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About a month ago, I found out that my niece is pregnant, and I’m not proud of how I reacted to this news. In hindsight, maybe it is because when she was a teenager I told her, "Don't get pregnant or I'll break your legs." Granted, unlike Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s daughter, my niece will be 23 next week and a college graduate, but despite living with the father of her child, she is unmarried. One of the reasons I was disappointed in the news because she had just finally started a job in her chosen profession, and a year-long maternity leave for someone who is on contract doesn’t necessarily mean that job is going to be there for her when, or if, she returns.
What also bothers me is that my niece knows better. Her mother, my older sister got pregnant at 17. Despite having all the material trappings where one would assume might hinder such an ‘accident’ - just like Bristol Palin, my sister grew up in a two-parent, upper-middle class home – the new addition brought years of turmoil to our family, turmoil that despite my niece being an adult and living on her own, still lingers. While my niece was and is a wonderful, beautiful and intelligent woman / child, I remember the struggle that my sister went through, which included alienation from family members, the looks of disapproval and the financial and emotional struggle to make it on her feet. Most importantly, my sister, despite loving her daughter, was clearly far too young and immature to raise a child on her own. I was hoping that my niece would remember what her mother went through and perhaps she would wait until she got her career started, got some money in the bank and enjoyed her life as an adult before making such a life-altering decision.
I can totally understand the heightened media attention on Bristol because of her mother, but the water-cooler conversations, Dr. Phil’s baseless opines, the ‘fear’ from suburbanites who now feel that Cindy and Misty now might think that getting knocked up is ‘like, cool, dude.’ Funny, because when young black women get pregnant, they are called ‘Welfare Queens.’ There was a time when young Latina and black women were 'encouraged' to get Norplant and Depo Provera shots as health clinics in the ‘hood’ made contraceptives real easy for them to obtain. Some thought that it was the government’s way to deter unwanted people from having even more unwanted children, but hey I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but if the shoe fits…….. From Earnset Harris via The Huffington Post:
But where is that same sentiment or support for young black and Hispanic teen girls when they have babies? As I read someone else put it, when minority children have babies, it is an epidemic and a sign of the poor standards in our communities. When Bristol Palin has premarital sex and gets pregnant, it is to be applauded as a sign of how strong the family is because she will join the long list of teen mothers in this country. What a crock. These people should keep quiet from now on when black and brown teens have babies. They have no ground on which to stand after acting like this particular teen pregnancy is like a gift from God while minority teen pregnancies are the scourge of our society.
Now I must admit I do feel sorry for Bristol – a bit. She will be forced into a marriage that will probably not last, her mother has basically put her professional ambitions in front of her own child (Yes, I know that sounds bad, but whatever) and I say that because no pregnant teenage girl really needs or deserves that much public scrutiny. Lucky for her the child’s father is white! Could you imagine otherwise? Mental Meanderings talks about the difficulty of young parents and suggests that maybe they are better
