Sarah Palin, Not Ready For Primetime

After my initial reaction to McCain’s Vice President choice, I took some time to seriously consider the person whom he chose.   My gut reaction was that this is an all-American woman with some all-American appeal.  I first heard of her before the election due to her suing the Federal Government over the endangered status they were trying to give to polar bears, despite polar bear populations being the highest in recorded history.  And, during the election, it was nice to see that she inflamed liberal groups by just being herself.  But, underneath there was something that concerned me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Was it her experience?  That was part of it.  She hasn’t even finished serving her first term as Governor of Alaska.  Was it her newborn child?  Maybe.  It is a genuine concern for any mother with a career trying to care for a large family and maintain a career, a decision made more difficult by the addition of a special needs child.  But, as much as I personally like her, I couldn’t quite understand why I had some private misgivings about her.

Well, I think I finally found what was bothering me.  It wasn’t so much Mrs. Palin as it was with something more fundamentally wrong with the outlook we as Americans have towards families, careers, and all of life’s choices.  And summarizing my misgivings perfectly is this excellent article over at First Principles journal (click here to read the article- long but worth it!)

A quote from the article to summarize:

The word “core” I use advisedly, for Palin symbolizes a contradiction at the core of contemporary American life. Many of us want to believe that dual-income families are not a necessity brought on by an unstable service-and-finance economy (one which, in turn, contributes to that instability), but the advent of greater individual freedom; that a mother can work long hours outside the home without compromising the bonds of love and dependency in the home; that marital and sexual choices are mostly private, but that social stability can best be maintained if we minimize the challenges to the nuclear family as the privileged economic (rather than political) unit. Above all, many of us want to believe that, so long as that privileging of the nuclear family remains in fact, all kinds of behavior are legitimate personal choices, by which we really mean they are equally legitimate and morally indifferent consumer choices. We want the home of the nuclear family preserved as a site for consumption but not as a good whose preservation requires routine sacrifice. We want to be able to “have it all,” as the phrase goes, to make choices between various consumer items all of which eventually can be had. “I’ll have a quick lunch today so I can go browse at The Gap” is, in this scheme, little different from “I’ll have my two kids without delaying (much) my career.”

What we do not want to be reminded of is that most choices are not consumer choices: they are not between various commensurable goods that we may elect in succession and without sacrifice. On that score, it matters little that those hard-working journalists uncovered photographs of a young Palin as a Beauty-Queen-also-ran; it matters much that she remains attractive after having had five children. She demonstrates that one can have children and not look as if one had five children; one can reap all the benefits of the body without compromising the body’s fitness to consume and consume again, to reap and reap, to choose and choose without having to make irrevocable decisions. Nothing determines you, Baby! So feel free to refashion yourself according to your latest desires.

The issue I have isn’t with Mrs. Palin, it’s with the false consumeristic choice that is presented to families about careers, and the lack of reality in dealing with personal sacrifice required to maintain our families.  It is about the unreality in American’s minds.  And Mrs. Palin’s public image seems to be the spokesmodel for this false unreality.

Specifically, I say that her “public image” is the spokesmodel for this, as I’m sure that the Palin family has had to overcome challenges and make their share of personal sacrifices (as happens with all families.)  But, in retrospect, her career choice does make me wonder if her oldest daughter would be in her situation had her mother been more available to her rather than busy pursuing her career.  The sacrifice of a career does have impact on families, especially when both parents are working.

Many families have no choice, both parents must work to make ends meet.  My wife and I have chosen to have my wife stay at home.  But, the choice we made wasn’t a consumeristic one as much as it was a choice made based on deep convictions as well as the practical situation we are in.

I do pray for the Palin family, that they can be good parents and lead their family in a God-honoring fashion.  I also pray for all Americans, that they would take time to reflect on the value of their families and the level of sacrifice needed to meet their families needs.  Pray over this, take time to deeply reflect on this, as careers are temporary, but your family is with you until you die, and the decisions you make there affect you for the rest of your life.

And, I also hope that Mrs. Palin takes time to get more experience and wisdom before seeking out politics on the national level.