It’s a boy! On Dec. 27, at around 5:30 a.m., Bristol Palin gave birth to a baby boy.
Thus, another “Tr” name is added to the line of Palin men, and Sarah Palin is effectively changed from “hot governor” to “hot grandma.”
Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston is the newest addition to the Palin brood, and in a recent statement on her Web site, the governor said the family is “over the moon with the arrival of this healthy, beautiful baby. The road ahead for this young couple will not be easy, but nothing worthwhile is ever easy.”
What could possibly be so hard about two young, unemployed, unwed teenagers having a baby before they even finish high school?
“When Bristol and Levi first told us the shocking news that she was pregnant,” Gov. Palin added, “to be honest, we all at first looked at the situation with some fear and a bit of despair.”
Well, they already said the baby is healthy and beautiful, so what else could there be to worry about now? What’s left at this point but to basically babysit for a few years?
Sure, parenthood must have a few challenges here and there, but what could make it so difficult for new parents Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston, and how did this all happen in the first place?
Gov. Palin said her daughter’s feelings on teen pregnancy in general have not changed.
The statement on the governor’s Web site said, “Bristol … “˜obviously discourages’ teen pregnancy and knows that plans she previously made for herself will now forever be changed.”
Bristol was quoted by her mother as saying, “Teenagers need to prevent pregnancy to begin with ““ this isn’t ideal.”
OK, so maybe the timing is a little off. Neither Bristol nor Levi have finished high school, nor do they have jobs.
Levi told the Associated Press in October that he was quitting high school to work as an apprentice electrician for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation on a northern Alaskan oil field. This, however, fell through on Jan. 6 when he resigned due to allegations from a local paper that the federal apprenticeship requires a high school diploma or GED, neither of which Levi has.
Gov. Palin has been quick to defend both the teens, even before this most recent development. “You need to know that both Levi and Bristol are working their butts off to parent and going to school and working at the same time. They are certainly not high school dropouts.”
Certainly not, indeed. Keith Johnston, Levi’s father, has since stated that it was his influence that provided Levi with the apprenticeship in the first place and that Levi will now be returning home to finish his education. Of course, since the governor maintains he never dropped out in the first place, Mr. Johnston must mean returning in the sense of never leaving to begin with.
It all comes down to what the definition of “drop out” means. On one hand, there is Sherry Johnston, Levi’s mother. In September, she confirmed that he was not on the 2008-2009 roster for his high school hockey team. She would not say whether or not he had graduated but simply stated that he was no longer a student.
On the other hand, there is Sarah Palin, who states that Bristol Palin started her final semester this week in order to get her last credit needed to graduate, and that Levi is finishing high school online.
In other words, both teens are working toward their GEDs, one way or another. Nothing suggests that Bristol ever left school, even though it appears she is getting out early with a GED.
Levi told the press that he left high school to pursue his electrical apprenticeship, and only recently has there been talk of him returning to high school for his GED.
So from the sound of it, neither of them will walk at graduation, and neither of them will be getting high school diplomas. And even when Sherry Johnston has said point blank that Levi is no longer a student, Gov. Palin maintains that the teens are not high school dropouts and that referring to them as such “harms Bristol’s reputation and Levi’s reputation and their chances for good work opportunities.”
Sometimes, the truth hurts and hurts reputations. Sorry Sarah.
Keith Johnston has also been quick to defend the teen parents, particularly the media attention focused on them.
“He’s being treated different than an average 18-year-old kid. He has to do everything by the book now,” he said.
Yes, heaven forbid he should have to do things by the book. It is such a tragedy that a young man must graduate from high school in order to work for the federal government.
And when yet-unreleased baby pictures are rumored to be selling for upward of $300,000, surely this treatment from the “gotcha” media is nothing short of cruel and unfair.
Who needs a career or a diploma when you’ve got fame?
But back to Bristol’s original statement. How on earth are teenagers supposed to prevent pregnancy to begin with? Oddly enough, if Bristol Palin had asked her mother this same question, she might have found a couple of different answers.
In July 2006, Gov. Palin stated that she was an advocate of abstinence-only education and that she supported abstinence-until-marriage programs being taught in schools.
Many GOP politicians hold this view, including Gov. Palin’s former running mate, Sen. John McCain.
They hold this view in spite of the fact that nearly every reputable study has shown that students who receive abstinence-only education ““ as opposed to comprehensive sex education programs that include abstinence and contraceptive education ““ are more likely to have unprotected sex, more likely to have an unwanted pregnancy and more likely to contract STIs. Over the past three presidential administrations, the government has given $1.5 billion to abstinence-only education programs.
But Gov. Palin no longer stands with her political party on this issue. In fact, just a few weeks after voicing support for abstinence-only programs in 2006, Palin stated that she is “pro-contraception” and that she supports education programs that discuss both abstinence and contraceptive use.
Alaska, like most states, allows each school district to shape its own sex-ed programs, be they abstinence-only or comprehensive, and as of September 2008, Alaska ranks near the middle when it comes to teen-pregnancy rates.
So, how did this situation come to pass on Bristol Palin? She has a mother who has heard of condoms and doesn’t think they are a bad idea. She lives in a state that does not exclusively use abstinence-only education. She lives in the age of the Internet, where plenty of information exists on contraception and birth control.
It seems there is only one explanation for Bristol Palin’s unexpected and unwanted pregnancy: life.
Since nobody knows whether or not contraception was involved at all, the only explanation left is that sometimes, life just happens.
So congratulations on your new baby, Bristol and Levi. Enjoy this gift of life or, as Juno McGuff put it, “sweet, screaming, pooping life.”
If you have baby pictures of Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston, e-mail Stoll at rstoll@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu