A few questions for Bristol Palin

Broken promises:
A few questions for Bristol Palin (and Sarah, too)

REED STEVENS

Grandma is right over here, girls, listen up! No one can stop you from screwing one of the boys or all of the boys. All that talk about Chastity and Abstinence isn’t going to keep your panties up. Certainly the boys aren’t going to stop you. Everybody’s screwing around; you might as well, too.

It’s a hormonal, horny world out there. Pornography’s three-quarters of the Internet. Movies make stars of teen mothers. Everything you see and hear says Do It and Do It Now.

Of course we old fogies don’t understand. Life was very different when we were young. We were born without those sexual desires so it was easy for us to go home to bed alone. You are the first young women to feel hot hot HOT! It follows that if you feel so strongly, so purely horny, only God could have created it. And if God created sex, it’s a natural right, and if you let someone take that right away from you, what does that say about your belief in God and your Christian faith?

Hello, it’s Grandma here: I want to know about the kid. The Baby you have started. What’s her life going to be like growing up in a family where the parents married at the end of a shotgun or the back of a Bible? Who’s responsible for Baby’s shoes— Mommy or Daddy? Who’s going to pay for school—heck, who’s going to pay for the baby’s delivery?

Someone’s going to need serious medical insurance right away. Let’s see, you’re 17. Will the parents’ insurance cover this?

Easy to make, hard to get rid of

Oh, the kid. Whose insurance will cover her? Where will she grow up? Maybe the White House! Or not. There will be a guilt vote from those women (and perhaps men) who let their babies go out for adoption. Adoption sounds simple, but it’s very complicated to have brought a live human being into the world. Easy to make one, a lot harder to get rid of the darn thing. By the time a good adopting family has been vetted by the social services systems the baby will be ready for preschool. If it’s a healthy baby. The others, not so easy to farm out.

Say, Bristol, you ready to put away your dancing shoes and warm up the bottle? Did you remember to buy diapers? Oh, it’s Daddy Levi’s turn to feed the baby although it’s 5 a.m. and he’s got an eight o’clock class. He’ll have those classes for many years to come, while you stay home with the child, as Dr. Dobson preaches. Good-bye career. You wouldn’t want to abandon your maternal role for mere personal fulfillment. Motherhood is your most important mission. Good girl. You already know how to make French toast and load the dishwasher— you’re on your way.

The Juno precedent

In the movie, Juno, the girl we’re supposed to admire drops her bastard baby as easily as a stray cat and hands it off right away without a glance. “No thanks,” she tells the nurse as she turns her face away from the tiny swaddling— boy or girl, who cares?—which has just emerged from her body. Mercifully, the newborn tactfully declines to cry or even mew. A neurotic adult woman is so thrilled to get her hands on the kid she nearly drops it, proving the child has the best possible life ahead of it.

And what of the previous generation, who either had the discipline to keep his pants zipped—oh, Billy Clinton, how you let us down— or, if you can imagine, never felt the torment of unsatisfied arousal. Juno’s kindly father, a limp “older guy,” younger than this Granny, hears of his daughter’s pregnancy as he sits at the kitchen table. He’s quietly amused. These kids, his face says, they try everything. He chuckles, then goes back to his crossword puzzle, sharpening up his old brain so he can keep up with this daughter—my goodness, how this generation loves their independence.

The good old days in Connecticut

Hello from Granny. Yes, the whole world is screwing. Even I do it, wrinkles and all. And I’ve been doing it since I was younger than Bristol and younger than Juno, in the Dark Ages. How dark? Married couples couldn’t legally buy birth control in Connecticut.

But back in the day, pregnancy was important, because babies were so valuable that we waited to have them, and if we couldn’t, we were very, very sorry we had brought someone into the world without the means to raise him or her. We knew an out-of-wedlock child would burden our families forever. An out-of-wedlock child is an unplanned child. Essentially unwanted. Or wanted at another time. With another person. But here it is, needing a change, needing a burp, needing everything, forever.

We knew that baby would grow up to wonder if she was really part of the family. To whom she really belonged. Mother was one thing, but how could her father really want a child when he was only a child himself?

Yes, Granny knows there are worse problems. Children are starving because resources are scarce. We don’t need more children; we need to love the ones we’ve got at home and around the world. Put a fucking sock on it, Bristol and Juno. Until you understand resource management, you are expensive, selfish sluts. Your parents are fools.

And you have no story to tell your daughters.



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