First of all I’d like to say that it’s strange for a foreigner following the US presidential election from the outside, how much of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates’ personal life and history has to be dug out and scrutinised. I mean, a person seeking presidential (or vice-p.) power can’t go through their lives without hurting anyone or doing any mistakes! I’v read about mr Palin’s drunk driving 22 (!) years ago, about mrs Palin’s past as a beauty contest participant, and of course about Bristol Palin, their unmarried dautghter’s pregnancy.
Of course miss Palin should’ve waited to have sex until she was married, but for some reason she didn’t, and her choice to have the baby and take the responsability of her actions should make her a role model to other unmarried pregnant teen-agers, and their families, who should be supportive and helpful with taking care of the unplanned blessing arriving.
Whether Bristol Palin had chosen to have her baby hadn’t her mother been a VP candidate or high profile pro-life politician, we’ll probably never know. We all do mistakes in our lives, and criticising Bristol Palin and reminding her about how much her teen-age pregnancy has disappointed her parents, that’s, in my opinion, just mean. It’s her mother that has chosen to become a vice-president candidate, not Bristol Palin. Suddenly this young woman is being written about and spoked about all around the country and overseas. She’s used to her mother being the Alaskan governor, but the state isn’t one of the more important states in the US, and thus the governor and her family had remained fairly unknown to the rest of the world up until now. We should all bear in mind, that living with strict moral rules and parents carying very much about the family members’ public apperance and the family’s honor and image, and so on, could make anyone wanting to rebel. Perhaps miss Bristol wanted to rebel against her mother being a super mom - or at least the public image of her being one - taking care of her five children, husband, work, having a baby with Down’s syndrome, etc. (Even I feel a need to rebel against her - no one does everything right! Everyone has some weaknesses and flaws, otherwise they wouldn’t have been human!)
And, take a look at these pictures of miss Palin and her baby brother Trig. She looks so calm, so caring, it’s like the baby’s hers and she’s so happy with it. Of all the pictures I’ve seen at the Internet from this event, mrs Palin holds him only on a couple of the pictures, and while holding him she also checks her Blueberry and speak in her cell phone. Miss Palin, however, seems content about holding and caring for her baby brother. Had I been mrs Palin, I would have carried my beautiful baby son everywhere so that everyone could have seen him and seen how proud I was of him. But the child she’s bringing along is Piper, the 6 yrs old girl. Her larger girls, Willow and Bristol tags along in the background, carrying baby Trig and his stuff.
Mrs Palin appeals to me in many ways, she’s a christian, conservative (however somewhat selective about what to be conservative about), mother of five, pro-life, beautiful yet modest, and so on. (There are also things I don’t agree upon, but I’ll leave them for now - not that it matters, I’m not eligible to vote anyhow.) But, the main thing I dislike about her (based upon my knowledge of her from the media) is that it seems as though baby Trig is in her way. Everyone salutes her for having him despite their knowledge of him having Down’s syndrome, and despite her being the Alaskan governor. But, she returned to work three days after giving birth to him… and now, during this presidential election campaign, how much time will she have to establish the very important bonds between a mother and her child? She’snt even the one carrying him around when greeting people… to me, that’s not right, and it’s signalling that he’s not that important to her… I must confess that a woman, a mother of small children, seeking this much power, that puzzles me… I don’t understand it. I mean, mrs Clinton, she’s a mother, but her daughter’s grown up, and she has only one, I understand her want to become a powerful person. But mrs Palin, no. She’snt finished with mothering being her no. 1 priority, and now she wants to show the world that a mother with small children also can become a vice president. Someone’s going to suffer from this, and I’m afraid it’s the baby and her other children.
This is perhaps her once in a lifetime chance to become something as important as a vice-president, but it’s also her once in a lifetime chance to establish the first important bonds to her little baby son. Choosing her career in stead of her children, that’s not what I would have done. And being a conservative christian, I can’t see how that’s something she would do either.
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