Pope Benedict and I should just plain mind our own business. But enough people have asked me, and hey, I have a blog, so I'm going to open my big mouth.I think Sarah Palin is a bad mother.
I hate even thinking that about anyone. Palin is an idiot. I don't care how many people want me to paint her as 'smart'. She's also a compulsive liar, and has obviously lied to herself that she can do the job of helping McCain to get elected, too.
As the mother of a special needs kid, I can tell you that at the time of his diagnosis I would have cut off my own limb before taking ANY job that took me away from his care.
I was lucky at that time that I did not need to work. I feel horrible for parents who must work outside the home to pay for the care of a special needs child.
But Christ, she's got a Down's Syndrome baby. She has no idea if the baby has any Mental Retardation issues at this point. Special needs babies are ALL CONSUMING and SHOULD BE. It's like the only issue she had was making political points from not aborting. And then it's right back to work? Not even the standard six weeks maternity leave? Are you kidding me? To hell with her.
And her teenager is out underage drinking (driving?) and fucking (apparently on a webcam, oh lawrd) while the mommy is Governor of Alaska. Don't let them give me any "it's a rural area" bullshit. You don't have to raise a redneck underage drinker just because everyone else in your podunk state is. Teenagers need supervision and to be kept busy doing something productive and safe, and that is goddamn hard to do. That's why they call it "parenting", instead of "syrupy cupcakes with sprinkles".
My guess is that Michelle Obama is going to have her daughters doing real community organizing at age, oh, eleven. And that any self-described "redneck" hockey player with a third of a bottle of rum and a digital camera will not have, ahem, any access whatsoever to the Obama girls.
Again, it's called parenting. You have a daughter, you protect her, even if she thinks you are a satanic bitch Nazi prison guard until she turns 22. That's okay by me, because I happen to be the meanest mommy in the whole, wide world.
But of course I didn't mention that Michelle Obama and I also have something called "class," which we hope to pass on to our daughters. Michelle seems to be doing okay on that one.
Sarah Palin isn't.
Governor Palin also has a serious, tragic, I would say clinical, lying problem. Not just about the Bridge to Nowhere and Troopergate. She is lying to herself. She has failed her daughter on lots of levels. I am very sad about that, but there, I said it.
BTW I wouldn't worry about Palin if she gets kicked off the ticket. After she implodes she'll have a Job-For-Life speaking at Crystal Cathedral type mega churches. That's what Ten Commandments Judge Roy Moore does now that his fellow Alabama Justices kicked him out.
Hell, if she can tone down her annoying voice she might even make it as a CNN Republican analyst, like Ralph Reed and Bill Bennett!!!
"She has no idea if the baby has any Mental Retardation issues at this point. Special needs babies are ALL CONSUMING and SHOULD BE."
ReplyDeleteThe point you missed is she can AFFORD the special care for her child while she cuts funding for everyone else that doesn't have a governor's salary. She cut funding for a home for teenage mothers (kids kicked out of "good christain" homes), and her daughter is a teenage mother that is going to have a shotgun wedding.
thanks again, bg. this really needed to be said, and i can't think of anyone who could say it better.
ReplyDeleteThank you Blue Gal and a note to geek guy. First geek guy. Sarah Palin may very well have the means to pay for "special care" for Trig, but "paying" isn't the "special care" that this child needs. He needs a "parent" (preferably mother, although a caring father would do) to be the one to provide these needs that, unfortunately in this case, may not be much longer than a couple of decades in that many Down syndrome children suffer from a lack of longevity. It would be an additional tragedy if the child was not afforded a full ability to interact appropriately with their parents and siblings.
ReplyDeleteBlueGal. Thanks for having the guts to put this fact out there. The fact that you are a Special Needs mother I guess helps to drive the message home, but I would hope that ANY mother would understand that level of thought and compassion.
Keep it up, BlueGal, and you'll end up winning one of your own "Don't Sugarcoat It Awards"!
ReplyDelete;-)
And I quote: Fuckin' A!
ReplyDeleteThere are two questions that keep nagging at me, the first being, "How did Sarah Palin ever come to the conclusion that she is qualified to become president of this country?" and two, "What kind of mother throws her daughter to the media wolves at a time when she deserves the utmost privacy?"
ReplyDeleteMan-oh-man, I thought I had mother "issues." I hope someone is channeling some financial resources into Bristol's therapy fund.
