(Side note: both of these crazy kids are High School drop outs and his mother's been arrested on drug charges. Just imagine the hand-wringing and tooth-gnashing from the self-appointed guardians of our culture in God's Own Party if this bunch had been Democrats - "Oh what will we tell the children??")Bristol Palin gave birth to her much-anticipated baby son on Sunday, People.com reported this evening.
The first grandchild of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, weighing in at seven pounds, four ounces.
When it was announced shortly after Gov. Palin was named John McCain's running mate that her teenage daughter was expecting, it triggered national debates on teen pregnancy and marriage, abstinence education, the VP vetting process, the privacy of political families and, well, just about everything.
Bristol Palin is 18, as is her boyfriend of three years, Levi Johnston, a former high school hockey player. Both have dropped out of high school -- she to complete her diploma through correspondence courses, People reports, and he to become an apprentice electrician, he told the AP this fall. They have said they plan to marry in 2009. (Johnston's mother Sherry was arrested earlier this month on felony drug charges for allegedly selling OxyContin.)
We also learned yet again that Virginity Pledges just don't work. In fact, they can lead to more pregnancies and more STDs:
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.What will we tell the children??The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.
Questions? Comments? Remarks? Drop me an e-mail.
UPDATE from the Bramster:
I had this conversation a lot during the election -- basically, why don't social conservatives see the hypocrisy, or at least the futility, of being anti-sex ed, anti-contraception, anti-choice and pro-shame and then let their children get knocked up and their lives upended like this on a regular basis? Some people expected social conservatives would turn on Palin as a bad mother (why wasn't she around the house to make sure her daughter didn't become a whore?) or turn against social conservatism as daft and futile.UPDATE from Fillippelli the (Wannabe) Cook:
My thoughts on this were always, of course not!!! It's easy to be pro-shame, pro-ignorance and pro-hatred of "young whores", yet be totally embracing of everyone who fail to live up to their strict conservative standards, and whose lives get totally upended. In fact, it's a badge of honor. Although Ozzy and Harriet are still held up as the only righteous way to live, they can look at a family like the Palins and think, "Hey, they're total hypocrites -- just like me! They failed to raise their kids right and now their family is all messed up -- just like me!" The point isn't actually to live up to high moral standards -- only to be self-righteous towards everybody and force them to try. The fact that it doesn't work and causes dropouts and worse doesn't matter. I knew it'd make them more sympathetic.
Shocking that these don't work, eh? Undoubtedly, this will mean that those creepy daddy and his little girl virginity balls will only increase in popularity.UPDATE from Laurie Mann:
Like I've been saying, Bristol Palin is the poster child for abstenance-only education. And is sounds like her baby's other grandmother is the poster-child for drug abuse.
