Honestly. Would you let your kids hang around with hers? Yes or no.

[elehhhhna]

No. (Mom of 2 tween girls)

[cdb]

1. Nope

as a father of a 6th grader, I believe bad examples are being set. And even worse - what if they start speaking in tongues or babbling about the rapture?

[NeedleCast]

2. Sure

You can play with the Palin kids, just stay away from that mom of theirs...

[leftofcool]

3. So preggers prior to marriage is now a crime in this country?

Good grief, the teen is nearly 18 or did you have something against the little one who softly smoothed down her baby brother's hair with a bit of a licked hand?

[Kittycat]

8. No, it's the issue of if her children are being properly parented, or left with too much time

on their hands. Photos have surfaced of the teens drinking, one is pregnant - yeah, I have questions. Where is the parental guidance. Sure kids will sneak around, but sure as heck you wouldn't catch one of my kids on myspace with drinking photos, and not understand the full wrath of mom. I'd have my kids doing community service at a place that councils alcoholics or something.

ETA: And I see you're still carrying the torch.

[NeedleCast]

10. HEHEHE!

Sure kids will sneak around, but sure as heck you wouldn't catch one of my kids on myspace with drinking photos

That's what pretty much every parent thinks right up until the point they catch their kids with drinking photos on their MySpace page...

[Kittycat]

22. And that's when the pictures come down, and your child gets a bit of community service.

It's called showing your children the risks of their actions. Not to mention stressing the underage drinking might land them in trouble with the police. I did some stupid things as a kid, but I sure the heck wasn't out there sharing photos of it, or bragging to the world about it. IMO, when kids do things like that (posting the pictures up), it stems from one of two things... 1) They're in need of attention, or 2) it's a cry for help.

[leftofcool]

17. Link to her girls drinking on my space?

[Kittycat]

21. Where have you been?

It was all over DU and the web. The myspace page is not blocked. Dig up the pictures yourself. :eyes:

[Aeval]

37. As a rule, I try not to judge (too much) the parenting of others, BUT

this is not the issue. The real issue is the utter hypocrisy that it highlights. Both her religion and her political party preach "family values," and have chastised/vilified/JUDGED working mothers, single-parent families (Dan Quayle citing Murphy Brown...ugh!), same sex parents, and other such "nontraditional" families, and implied that they lack values. Now we have a woman who is pursuing her career while parenting 5 children, and it stands to reason that these kids do not get as much attention as kids from one of those "traditional" families they tout as being so full of values. I have never had any issue with working moms; in fact, technically, now that I have a stepson, I sort of am one. I plan to be one when I have a child of my own. But I deeply resent the fact that people who would normally look down on me for it (i.e. Pat Buchanan, et al) are now suddenly suggesting that it's all okay, and even calling me a sexist for mentioning that Sarah Palin may be, in some ways, sacrificing her children's well being for the sake of her career. And she expects us to understand and respect her choice as a woman to "have it all," but would not want another woman to have a choice in matters related to her own reproduction.

[BrklynLiberal]

15. It is the hypocrisy of Sarah Baracuda that is the problem. she advocates

abstinence only sex ed, and in the meantime, both she and her daughter got pregnant having sex before they were married.
And to make it even worse, as gov, Baracuda cut aid to organizations that help and support unwed mothers.
Who knows to what extent her hypocrisy goes. THAT is the thing that is disturbing.

[24HRrnr]

20. A 30 percent increase is not a cut

and saying that it is makes us look like twits.

It was a reduction from the requested amount of money and was targetted for capital improvements.

[malakai2]

32. Campaign speak...

If you put a talking point like that out there, that Palin cut those funds despite her personal experience with the issue, it plants the issue firmly in the mind of the type of voter. Then it puts the other side on the defensive, makes her look elitist (in their words), and they either waste time and money publicly dissecting it for technical accuracy or ignore it at their own peril. McCain and Palin have plenty of vulnerabilities that can be used this way, and the past 20 years of Republican campaigning are a great how-to guide, why not exploit verbal gray areas?

Or we could continue with the long-winded explanations, full of caveats, that provide too much opportunity for the other side to wordsmith into damaging soundbites. It might make us look like twits to like-minded people, but those like-minded people should know better and are more likely to vote rationally, based on the candidate's record, anyway. We're targeting low info voters here. Not everyone is smart or motivated enough to be an astronaut or neurosurgeon or President. Give them well-delivered, well-crafted one liners, save the dissertations for friendly audiences who want deep analysis. Let go and be a little cynical.

[JDPriestly]

4. No. They are too wild.

We emphasized doing well at school, trips to the library and family outings to places of natural or cultural interest. I don't see the Palin kids playing musical instruments or reading a lot.

Actually, on second thought, I probably would not have to keep my kids from playing or hanging out with her kids. My kids just would not like her kids -- different interests -- different standards in the home.

