Bristol Palin is Happy She Chose Life

Bristol Palin and her famous mother Sarah gave an exclusive interview to In Touch Weekly, a magazine that documents the updated lives of the rich and famous. Bristol is famous for being the teenage mother to Tripp Palin, the child she had with then boyfriend Levi Johnston. While Bristol and Levi broke up, even though they initially told the media they would be getting married so their child would not appear to be totally illegitimate, Bristol and her mother believed they redeemed themselves by making the decision to keep the baby. Sarah certainly is helping her daughter raise little Tripp, but for Bristol, being a teen mother has not been glamorous. In fact, she admits it has been very hard work for her, especially when it comes time to get her son to go to sleep. Sarah Palin admits that Bristol's becoming a very young mother and her own campaign as vice president for 2009 have been a whirlwind, at times hard to handle but eventually ending up in unexpected rewards.

While teen pregnancy has slowly been rising since 1992, the media continues to glamorize the social issue, which has also been an especial problem to the evangelical, fundamentalist Christian community.

Unlike the blue states, the red states have a high rate of unwed teen pregnancy which is well documented in "Red Sex, Blue Sex" by Mark Regnerus. Regnerus explains in his book the reason so many evangelical teens get pregnant is because the abstinence-only education propagated by former president George W Bush does not work, but also because these teens are not educated on the various methods of birth control available to them. While one is hard pressed to find an obstetrician who would administer the Adiana procedure to a teen like Bristol Palin, birth control pills and IUD's are still easily accessible by teens today. Pre-marital sex is taboo among fundamentalist Christian parents who tell their kids not to have sex, even though their children eventually find themselves having sex. Giving lip service doesn't work in this case, and it can be even harder for parents to monitor their child every second, especially if their children attend a regular school versus being homeschooled, although even the latter does not necessarily prevent teen pregnancy from occurring. It may be that these teens, while being brought up with ultra-strict Biblical values, are not exempt from being exposed to sex in the media and sex talk in schools, but also because their religion forbids them from having access to different cultural norms. Education is the key to preventing teen pregnancy, but if a pregnant teen is a fundamentalist Christian who is not allowed to read academic material that may come in conflict with Biblical principles, then there is a higher chance of that teen having sex and getting pregnant, rather than being occupied with other interests which can come about as the result of being exposed to these educational interests. Once a teen has a baby, however, she has little time for developing the intellect to a degree where it overrides her base instinct for sex and babies, since she has to care for the child, as Bristol Palin does.

Unlike other teens, Bristol Palin admits that being a mother at such a young age is no picnic and certainly nothing to aspire to. She has a hard time getting her crying son to fall asleep, and becomes easily fatigued herself since her own sleeping schedule has to be arranged around that of Tripp's. Hopefully this message will discourage other teens from wanting to have babies, too.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/03/081103fa_fact_talbot

http://www.intouchweekly.com/