The Palin dynasty שלשלת הפלין

As some of you know, one of my “secret” vices is Palin-watching, to the point where I stumbled onto a blog devoted entirely to debunking the Palins. When thinking of the Palins (as some of us do), it’s hard not to associate them immediately with the failure of the very Abstinence Only “education” (hereinafter: "AOE’) that they espouse. Except wait a minute: It’s possible to view it from another angle, i.e., as far as they and the rest of the AOE-espousers are concerned, it doesn’t fail. In other words, no one promised that an AOE-based society would be inhabited by educated, prosperous, forward-thinking people; it guarantees only that no fetuses will be aborted. Well there you are: Sarah Palin was most likely pregnant when she married Todd, resulting in unaborted Track; and she already has two unintended grandchildren. So we have a bunch of babies being raised by teenagers (I’m stretching the definition of “teenager” here to include early 20s, not without reason).

The only mom in this picture to have a college degree is Sarah Palin. I’d love to ask her: Do you not want at least the same for your children? I can only conclude that in their heart of hearts, Palin and her ilk actually like the idea of perpetuating and entrenching patriarchy, or male hegemony over women. How else can we justify a world wherein women do not have control over their own reproduction? The very core of patriarchy, the very engine and foundation of keeping women down, is to prohibit them from choosing when and how many offspring to bear. Do the Palins find the idea of a passel of kids being raised by kids cute? Pregnant teens titillating?

I don’t doubt that a teenager has the ability to nurture another human being; it’s been shown that s/he can. But how many sub-educated, untrained teens have the wherewithal to provide what should be the legacy of all kids: enrichment of the mind, or what we call “the extras”: the extracurriculars, the lessons, the summer camp, post-secondary education? These should not be denigrated as frills, nor are they the exclusive purview of the elite. They are what those of us who can do so give our kids over and above a stocked pantry, a clean bed, and warm clothing. They’re what moves society forward as opposed to merely keeping our heads above water.

Besides, who ultimately shoulders the economic burden of AOE? Bingo — those of us who opted to plan our reproduction. It appears that the Palins are fortunate enough (read: wealthy enough) to provide for their multi-generational product of AOE, but most of the AOE-espousing demographic is not, and that’s where my problem lies: AOE has a cost, and that cost falls precisely upon the shoulders of those of us who oppose it. Palins, how fair is that?