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sterbo

Yes

Yes...

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shibshib

Is Sarah palin to blame for her kid getting knocked up? Not completely, but I would say her lack of support for sex education and over support for abstinance only programs probably didn't help.

If you are teaching "Jesus Christ" as a form of contraceptive, then i know I'd feel a bit responsible for my child's actions.

No idea what your point was with the second comment, but yes, I would say I am who I am due greatly to the successes and failures of my parents... As are most kids.


Edit: I'm home now, so I have a better ability to type my view (iphone has its limitations).

Let me just clarify my opinion...

I am in no way, shape, or form saying it is impossible for parents to hold high-positions/careers if they have children. I am just pointing out that there is a line between putting your kids first and putting your career first, and if you cross it, then you no longer get to say you are putting one before the other. It's just how it works... you don't get the best of both worlds.

Furthermore, I do not believe it is always the parents fault when kids do stupid things. I agree that the best parents in the world will always have the chance of their kids--due to whatever circumstances--doing bad things.

If you are a parent that always drinks and does drugs infront of your kids, then yes, I believe you are partially to blame (if not completely to blame) if your children start drinking and doing drugs.

If you are a parent that is outspokenly racist, then yes, I believe you are partially to blame (if not completely to blame) if your children become racist.

If you are a parent that doesn't believe in sex-education and thinks abstinence is the best program to keep children from getting knocked up, then yes, I believe you are partially to blame (if not completely to blame) if your children ends up getting knocked up.

I came from an Italian family with a hierarchy of parents/grandparents, and a system of respect in which you take responsibility for those under your supervision.

So I'm not sure if I am being too hard on myself, or if other parents are not being hard enough on themselves... but when I have kids, I will look no further than myself to blame if my kids end up doing drugs or getting pregnant/impregnating others.

Marvin420

So, when you screw up, its partly your parents fault?

shibshib

As a child, that's the way it was... which actually seemed to work well for my family.

As best I can describe it, it instilled a sense of "what you do reflects on the family" into my brother and me. The result is neither of us drink or do drugs (I started medical marijuana at age 22, to be fair). Neither of us ever got "caught up" in bad things at school. Neither of us ever had those cliche "bad friends" or hung out with the "wrong crowds". Neither of us managed to knock up any girls, or get brought home by the cops.

We were good kids... and I thank my parents for their--while maybe not perfect--great parenting.

My brother just graduated from law school, and I am on track for the same.

It would be unfair for me to claim that my successes are completely due to myself and are not the result of my parents actions... just as it would be unfair for me to claim that my failures are completely due to myself and are not the result of my parents actions.

It's not always a clear line what divides what, but I firmly believe I am the product of my mom and dad's styling of parenting. While I did not always agree with it as a child, I have come to respect it.

Personally, I find it sad that some people are so eager to congratulate parents on the successes of their children, yet be so unwilling to question the parenting abilities when the same children fail.

Like I said before, you can't have it both ways... so either you admit that parents play a role in their children's failures/successes, or you don't comment on it at all.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

sterbo

Palin: wrong woman, wrong message

Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
By Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008

Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing -- the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party -- are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women -- and to many men too -- who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.

But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.

Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.

So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.

Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.

Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.

Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.
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Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center.

 

shibshib

New GOP Spin: Palin's Not Ready - The Jed Report

It must be a liberal conspiracy that so many republicans don't think Palin is ready.

Freedom_User

All she is.. Is a face. A young female face. They keep her away from the media("What is it that a VP does anyway?" - Palin months ago with an interview with the media). Prepare her speeches for her and stick strictly to that.

I Cannot wait till the debates.

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Sec

No, I just did a search of the entire forum for the democratic candidates and the only mention of the word "Father" is where talk is of Barak Obama's Father. Not of Barak Obama as a father himself.

There also has been no discussion of Joe Biden or even John McCain as a father either.

Also, you have put up some lenghty posts here lately, but the only words of your own are quoted above.
Try posting an YOUR opinion or YOUR thoughts IN ADDITION to quoting news articles.

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Sec

Make up your mind.

Print out and frame that last sentence of yours. Read it every day of your life. When your 2 year old throws a temper tantrum, or the 5 year old throws that toy truck at his playmate. When you are getting your kids from the principals office or getting them out of jail, or getting that news from your teenage daughter that she is pregnant, take these framed words off the wall and tell your kids that it is indeed your fault, not theirs.

I take it that you blame your parents for you smoking pot as well. Why stop at the parents? Obviously their parents (Your Grandparents) did something wrong to enable your parents to be so lacking in their own parenting skills.

Marvin420

And if she tears Joe Biden a new asshole, then what?

You could say the same thing about Barak Obama. He's just a face....a black face.