My Baby

So the Republicans have co-opted this whole sexism "whine," as they used to call it (when it was coming from Hillary Clinton), complaining that Sarah Palin is the "victim" (a word they used to also deride when it was being uttered by Democrats) of sexism from the "liberal media" (which doesn't sound so liberal when it's routinely kissing John McCain's 73-year-old butt). I know this whole debate is already dying down, but I would hate to see it die with the Republicans having the last word. So let's keep it up. I'm well aware that a woman can hold down a job and raise a child. I've done it myself, as a single mom. It isn't easy, but it's doable. I had little or no family help when I had my daughter, no financial support outside of what I earned myself. I've worked like all single moms work, and made it work—thanks in large part to a great, non-sexist boss who allowed me to work from home, which made my whole situation possible. I can't imagine what I would have done if I had had a special needs child. I certainly would not have taken a job that took me away from him or her most of the time. (I wouldn't have taken such a job with a healthy baby, either, not if I could possibly help it.) Now that I am the mother of an eight-year-old, I can imagine a little better what it would be like to have a 17-year-old come home and tell me she was pregnant. I don't know exactly what I would do. But I know what I wouldn't do, because it wouldn't be fair to her: tell the world. Force her into any decisions about whether or not to have the child, or marry the father of her baby. I would do a lot of soul-searching, and wonder what it was that I had had done wrong; why had she put herself in this precarious situation? I would wonder whether she were trying to get my attention, somehow. And no, again, I wouldn't feel that it was time to take a brand new, very time-consuming job (that would land her on the cover of the New York Post). She would come first. It is these sorts of things that I think mothers are thinking when they question Sarah Palin's decision to take on this "opportunity" at this obviously very emotional time in her family. The Republicans can give Levi Johnston (the father of Bristol Palin's baby) a shave, and strut him around proudly on a stage, but it doesn't change the strange fact that they are celebrating teenage pregnancy, something they have always railed against. I don't get Sarah Palin. She's like an alien to me. I don't understand what she is doing, here. Her family, her daughter, and her baby, need her.