I applaud your saying what many of us mothers feel about this woman, but I would go one step further and say her husband is a lousy parent also. I'm not completely on board with the theory that babies and children need mothers more than fathers, but someone needs to pick up the slack if one parent's personal ambitions take them away from family responsibilities. I don't see any evidence that that is the case in the Palin family. What a horror on so many levels.
Pat,
ReplyDeleteI am talking about special professional care, for example speech therapy. My son (and I in the past) takes speech therapy, without it (no matter how my parents, including a foreign born with an accent) I would have speech problems to this day limiting my job prospects. My wife is special ed teacher, she works for early intervention and helps the child ways that the parents can never do. The Palin child does need "parental support" and their is always the first dude that can help, I am talking about professional help. I know lots of Down's people in town live in a group home that is tax funded, Palin and her ilk like cutting funding to these type programs.
Oh you have said it all. I would have liked to have said it, but I made a commitment today to not speak of the Alaskan woman or the Old Man on my blog for the next 62 days or so.
ReplyDeleteSrsly as my LOLZ might say.
Here is a gem from another blog- in a show of real family values, GOP family values (because we Dems are all fuckups and haters) Gramps went to the airport to meet the kids.
This will be a photo op to top all photo ops tonight, just watch.
Ugh.
I'm not sure if I can be so harshly critical of Palin. Raising a child properly is no guarantee of parental success. I think about how strict my parents were with my sisters--- they dated some guys who were total losers. One of my sisters ended up in a "compromising situation", to put mildly.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my parents were good to push birth control and although it made my rather prudish mother deeply uncomfortable that her daughters were sexually active, she never told them that abstaining from sexual contact was their only option.
They wouldn't have listened anyway. And, the reasons my sister were relatively incautious is that they had their own issues with emotional problems. Palin's daughter could be totally irresponsible, or she could be suffering from mental illness or a personality disorder.
Ordinarily I agree with you 100%, but this kind of strikes a chord with me.
The problem with the situation with her daughter is not that she took some major risks. Palin's hypocrisy makes her a failed politician, though I'm a little wary of calling her a failed mother.
What in the wide wide world of sports is agoing on here?
ReplyDeleteI'm looking for coverage of the Republicans and all I get is The Jerry Springer Show!
Oh, wait, this IS the Republicans?
They sure know how to do things up up there in Alaska. Covering ALL their bases. How'd they do that?
It was easy, they just did a fucked up job of it all and blamed the handiest Democrat.
geek_guy.....Sorry for misunderstanding your meaning....I guess I was in a "Rethuglican" thought process and swang toward the "Nanny" form of assistance.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit ... STOP THE PRESSES ... a politician has lied to us ...
ReplyDeleteBAC
Comrade Kevin - I don't think of Palin as a failed mother because her daughter got pregnant, or drunk, or any of the gazillion things teens will do and try no matter how they were brought up. What I question is Palin's hubris in thinking that she is truly qualified to become president of this country and, by extension, the way her grandiose self image led her to accept McCain's nomination knowing that the media attention would fall squarely on the shoulders of her pregnant, 17 year old daughter.
ReplyDeleteThat level of narcissism makes her a "challenged" parent at the very least and probably nothing at all like your sainted mom. Hell, Sarah Palin makes MY mother look like a sainted mom.
I get your point. Totally. I wouldn't want this sort of scrutiny aimed at me, but then again, I haven't issued the invitation to the world to do just that.
Kevin: What threadingwater said. It's not the unplanned pregnancy that makes her a bad mom. It's an appearance (and maybe it's just that) of a COMPLETE lack of juggling children and career. The father has failed, too. They are using the children, and especially her daughter, to further a career move that will hurt the entire nation.
ReplyDeleteMcCain met the wayward couple at the airport for a photo op, for crying out loud. That's USING the kids.
If she were a democrat; and she couldn't be because from Hillary, to Michelle, from Tipper to Joe, dem politicians just turn out better kids; the republicans would excoriate her for her ambition.
ReplyDeleteI love your post and the comments here because I tried to raise this same issue at Shakesville (really in a way more like what Threading Water said-why doesn't anyone complain that Todd Palin is a crappy dad?) and it pissed off the shakers to no end.
Why are her parenting skills at issue and not McCain's or Obama's? Or any other politician, for that matter?
ReplyDeleteUse her daughter as an example of abstinence policy gone wrong and *maybe* I could go along. But this?
Not relevant. And the misogyny among liberal women is continuing to baffle me.
ck- would you feel better if we called it "peer review"?
