I went to NYC yesterday because my boss, Sarah Brown, was one of the panelists at a National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy event. Bristol Palin was also a panelist.
Bristol is a parenting teenager - like hundreds of thousands of other girls in this country, she got pregnant and had a baby last year. She and her boyfriend have broken up (as is usually the case in these situations) and she is urging other teens to avoid what she's been through. She loves her son, as most moms do, but she says she wishes she had waited. Waited to have sex, waited to have a baby, waited a little longer before growing up this way. And people are attacking her for it.
I don't get it. She's a kid who made some mistakes and she's warning others not to make the same ones. If she were a recovering addict urging young people not to use drugs no one would call her a hypocrite. If she had killed someone (killed someone!) while driving under the influence and was warning other teens about drinking and driving she'd be hailed as courageous. If she had a history of disordered eating and was reaching out to young girls about forming healthy relationships with food she'd be a hero. Why is this any different? I think more of us who have learned from past experiences should work to save others from the heartache we've had.
She's saying that abstinence - that is, not having sex - is the only foolproof way of avoiding pregnancy. She's right. The audience at this panel discussion yesterday was mostly teens - some as young as seventh grade. Not having sex is a great option for them and they should feel secure in making the decision to wait. Half of high school students are sexually active and half are not. The half that are not need to feel supported in that choice - because it's not an easy one and because it works.
Others on the panel, my boss included, talked about contraception, and that's enormously important too. Teens and young adults (and sexually active people of every age) need to know about all the methods of birth control that are available to them and they need to use them if they don't want to get pregnant. But the bigger issue is making the decision in the first place to delay having children - which is really what Bristol is talking about. On the panel and in media interviews she talked about how hard parenting is, how it's a 24/7 job that rearranges your priorities, separates you from your friends and your future, and leaves you exhausted all the time. It's enormously rewarding for sure, but its better suited for someone older, settled, secure and ready to do it. Who can disagree with that?
I think the venom directed at Bristol is actually about politics, and the vitriol many feel for her mother. I'm no fan of Sarah Palin and I disagree with her on nearly everything, but this isn't about her. Teen pregnancy and parenting are not political issues. They are social issues, public health issues, economic issues and cultural issues. And they affect all of us - to the tune of more than $9 billion annually, by the way - whether or not we personally know any pregnant girls or have parenting teens in our schools, neighborhoods or families.
Give Bristol a break. She's doing what she thinks is right and what she's saying actually is right. She's a teenager speaking to other teens publicly about a topic that most adults find too awkward to discuss with their own children. She is trying to help others avoid what's been through and I think she's brave for doing it.
The reason Bristol was attacked as a hypocrite was because in an interview a few weeks ago, she said abstinence is not realistic -- which is true. It's a great idea, and it's the best option for most teens, whether they know it or not, but the REALITY is that many teens do not abstain from having sex.
In this panel, Bristol back-pedaled on what she said in that first interview, and is promoting abstinence, saying it IS realistic (even though it didn't work for her! Even she failed). This is why many people are calling her a hypocrite: not because she's promoting abstinence, but because she admitted that abstinence is not realistic, and now she's pushing it as if it were a realistic, effective way to deal with the problem of teen pregnancy.
Bristol's situation is unfair in that her words are tainted by the political baggage that is her mother. While sex ed should not be a political issue, it is, because politicians have stuck their noses in it and legislated for abstinence-only education. In many states, abstinence-only programs are the only form of "sex ed" students ever received -- if contraceptives were mentioned at all, it was to give misinformation and claim that condoms don't work. When most people think "abstinence," they think of these programs, where students are lied to. That half of teens you mentioned, who are sexually active? They are given no information on how to prevent pregnancy or STDs.
I was not at this event nor have I read a transcript of Bristol's speech, so I really shouldn't be commenting on this, but from what I have read about it, she was promoting abstinence in the same spirit as these abstinence-ONLY programs: as the only option and therefore denying teens the information they need in case they do not choose abstinence. If Bristol had encouraged teens to be abstinent yet, if they chose not to take that route, to be responsible and use protection, then I doubt anyone would be calling her a hypocrite. (Her mother would probably flog her when she got home, which is probably what happened after that first interview, and why Bristol changed her tune... but that's another rant.)