’t come from money and good social status, she could not have had her child.
There’s no doubt that money has played a big role in Bristol’s opportunities since having her child at 18: She was able to graduate high school, she’s attending college and she’s still living at home, where there are plenty of built-in baby-sitters. But that really isn’t something you should be saying to kids.
On that token then, it must also have been OK for Jamie Lyn Spears to get pregnant at 16, since she too had the money.
The other troubling thing about this ad? The more Bristol campaigns about teen pregnancy and her “struggle,” the more I wonder what baby Tripp is going to think of his mother’s actions when he’s old enough to understand.
A lot of the undercurrent here is that if she could do it over again, she wouldn’t. Not that she wouldn’t have the baby (abortion is another no-no), but that she wouldn’t have put herself in the position to create a child. Tripp never would have existed, if his mother had her way.
And that’s a message no one should have to hear a mother say.
Bristol Palin strikes again
Once again, Bristol Palin is using her teen mom status to garner more attention on the fact that she is, in fact, a teen mom (for a little bit longer, anyways):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtcm9R-J3Bk
“What if I didn’t come from a famous family?” Bristol starts the video.
Perhaps the real question that should be asked here is, “What if my mom hadn’t run for vice-president?” After all, had Sarah Palin not been John McCain’s running mate in 2008, no one outside of the great state of Alaska would have known who Sarah Palin was, let alone Bristol.
It’s not the first time that the eldest Palin daughter has spoken out about her accidental pregnancy either. She’s becoming a teen Super Mom lately, warning kids that teen pregnancy is not all fun and games (she’s even guested on the The Secret Life of the American Teenager, a show about teen pregnancy). Next thing you’ll know she’ll be pointing her disapproving finger at the real teens on 16 & Pregnant.
Is Bristol speaking out about the challenges of teenage parenthood a good thing? Perhaps. But I don’t think many American kids get pregnant because they think it’s going to be easy.
In fact, most teen pregnancies likely come from the kids who, like Bristol, are taught abstinence-only education. Meaning they are not taught about birth control (condoms, pills, shots, patches, etc.). Instead they are taught to just say no — don’t have sex. Not til marriage. The end.
Well that’s great, but studies (and Bristol) have proven that these abstinence-only programs do not work. Kids taught to simply not have sex are at a higher risk for pregnancy and STDs because they don’t know any better when they do have sex before marriage.
And who’s a great pusher of that program? Sarah Palin.
And that is where this ad ultimately fails. Sure, the kicker line is “Pause before you play,” which one could take to mean to use protection (it’s the 2010 version of “No glove, no love”), but Bristol never makes that part clear.
Instead the ad makes it seem that if she didn’t come from money and good social status, she could not have had her child.
There’s no doubt that money has played a big role in Bristol’s opportunities since having her child at 18: She was able to graduate high school, she’s attending college and she’s still living at home, where there are plenty of built-in baby-sitters. But that really isn’t something you should be saying to kids.
On that token then, it must also have been OK for Jamie Lyn Spears to get pregnant at 16, since she too had the money.
The other troubling thing about this ad? The more Bristol campaigns about teen pregnancy and her “struggle,” the more I wonder what baby Tripp is going to think of his mother’s actions when he’s old enough to understand.
A lot of the undercurrent here is that if she could do it over again, she wouldn’t. Not that she wouldn’t have the baby (abortion is another no-no), but that she wouldn’t have put herself in the position to create a child. Tripp never would have existed, if his mother had her way.
And that’s a message no one should have to hear a mother say.