In my observations of Sarah Palin, she is smart and attractive but something has been nagging me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I started to think from psychology perspective. This is of course is the year 2008, where sex education isn’t a crime. But there are two different types of sex education being taught: total abstinence or total explicit sex education1. The psychology behind abstinence makes it even more tempting to experiment. There is no ignorance to total explicit sex education. At least there is a chance that this knowledge will be used to decide on a method to preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
In the case of Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, abstinence was taught. Why would Bristol choose to disregard what she learned? Of we could journey down the path of rebellious teen or perhaps a look at this case from a different perspective: Not only was Bristol robbed of the education that could have saved her from unplanned pregnancy but she may have been robbed of self esteem. If abstinence is the preferred education than self esteem must be the first lesson. Self esteem builds strong confidence to either say no or we need to use a form of birth control and sexually transmitted disease prevention.
My observations make me question whether Sarah Palin robbed her daughter of self esteem by neglecting to give her the proper education, knowledge and tools. Keep her ignorant and hope she’ll do the right thing. This is frightfully irresponsible and borders on neglect. To use her daughter as an example is abusive.
Is this what we can look forward to if McCain is elected? Will women be robbed of choice? Will our self esteem as a country be stripped so that things can be done because of our ignorance?
1 Zimmerman, Jonathan. September 4, 2008. Poverty, not sex ed, key factor in teen pregnancy. SF Gate