Much too busy to post, but do look for an announcement about a revised comments policy coming this weekend. I checked my stats this morning, and I’ve had more hits in the past seven days than in any one week period since last summer.
Three links to more on the Palin, motherhood, teen marriage thing:
Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon: Don’t worry, stab yourself in the eye
Sungold at Kittywampus: Letting Kids be Kids (Even when they’re parents)
Lynn Gazis-Sax: With some buckshot in his bottom, how could he say no
I think the Palin thing probably worked out for the best. Her family are wealth, and the kid at the loaded end of the shotgun didn’t seem to have much going for him. Being tied to him probably isn’t worth it.
There are three feminists blind spots here though:
(1) That’s not the situation most unmarried pregnant women are in, and it’s wrong to view these situations as just near misses: i.e. narrowly avoided unhappy marriage. It doesn’t really matter whether the marriages are happy or not. The key point is that when marriages disolve courts have a very wide discretion to take someone’s belongings (usually the fathers) and distribute them in a manner which is for the best of the children of the marriage. That’s a good thing. I really think many children would be better off with divorced rather than unwed parents.
(2) I also kind of agree with Hector’s points in the earlier thread. I worry about the people’s narcissism when it comes to making decisions about marriage and divorce. The standard view seems to be that if the mother and the father do what’s best for them, everything will turn out best for the kid. I do think that’s Panglossian, and a way of avoiding cognitive dissonance caused by contemplating the alternative scenario. If self interested decision makers make choices, they will make them in their interest and the consequences for other parties - such as the children - will be less than optimal. I think self sacrifice is called for on the parts of parents in order to get the best for children, and don’t think asking for this is some sort of patriarchal scam.
(3) This is the big one. The fact is you can’t have both egalitarian childrearing and casual relationships. They’re both nice in theory: I’d like egalitarian over inegalitation childrearing, and the ability to start a relationship with someone else over having to stick with my current partner. But when you think about it both these feminist ambitions are mutually incompatatble. If you want men to be seriously 50/50 involved in childrearing you need long term relationships, not serial monogany. Cheerleading for both makes no sense.
1) Wrong.
2) If people are forced to do something they don’t really want to do, they find a way to make everyone else suffer for it, including the innocent children. That IS the patriarchal way.
3) Again, wrong, utterly horseshit wrong. I’m sorry you’re *stuck* with your current partner, but there’s no evidence you’re doing your kids any favors by staying in an unhappy marriage. Feminism isn’t your enemy, bud.
HTH.