I had never thought much about Bristol Palin. When I first saw her on television during the 2008 campaign, I don’t think I thought anything  beyond: “Oh weird, her mom is way cuter than her. I figured Sarah Palin’s daughter would be hotter.”   – Super deep I know, but its what I thought.

I remember all the media frenzy and the way Conservatives lauded her as a hero for “not getting an abortion and choosing life” seemed weird to me. It just seemed like a bizarre angle. Like being given a medal for going to lunch and not punching your friend in the face. Or being commended for your “family values” because you spent the weekend with your sister and didn’t stab her. The vast majority of women who get pregnant keep their baby. Only 21% of pregnancies end in abortion. (yes, I know that number is HUGE) but my point is, no one is noble or heroic for doing something 79% of people do in the same situation. Not aborting your baby isn’t “heroic” – it is normal.

I never thought or saw anything of her again. That is, until we fast forward to 2015 when she announced her second pregnancy and the internet went ballistic. The first thing I noticed wasn’t what a raging monster pious freak she was (as the trolls would describe her), but how beautiful she had become!  Bristol had blossomed from a  chubby round faced teen into a stunning woman. Not just beautiful, but stunning!!

My guess is she had a chin implant, but the fact she was smart enough to get one is a plus in and of itself.

She lost weight, learned how to shape her eyebrows, lost the ugly highlights, and became a better dresser – in other words, she grew into her own!

I will be honest when I say I thought she was hopelessly average looking, and I was both surprised and impressed by her physical transformation over the years. 

I could not help but feel she was being treated incredibly unfairly by the media’s  response to her second pregnancy. Bristol is a human being not a caricature. People really need to break  things down, and have some understanding before they bash on her. So here goes….

Firstly, Bristol was not raised in some fundamentalist cult. Her mom was busy with her political aspirations and her parents were rarely even home. The family went to church like 5 times a year – if that. Bristol’s first pregnancy is not the outcome of “fundamentalist upbringing” or “abstinence only education” but the outcome of a largely unsupervised childhood.

Secondly, a 17 year old girl getting pregnant by her long-term boyfriend generally is never planned. But it also isn’t absurdly rare or crazy, especially in today’s culture. It really pisses me off the campaign even made a statement about a private family matter.

Going “public” was her mother’s fault, not hers, so don’t blame Bristol for it. Sarah Palin was the one parading herself as some pro-life christian family values spectacle all over the world – not Bristol. Palin should have known her daughter’s pregnancy would be mercilessly criticized and taken actions to protect her daughter from all of it.

A simple “Yes I am expecting my first grandchild from my daughter and her fiance.” If asked if she thought this was hypocritical of her “family values” stance, a simple, “No, we are pro-life, and very excited about this child, they’ve been planning on marriage and children for a while now, so it is sooner than expected, but we believe life is a blessing regardless of circumstances” –  THE END.  It would not have been such an emphasis throughout the campaign if she hadn’t been the one to bring attention to her teen daughter, parade her around on camera, go off on “hard life lessons”, and speak about her so much.

As a result,  the media looked into Bristol’s life, her relationship, Levi’s life (since the family trotted him out into all this as well),  followed the pregnancy, kept asking about “wedding plans”, knew every up and down of the relationship of a 17 year old!, they were interviewed about custody issues. etc. No one, and I mean no one needed to, or had a right to know any of this. What a nightmare, having to parade around on international TV just to be called a whore, “white trash”, and be made into a joke, all while several months pregnant and feeling super gross.

Now, as for the accusation of Bristol throwing stones from a so called “glass house” The vast majority of Bristol’s views were an echo of her mother’s. Regardless of her individual beliefs, she wasn’t in a position to slam her mom’s viewpoints or do much more than stand by and support her mother, as most politician’s children do.

