Bristol Palin
Melissa Langsam Braunstein is my new favorite person after writing a piece in The Federalist which begins:
If you haven’t yet heard, Bristol Palin is pregnant with her third child. More revealing than that happy news though, has been some of the snarky reactions it’s inspired in the media and on Twitter.
CBS News briefly shared the news of baby number three before rehashing a litany of largely embarrassing Bristol news since 2008 (a.k.a., high school). USA Today oh so neutrally observed, “Now the ‘Pro-Life, Pro-God, Pro-Guns’ Palin is prepping for Baby No. 3.”
TMZ warned, “Bristol Palin has bun #3 in the oven … which means the honeymoon is officially over for Bristol and her husband.” And The Daily Beast’s Olivia Nuzzi ignited a firestorm on Twitter with one of the cattiest responses ever to a pregnancy announcement, opining: “At this rate it would be less work for Bristol Palin to announce when she is not pregnant.”
I don’t typically follow Bristol Palin’s comings and goings. But as a fellow preggo, I found all of this unbelievably tasteless. Three pregnancies in, I’m well aware that strangers say the oddest — and sometimes rudest — things to pregnant women. However, just because a comment enters someone’s head doesn’t mean that it should be shared aloud, or tweeted.
For anyone still in doubt, the socially appropriate response to a woman who gleefully shares the news of her pregnancy is “Congratulations!” It is not shaming or mocking the expectant mother.
In Palin’s case in particular, there are a number of reasons it’s time to cut her some slack. There are also some valuable lessons the rest of us could learn from her.
Click here to read the six lessons — very sweet. Very humbled by her kind post.
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