<p>So, Bristol is offered good money to go and speak to young people about her experiences. She has a kid and (presumably) wants to support him and make a life for herself. What would you have her do? Say “no, thanks”??</p>
<p>I get that there may be questions about how the funds that this particular non-profit generates are spent. But that is NOT how this thread started off (and I did read the whole thing). It started with talking about Bristol and how ridiculous some think it is that she earned that much money.</p>
<p>Bygones, jym. Bygones. There’s no politics forum anymore, is there, so there shouldn’t be a problem with us. I unblocked everyone I had ever blocked. Ok, it was only two but let’s not quibble! Do you want the cheese popcorn and beer or not? I can’t vouch for the gluten free part.</p>
<p>BP and kid, will have a tough future in front of them.
She has doomed herself to a nunnery and her kid to a home without a male.</p>
<p>What young man wants to have a relationship with a girl of this noteriety. Nothing to do with raising another man’s child, but everything with a comparison of what-ifs.
If I was Gma Palin, I would have told BP that because of the fame, that she, BP,*** absolutely ***, have to make the relation work.</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with anyone taking the best-paying legal job they can find.</p>
<p>It does make me very sad that young women are being told that they need to be abstinent if they want to avoid becoming single moms. I wish that I had a chance to talk to young women and tell them that they can have whatever kind of sex life they want – abstinent, promiscuous, or in between; hetero or homo or solo or all three – and still protect their health and their future. I’d happily do that for free. In fact, I’d be happy just to have the chance to tell Bristol that. I don’t think that she knows.</p>
That is an incredibly important and empowering message. My only constraint would be that they actually are young women. I do think there is a point at which a girl is too young both physically and mentally.</p>
<p>What bugs me is the hypocrisy. If the the 17 yr old daughter of a Democrat got pregnant and decided to keep the baby, would she be celebrated by the Republican right, or would she be held up as an example of the results of godless liberal ethics? The scarlet letter would be ready to go.</p>
<p>MADad, since that hasn’t happened we can’t really know, can we? I’m sure there would be some of that on the right as there actually was with Bristol Palin. And I’m equally sure there would be complaints from some quarters that the daughter didn’t get an abortion. Hypocrisy is hypocrisy. I am glad that Bristol had her baby. I think the world is a better place for his having been born.</p>
<p>I agree about being too young, zm…and knowing how much freedom they have, and how much joy they potentially have to look forward to when they are making decisions that are right for them, will make it so much easier to wait! If you don’t realize how many great things are waiting for you, you might as well try to please whatever teenage loser happens to show you 5 minutes of attention.</p>
<p>I DO watch MTV’s 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom. One of the saddest things on those very sad shows is the obvious fact (obvious to any woman with mature hetero sexual experience) that the sex wasn’t even any good. These girls made sexual choices that brought an avalanche of misery into their lives, and often their children’s lives. And most of them didn’t even get temporary satisfaction or emotional rewards out of it. In other words, they would have been rotten sexual choices even if the girls had won their game of pregnancy/STI roulette. There was no up side to their sex lives at all. It’s depressing beyond words.</p>
<p>“I agree about being too young, zm…and knowing how much freedom they have, and how much joy they potentially have to look forward to when they are making decisions that are right for them, will make it so much easier to wait!”</p>
<p>I know, I don’t understand it at all. One of the issues that I want to stand on my soapbox and shout about is single women getting pregnant at a young age, or when they have no means of support. The company I work for hires a number of women that I interact with. Middle aged, tired and working 2-3 jobs, a number of kids they are worried are joining gangs, no man in sight. They started having these kids when they were young. So many times, purposefully. And I want to ask them, why, why did you do this? It is so hard to raise and support kids. Why didn’t you wait until you had gone to college, were in your twenties, stable and married? After all these years, you’re still doing this on your own. And your kids are still suffering from it. But of course, I’d never say something so cruel, because it would be pointless. Though I would love to have known their rationale at the time. I see the young girls starting down this path, and I just want to shake some sense into them.</p>
<p>Hanna - I watch the MTV shows, too, and what I love most about it is the end-of-the season interviews with Dr. Drew. One of the things he tends to ask after all is said and done, is what kind of birth control/sex education these kids received in school and from what I can remember, I think all of them have replied that the only information they were given was about abstinence. He has a way of asking (and I’m presuming knowing the answer ahead of time) very directly in a way that you know it’s part of his agenda to inform us that our schools need to be doing a better job of sex education with our kids, and that perhaps if they were, some of these pregnancies might have been avoided. I agree that low self-esteem plays a huge part with these girls and he really does try to empower them to work on those issues in order that they might avoid future mistakes. Out of all the stories I’ve seen on these shows, I think I can only remember about two couples who really were mature enough to survive the crisis (interestingly, one couple chose adoption, and the other couple had twins - one of which has some serious health issues).</p>
<p>Regrettably, bus, many of them did do everything ‘right’. They married or were at least in a stable relationship, they thought all would be dandy. But then it wasn’t and the men were gone and the women have to deal with the aftermath. You can’t tell by looking who is who and what their story may be. </p>
<p>And sometimes a gal gets pregnant and she just wants to keep the baby – it’s a pity those who are most in favor of women keeping their babies are often the ones throwing up the worst roadblocks to a successful life <em>with</em> the baby who doesn’t stay ‘a baby’ very long at all. Instead they call names like ‘baby mama’ and ‘welfare cheat’ and ‘lazy’…when as you say, it’s hard work to raise a child alone.</p>
<p>I think I’ll pass on popcorn and beer. But wouldn’t it be lovely, with the closing of the political forum many months ago, if people truly could put the past in the past. After all, those political forums are full of shenanigans and bring out the worst in people. Those political forums provide a shield to say awful, terrible things about people that they wouldn’t say anywhere else.</p>
<p>Isn’t it fun how the “political forums” supposedly ended here at CC, yet they still have a way of cropping up? I mean there’s obviously no politics going on in any discussion of Bristol Palin. Just your typical objective discussion like any other thread on CC.</p>
<p>Good one, browninfall. And people still venting their anger on old disputes. I guess I just haven’t been around long enough.</p>
<p>“Regrettably, bus, many of them did do everything ‘right’. They married or were at least in a stable relationship, they thought all would be dandy. But then it wasn’t and the men were gone and the women have to deal with the aftermath.”</p>
<p>Yes, and I have total sympathy for that. It is definitely what I think we as a society should help people with who find themselves in that situation. But when someone very purposefully puts themselves into a difficult position, with no family support…I just don’t understand it. Now I know some people think the solution is to give extreme amounts of support and education, and it will stop. But it doesn’t, I’m afraid it makes it more attractive and a stronger possibility to people than if they knew they would get no support whatsoever. I don’t know the solution. I don’t want to hurt children or struggling mothers, but I wish we could figure out a way to make it unacceptable. You really need fathers. Sure, sometimes it is impossible, but it is what we should strive for.</p>
<p>“I hope 07Dad has a more forgiving heart than I do. That was quite uncalled for.”</p>
<p>Apparently 07Dad is a delicate flower who can’t take a sarcastic joke or two? Not wanting to offend your unforgiving heart, but I must control my giggling so I don’t spit out some of my tasty red wine (Our Daily Red, organic, $7.50/bottle, yum). I feel quite confident that he can take it.</p>
<p>Maybe there’s some joking going on in another forum that I’m not ‘in on’, but accusing someone of visiting porn sites with no precedent seems a bit off taste.</p>