Hartford Courant
September 7, 2008
A Family Values Exception For Pregnant Palin Daughter
Helen Ubiñas
September 7, 2008
I didn't get it; the way the young mothers refused to talk, how one lied
about the baby girl in the stroller not being hers, and why the teenage
couple who bluntly talked about the hardships of having a baby when you're
just a kid yourself wouldn't go on the record.
It's their business, the young father told me. Why broadcast their lives?
People will only judge.
But that's just it - I was there to tell him and all of the unwed, teenage
Hartford parents I came across this week that this was a new day. No longer
did they represent the face of shame. They were - thank you, Bristol
Palin! - the new face of family values.
Didn't they hear?
No matter how hard I tried to share the good news though, they weren't
buying it. And who could blame them - they knew better than to think that
title would ever apply to them. Before Palin made having a baby at 17 the
"tough and courageous" decision it has suddenly become, mostly what rained
down on her poorer, darker counterparts was shame.
When Jasmin Rodriguez told her mother she was pregnant at 15, her mother
didn't beam at her the way Sarah Palin did as she gazed at her pregnant,
unmarried, daughter the other night.
"Our family has the same ups and downs as any other - the same challenges
and the same joys," Palin said when she accepted the Republican nomination
for vice president Wednesday. "Sometimes even the greatest joys bring
challenge."
Funny, Rodriguez's mother didn't see it that way. She cried and screamed
and, in an act of exasperation, grounded her.
When Rodriguez's family found out about her impending motherhood, they sure
didn't trip all over themselves to praise her for following her beliefs -
the way the right has for Palin. Nope, they banned Rodriguez from hanging
out with her younger cousins for fear of her being a bad influence.
And when Rodriguez, now 22, told her family who the father was, let's just
say they were less than impressed. Big difference from how folks are
characterizing Palin's baby daddy, huh? Levi Johnston, a loser? Oh no, he's
a hunky hockey player, eager to marry his sweetheart. As I watched the
couple awkwardly hold hands at the convention this week, I wondered how soon
before they were forced onto that stage was the young couple informed of
their impending nuptials?
The hypocrisy is stunning, I told Bethany Casarjian, a teenage pregnancy
expert who has written extensively on the topic.
I knew it was a dumb question, but I had to ask. How could people who
refused to offer an ounce of sympathy - let alone funds or resources - for
teens who found themselves in the same position justify their about-face?
How could her mother, a champion of abstinence, say with a straight face:
"We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to
become grandparents."
Casarjian's answer was simple. "Because she's one of theirs."
Theirs, of course, meaning white and middle-class - the pregnant girl
prototype so brilliantly portrayed by Ellen Page in that hit film Juno. I
liked that movie, too, but it wasn't lost on me that if her skin tone was
different, the film probably wouldn't have been quite as popular. Who's
going to plunk down 10 bucks to see a film about a young, pregnant black
girl. Yawn, old news.
But this is about a lot more than inequity and race - as glaring as those
are. It's about the kind of convenient hypocrisy that has allowed the
conservatives to redefine teen pregnancy so that the story of Bristol Palin
fits into their 2008 playbook.
Family values. Personal responsibility. Faith.
"Change is coming," John McCain told the cheering crowd at the GOP
convention Thursday night.
Really? Sounds like politics as usual to me. The right needed a new script
for what they'd long condemned and they're getting away with it because -
let's be real here - you can sell just about any story line you want so long
as the heroine is a pretty young white woman with a whiff of vulnerability.
When we spoke, Casarjian had high hopes that the sympathy and support being
shown to Bristol Palin might trickle down to other young women who lack her
profile or status. It often takes a high-profile case for people to care,
she said.
That'd be nice, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Neither would Isamar
Estrella, who five months ago had her baby at 17.
Estrella, who was walking down Main Street with her baby the other day,
plans to return to school, to get a job and do whatever it takes to raise
her daughter - with her baby's father, by the way.
But she doesn't expect anyone will care, or notice.
I'm not rich, she says. Or famous.
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