Daughter Like Mother? Perhaps Not for Bristol.

By Tatiana von Tauber

Dr. Marty Klein’s recent post Bristol Palin’s Wisdom: Better Than Science? is more excellence from the Legal Satyricon’s “primary care doctor.” Klein explains the frustration of science being overlooked but teen expertise being “superior”, particularly among the media with respect to premarital sex and pregnancies.  I’d like to add a few thoughts:

Though I empathize with Dr. Klein’s view and agree, it’s important to keep in mind where a good majority of minds are coming from on the issue of premarital sex, abstinence and birth control.   Unfortunately, kids don’t relate to science though it would be nice if more did.  Youth relates to each other and Bristol Palin would be a fantastic candidate for advocating comprehensive sexual education among the conservative circle.  Us adults might not like her as the “expert” but really, she is in her own way. 

She got screwed by her boyfriend, her mother, conservative society and the media and now pays the price.  Her expertise comes from not scientific facts, research, surveys and polls; it comes from real life mistakes and nothing teaches us better than when we learn from them.  Should Bristol Palin do so, it’s her responsibility in her “16 minutes of fame”, as Dr. Klein puts it, to do her part in ensuring other young girls don’t get trapped by views her mother so strongly holds, views she apparently doesn’t share. 

If Bristol Palin accomplishes this, she’s a good kid turned great woman.  She was simply wrongfully guided by conservative society about sexuality and birth control.  It is unrealistic to manipulate teen hormones and not expect rebellion. In a way, after seeing how the new county I live in fears children into “proper behavior”and that I live in a very faith-based town in the U.S. south (lucky me), I’m gaining an idea about just how fear is used to control and direct kids into “morality” and when you’ve got a mother who’s a moose killer, you listen.  I’d love to blame Bristol for her youthful stupidity but really, I blame the adult stupidity that created Bristol Palin’s fate.  She had choices and wasn’t given the right to make them. 

Let’s see if Bristol Palin uses her whiplash famed power with more intelligence than her mother.  It would be good for women, feminists and American families.  It’s her choice now.