I heard today that McCain's VP pick, Sarah Palin, has a 17 year old daughter that is pregnant. I am 100% in agreement with Senator Obama that we should not base any of our thoughts about Palin on her family, nor should we attack her family in any way. I have never felt that those personal type issues should be our determinant on who should and should not hold office. However, I was disturbed to hear the GOP very quick to announce that her daughter was having the baby and getting married to the 18 year old father. Many teenagers younger than Palin's daughter have babies and keep them, so that really isn't the part that disturbs me. I know that's a hard choice to make for anyone, especially when that person is so young. The part that I took issue with is the marriage. It has to make one wonder if she was urged to get married because it meets with Republican "values" and thus would look better for the McCain/Palin ticket. Perhaps I'm wrong. I don't know the girl and I don't know any of the intimate details of the situation, but I do remember being 17. When I was 17, I viewed marriage in kind of an unrrealistic fairytale type way. At the same time, I also broke up with my long time high school boyfriend because I thought we were too young to be so involved. We hadn't seen anything other than our small town or experienced anyone other than each other and that scared the hell out of me. I also don't think that a pregnancy is a good reason to commit yourself to another person in such a way. Having a child together automatically commits you to one another forever in a way, but not in the way that marriage does. Hopefully they will take some time before getting married to really figure out of that is what they want before rushing into it.
I see a bigger issue also. It is further proof that abstinence only teaching is not working. I realize that even teaching safe sex methods won't guarantee prevention of teen pregnancies, nor will it guarantee the end of STDs among teenagers. However, it is not realistic to believe that the majority of teenagers and young adults will wait for marriage to have sex. Some of them may wait because of religious beliefs, but then often they end up married at a very young age, and often times, those are the marriages that do not last since they are married to another person before they even know who they really are. In the small town in which I was born and lived for 18 years, I knew many girls who got married young like that; some with babies and some without. Most of those marriages did not last two years, others lasted a little longer, but the majority of them are no more at this time.
I truly hope that Governor Palin's daughter is happy and that it is not something she is being pushed into. An unhappy marriage can be a prison for those in it.
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