After yesterday's swirling media circus, there is one thing that has stuck with me and I think will stick with me a long time: the text of the Palin family's statement to the press about their daughter Bristol's pregnancy. Here it is in full:
We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.
Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi's privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.
This whole statement, especially the phrase, "…news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned" is an almost breathtakingly perfect tone with which to discuss the realities of a teenage girl's pregnancy.
Complete absence of moralizing and judging? Check.
Complete absence of the suggestion that a baby is a burden, a catastrophe, a punishment? Check.
Reality: A baby "makes you grow up." (Growing up is good. It was going to happen anyway; now it will happen "faster.") Check.
Truth: A twinge that says, "We wanted something else for you?" (And not something radically different; what was wanted was the same, only not so fast.) Check.
And yet: Confidence that the daughter is a strong person who, with her family's help, can and will rise to the challenges and responsibilities that now lie before her? Check.
All the elements are there.
Not only this: looked at critically as a piece of political P.R. — at the literary genre of "statements to the press" — it's a masterwork of conciseness. There isn't a word out of place here.
I'm not so naive — or I'm too cynical — to believe on the face of it that this statement was originally written by Governor Palin or her husband. The stakes are high here. Would not something like this be crafted by the professionals? Certainly the Palins had to approve it, of course. It seems more likely that the writer would be someone in the campaign.
Still, whoever wrote it — not only is it a masterpiece of P.R., but it's teaching the whole nation, all of us who don't know how to strike the right balance. How to encourage our children to wait, but also to come to us for our help and love and support if it turns out we need it. How to communicate the realities of raising a baby without communicating "Babies are hard and unpleasant" (and by implication "you were hard and unpleasant"): This is the attitude to take when speaking to daughters and sons about teenage pregnancy.
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