The XX Factor: What women really think.

Rumor vs. Reality

It's interesting that the original rumor had Sarah Palin in the role of the sacrificial mother, protecting her daughter from exposure as a knocked-up teenager and presumably guaranteeing the baby an upbringing in a firmly established family. The real story has Sarah Palin plunging into the limelight, thereby guaranteeing that it's the whole nation, not merely Bristol's high school peers and their parents, who know her daughter's situation. And this baby—certainly if Palin's ticket wins—can't exactly count on doting grandparents at the ready to back up the teenage newlyweds. As between the two scenarios, it strikes me that the first in fact might fly better, not just with the evangelical, pro-family base, but with everybody else, too. And what, I wonder, does the comparison tell us about the stigma, or lack thereof, of teenage pregnancy? The rumor presumed it was something to hide; the reality suggests it's fine to flaunt it. Ah, for the old days of the simple culture war paradigm, when "traditional" nuclear family values reigned in red America.