ReplyDeleteI only ask because I do think our life experiences for good and bad allow us to call bullshit on her presentation of herself as a great mom.
I agree completely. Nothing to add. Except I didn't hear about the webcam bit. Wait until that video hits the internets...or has it already?
ReplyDeleteFirst timer, BG. Interesting idea that the daughter could have been cloistered in AK rather than "outed" so publicly as she was.
ReplyDeleteWho the hell is exploiting SP's kids?
Its her own damn mother.
"our life experiences for good and bad allow us to call bullshit on her presentation of herself as a great mom."
ReplyDeleteFine, but when did one's parenting skills become a prerequisite for being a VP or a President? Sure hasn't stopped any of the previous (male) office holders. It's just not the focus. C'mon, there are enough substantive issues to focus on without bringing in parenting.
CK:
ReplyDeleteI'll answer your comment in the next post.
BG
mmmmmmm...syrupy cupcakes with sprinkles
ReplyDeleteOh, and good post. I can't really comment on the issue of her parenting, but "compulsive liar" is a completely apt description. I had a hard time finding anything in her speech at the convention that did not at least stretch the truth.
Parenting skills should not be a major qualification for high public office. I do think they can contribute to a well-rounded people-skill set, but they normally shouldn't be a decisive factor.
ReplyDeleteBut Palin and her party have made her family and her motherhood one of her central qualifications - perhaps the central qualification.
Similarly, her behavior after her water broke prematurely (hopping a plane for 8 hours, risking an in-flight delivery of a special needs preemie) is an instance of recklessness - and I would argue it says something about a basic imprudence that scares me - but it's also relevant because she and her handlers have presented Trig's birth as a reason to vote for her and McCain.
The Repubs are playing such a nasty double game here. They make Palin's reproductive behavior a major selling point - and then attack us as sexist and for invading her privacy when we put those supposed qualifications under a microscope.
Oh, and one more thing about kids with special needs. My younger son had a significant speech delay; he's doing great now. What I learned is yes, you need the professionals, but you also need the whole family to be on board with teaching speech at home. No one except the parents will know that child's temperament, personality, and needs inside and out; no one else will be as fierce an advocate. *That* is what you can't outsource, no matter how wealthy you are.
ReplyDeleteI'm not arguing that one parent must therefore stay at home, only that if your job is all-consuming, a special needs child will pay the price.
Thank you. As a man, it's impolitic for me to criticize Palin on issues like poor mothering (which DO matter -- if you can't run your own family, how do you expect to run the country?), but I'm glad "gals" like you are picking up the slack!
ReplyDeleteAs a father of a child with special needs, and the very proud husband of a special needs teacher, I am sickened by Sarah Palin's use of her son Trig as a prop and the suggestion that conservatives somehow "care" about special needs children. It took me 2 minutes on google to check on her support of special needs funding as governor of Alaska:
ReplyDeletehttp://momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/2008/09/sarah-palin-sla.html
As my wife pointed out last night, the real work of parenting a special needs child lies ahead for Ms. Palin. Infants are infants. It's when you find out your child can't speak, has difficulty learning, can't play sports or doesn't get invited to birthday parties that the reality sinks in.
For Ms. Palin to suggest that "he's perfect" is so immature, so shallow, so arrogant. In the "real" world, it takes years for parents to come to terms with our doubts. To find the energy it takes to grapple with the challenges we face. It is only after this long test of unconditional love, that I have come to understand the gift of having a special needs child is the ability to see the purpose of love and life through a different lens.
This woman has no love, only ambition.
How very Republican.
Yaay for mean mommies! I have a special fondness for your rendition of the meanest mommy song for my little Peeper - I am sad to report that he's dumped the woman he had a crush on and dragged downstairs to listen to your tune. But then, They're fickle at 5...or at 18, as Sarah and Bristol will find out. Sunday School Teen Marriage Wedded Bliss? ood luck with that, gals.
ReplyDeleteIMO the really sad part about this is the cynical use of, and willingness to be used by, a woman whose brain appears to be addled by ambition. She brings nothing to the debate at any Christopathic small-town politician wouldn't but she also seems to have some genuine Nixon-level paranioa and enemy-seeking issues; the notion that this somehow makes McSame sexer and less of a curmudgeon...well, I'm not a red-meat Republican so I'm not sure what they're thinking...the notion seems somewhere between "hunh?" and "WhattheFUCKwereyouthinking!!?"
Thr GOP has really jumped the shark; it's now the full-time political wing of Bg Jesus, Big Capital and Big War.