She is called a “hypocrite” often because she worked with organizations aimed at preventing teen pregnancy by promoting “safe sex” and abstinence. Just imagine you are Bristol. Your mom is Sarah Palin. You are an 18/19 year old. You have a kid and organizations such as Candies Foundation approach you and offer you hundreds of thousands of dollars to talk about your experience with teen pregnancy. Would you really not take the offer? Would you even really care what the hell they asked you to talk about so long as it wasn’t evil?  The money was a ticket to independence and I don’t blame her for taking it.

Her PSAs and speeches were hardly “judgmental” or pious. And were generally no more hardcore than a basic “think about things before having sex.” ..oh wow, what a moral crusader! Example of one below. The only thing offensive about them is how lame and cheesy they are.  

She never acted morally superior or slammed people who didn’t practice abstinence. The accusation of her “shaming others” for doing what she did, simply is not true. Even a prostitute could factually say the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy is with abstinence – because it is a true statement regardless who says it.  Even the PSAs themselves recognized many wouldn’t want to use abstinence, and gave alternatives (as shown above). Bristol was an advocate for preventing teen pregnancy by using herself as a cautionary tale, and to be fair, she never had another child as a teen. The accusation of her being a hypocrite because of her work with the Candies foundation is simply untrue.

Yes, she went on TV with her mom by her side, and said she “would wait till marriage to have sex again.” But what else was she supposed to say? “I plan on sleeping around”???  Plus, she probably said she was waiting – because she genuinely planned on waiting! And at the time, believed she would.

Life happened, the cameras went away, years passed, relationships came and went, and it became something she probably still supported the idea of, but just didn’t believe that strongly in anymore.  Do you realize how many teens plan on “waiting till marriage” or “waiting till love” then don’t? How many of us said things when we were 18 that as we aged went out the window?

Never get married? – now you are married with 3 kids. Become a doctor? – decide you hate the medical field and now you are a lawyer.  Wait til you fall in love or marriage to have sex? – ended up sleeping with a loser who cheated on you.

Really, if nothing of the sort has ever happened to you, then you must be the most psychic person ever. I personally believed all sorts of stuff I am straight up embarrassed by today, and I said I wanted to do all sorts of things I changed my mind about and never did.

I would wager the vast majority of those condemning her are actually the ones in glass houses throwing stones – not Bristol. Are the people attacking her all virgins? I highly doubt it. And given the vast majority of those criticizing her are probably basement dwellers with NO life, I would guess if they are virgins – it isn’t by choice.

If I were Bristol and Sarah Palin were my mother I would have a lot of animosity toward her for a myriad of reasons. So when I came across this clip of Bristol getting into a public altercation where she defended her mother (and looked super hot and badass while doing so), I couldn’t help but be impressed. She is a better person than I would be. After all this public condemnation caused by her mother, she still stands by her mom and defends her. Fight:

She doesn’t deserve to be called a whore and a slut by a slew of degenerates or gross 47 year old losers perusing bars with nothing better to do than be obsessed with her.

From what I can tell she is a normal woman. She had a child with a long term boyfriend. And now as a grown woman, she is expecting another with a man she was planning on marriage and having more children with. Nothing about those pregnancies make her any less “moral” than the vast majority of Americans. As a result – the vast majority of Americans have no room to bash her!

She is her own person. She has a chill personality. She doesn’t have the scary glassy stare her mom does, or the strange way of speaking with strings of one-liners and talking points in a weird accent. If you are mad at Sarah Palin or do not like her, then take it out on Sarah Palin, not her daughter.

She has handled the onslaught of criticism with grace. She has a way cooler life than most of those bashing her will ever have. Yes, I’m sure this gorgeous woman with show offers, close friends, family, a son she loves, another on the way, faith, book deals, private jet vacations, and a million other things is really just a ” white trash loser with a totally lame life”  just because she broke an engagement. Seriously, the fact people think a breakup is that much of an end all be all as to whether someone’s life is good, makes me question them way more than it makes me question her. Get real and grow up.