When seeing Asimov being quoted in a thread on this topic I was expecting something more like this
Sadly I was disappointed. 
It’s Family Values, dontcha know…
Though this is a somewhat out of date analysis on the wing-nut positions on such things. MAGA nutjobs like Boebert have long since stopped simply complaining about sex-ed in schools, and are now “saying the quiet part out loud” by saying that white people should be having more babies for fear of being “replaced” by non-whites:
That right there is a very good reason Boebert and people like here should be no where near the corridors of power, and any political party that embraces here has forfeit any right to be considered a serious political party. Her being a grandmother at 36 not so much.
Which is an important thing to point out when the person is a legislator who wants to impose her own family’s prescription on the rest of us, yes?
Abstinence-only education didn’t work in the Boebert family. Stigmatizing premarital sex didn’t work in the Boebert family. Restricting access to sexual education didn’t work in the Boebert family. (We assume she did these things, because that’s what she preaches, but of course it’s also likely that she did no parenting at all).
So before she tries to legislate her “approach” to the rest of us, she needs to address the fact that it failed (or was not practiced) in her own family. Or alternately, admit that reducing teen pregnancy isn’t the point of any of this.
Her policies are a product of her culture. She herself is a product of this culture.
Am I defending that culture? No. I think teen parenthood creates hardships and disadvantages that can have negative effects on the teens themselves and their children. So I don’t think cultures that enable teen parenthood are above critique in the slightest.
But I also think it’s overly judgemental to look at a politician from that culture, who was a young parent themselves, and condemn them and their family without really knowing what values she raised her kids with. She could’ve held up her own life as a cautionary tale, but the son decided to ignore that like plenty of teens have done before him. Or it could be she encouraged him to do the complete opposite, be fruitful and multiply. Or somewhere in between, like the vast majority of parents do.
We don’t know what she did. So why judge her on something that her son did? Makes no sense to go after her for this when she holds so many other political positions that make for much better targets.
I’ve got two daughters and if they get pregnant as teens, I really hope not to have a bunch of busybodies asking me what I did and I didn’t teach them. You can do everything right as a parent and still have kids that goof up.
Because the Republican prescription for parenting, for them and for us, is abstinence-only sex education, and she is a Republican legislator. You’re right, we don’t know exactly what her personal parenting strategy was for preventing teen pregnancy, but we do know that it did not prevent a teen pregnancy in her own family, which means she’s not in a position to dictate such strategies to anyone else.
Unless of course it’s to say “we tried this and it didn’t work, so you should do something different”. But that’s not what’s happening, now, is it?
Are you a sitting US Congresswoman who is trying to legislate abstinence-only sex education? If not, you’re fine, and I suspect that you understand this very well.
A distinction that is not really relevant to busybodies. If my daughters become pregnant, I suspect my conservative in-laws would attribute it to me and my husband’s agnosticism. They currently think we are hell bound because we don’t go to church. And so they assume our girls are going to be wayward, lacking a moral compass, susceptible to sexual temptation and debauchery. The much more charitable possibility that our daughters were being like regular teenagers and just screwed up the birth control would not occur to them.
So I guess what I’m saying is, that’s how you’re coming across to me.
I disagree. You’re holding her to a standard is absurdly high. She didn’t successfully prevent her son from becoming a teen parent, so she’s disqualified from representing what her constituents want?
By that logic, if politician is the parent to a pregnant teen, they forfeit their right to “dictate” sex education for others.
Since this hypothetical seems important to you, let’s take it a bit further. If your conservative in-laws confronted you with all of these judgments of you and your unwed pregnant child, and you happened to know that they also had an unwed pregnant child at home, would you be out of bounds to point this fact out to them? Or would you just sort of sit there and let them judge you for doing the same thing they’re doing?
How about if they just stop calling us pedophiles and we can call it even?
In this situation, are you a busybody that has been telling them how to raise their children?
If not, then you are right, they shouldn’t. If you were, like with Boebert, then it would be extremely hypocritical to object to being treated the same way that you treated others.
If the stated goal of their dictation is to prevent teen pregnancy, then yes, their judgment is certainly called into question.
Let’s take a pause here and note your goalpost-shifting here in this thread:
- First, you suggested everyone was condemning Boebert’s child for being pregnant.
- After this was proven to be incorrect, then you pivot to the fact that nobody should cast stones at Boebert because anyone can make a mistake.
- After it was pointed out that the critique is for Boebert legislating something she’s not doing, now you want to pivot to “legislators don’t have to live the values they legislate.”
How many times do we need to move the goalpost before you understand that the issue is Boebert advocating a parenting and education approach that either failed or wasn’t tried in her own household? That she judges others for “failing” in a way that she herself also has failed?
Well obviously if they were stupid enough to leave the door open like that, I would walk through that door and slam it hard behind me. But that’s only after they personally attacked me or my daughters.
What I wouldn’t do is be the first to go there with them. If one of their kids got knocked up, I wouldn’t seize that moment to point out the hypocrisy of their conservative ways. Maybe I would silently think to myself “I guess that isn’t too surprising”. But I wouldn’t presume to know enough to judge them, and I certainly wouldn’t act like I was owned an explanation.
Boebert and Republicans definitely were first here, though. Just a few days ago she went after sex education in schools.
You don’t think that if someone wants to hold themselves up as an authority on sex education and parenting, then their own parenting outcomes reflect on whether they can actually speak with authority on that topic?
You could embrace your kids AND ask how they could be so stupid at one and the same time. Arguing like they are mutually exclusive denies the entire experience of humanity on every issue ever.
You say this while simultaneously shifting goalposts yourself. Lol.
You just opined that Boebert cannot advance her position on abstinent-only sex education because her son is a teen father.
Explain how this standard couldn’t blow back the other way. Does the same standard hold for politicians who tout sex-education? What other “sins of the child” roll up to the parent and permanently taint them?
Here’s another hypothetical: a politician publicly promotes the importance of college but their kid is a high school dropout. Does mean the politician’s position is wrong or lacking in credibility?
You’re making the point that I made in my first post. You are assigning moral weight to teen pregnancy and acting as though it’s a character failure of the parent when it happens. This is what I’m flagging out as regressive.
Your parenthetical in this sentence stood out to me as suggesting you don’t know what people are talking about. Probably I read it wrong, and you know about drag queen story hour, and all the backlash it has generated from people like Boebert. But if I’m right, and you are confused by the reference, you can start learning by reading my link, or just google “drag queen story hour.”
I absolutely love the concept and wish our local library would sponsor it.
So, you would judge them.
So, you wouldn’t judge them?
No one has said anything about an explanation.
So, in the situation where you are judging/not-judging your in-laws for demanding one thing of you while doing another, would you share this story with anyone else, or would you keep it entirely to yourself, never mentioning it to anyone at all?
I know what drag queens are and I know they have nothing do with teens getting pregnant. If there is supposed to be a logical parallel between them and a Republican 36 year-old grandmother, it’s not obvious on its face.