[earth mom]

5. Hell to the NO!

:yoiks:

[24HRrnr]

6. Sure. Why not?

[SammyWinstonJack]

7. I don't think so.

[Cleita]

9. How would you stop them???

You can't be with them 24/7 to enforce that kind of rule. Also, IMHO her kids seem to be as much the victims of an overbearing and mean mother themselves. I don't have kids, but I think I would rather have them over to the house if they were hanging around with each other so I could monitor the other child up close and if that child displayed anti-social or amoral characteristics use it as an opportunity to teach my children not to follow them down that path. But then what do I know since I have never worn those mother shoes except with a step daughter and honestly I never told her what to do because it really was up to her mother and father to do the parenting.

[underseasurveyor]

11. Of course I would

What better way to find out what really goes on in the palin house. I'd make sure he took a hidden camera with him too:evilgrin:

[mike_c]

12. absolutely yes....

My kid was intelligent and self-assured enough to make up her own mind about who she wanted to associate with and to decide for herself how others influenced her thinking. She's grown now, but she hung out with my sketchy friends while she was growing up without ill effects.

[lapfog_1]

13. Funny you should mention this.

My 12 year old niece lives with me. Last year she became friends with another 12 year old girl from school. We had her friend over for dinner and play dates a few times and, over the course of that time, I became aware that her new friend was a fundie (not completely gone, but pretty well down the path). After a Saturday sleep over, her friend had to go to church early Sunday and invited my niece to go with her. I let my niece make the decision and she went with her friend to the fundie church.

I asked my niece later and she said "I don't think they like very many people".

This year they aren't that close anymore.

I trusted my niece to make up her own mind about her friend and their church. I'm so very proud of what she decided on her own. Had she joined that church out of peer pressure or needy feelings, I would have failed to instill critical thinking and independence in her. And that would have been my fault.

So... it depends on the age I guess. And how grounded you think your child is. If my niece had been 8 or 10, I might have found something else she needed to do that Sunday.

[undeterred]

14. I wouldn't let my dog hang around with hers,

and he was a recent stray.

[firedupdem]

16. I think Dad would shoot my two black teenage sons! n/t

[Beregond2]

18. Sure.

Maybe something good would rub off on them (hers, I mean.) I hung out with Assembly of God kids when I was young, and it certainly didn't turn me into one of them. Kids need to be exposed to all sorts of people, not kept in some kind of hermetically sealed environment.

[vanderBeth]

19. They're actually closer to my age

And they're not the type of people I would hang out with.

[philosophie_en_rose]

23. Only at my house.

I wouldn't have a problem having the kids over at a party or something, but there's no way I'd expose my (hypothetical) children to Sarah Palin.

[Ikonoklast]

24. *She* wouldn't want her precious snowflakes around my kids

I am a single parent that raised my three children on my own.

From what I gathered from just about every blathering idiot that calls themselves a 'culture warrior' or stood up and barked out nonsense from the podium of the RNC, I do not have, what they term, a 'traditional family'.

I'm eviiiiil.

Funny, that.

Three kids, all working full or part-time.

All going to school, full-time.

Not an unwed mother/father in the bunch. I made sure that each of my kids knows what birth control is.

No druggies. No boozers. Just hard-working, self-aware, responsible and trying to get that education.

And all good, liberal Democrats. Makes me proud.




I'll take my 'non-traditional' family and the results of MY parenting over that hypocrite and her brood, any day.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

25. Yes. If I had a son at least I'd know he'll get laid for sure. Of course

I'd have to get him a vasectomy first............. OK no.

:evilgrin:

[NikolaC]

26. Yes

I happen to think that kids are smarter than they are given credit for being. Kids usually don't dislike are hate other kids so easily unless they prove themselves to be someone whom they do not want to hang around with. My husband and I happen to dislike the parents of our son's best friends (very arrogant and self absorbed people). That does not mean that we will hold it against their kids, or keep them from being friends with our son. They are great, funny, kind children and they get along well with my son. I think a lot of adults (their parents included) should take a lesson from these kids. It is ridiculous to hold a grudge against the children because their parents are jerks. JMO :shrug: .

[madrchsod]

27. my daughter did but

since my wife and i instilled values and trust she realized when something was wrong. sarah and her husband were to busy with their own lives to understand what was going on in their children`s lives...

[JerseygirlCT]

28. Inasmuch as I prefer my kids to hang around with the kids

of people I like, no.

IOW, I wouldn't want to spend any time with her, at all.

Otherwise, the choice would be up to my kids - until or unless something changed that in her kids' behavior.

[Bluebear]

29. I don't know how to get caribou blood stains out of clothes, so most likely no

[cynatnite]

30. Sure...it's not the kids fault their mom is a RW nutjob n/t

[hedgehog]

31. No, but I wouldn't be faced with the question because my kids

wouldn't want to hang around with these kids.

[tigereye]

33. I suppose not since every time she opened her mouth I would probably

start gagging....


I have little tolerance for RW cant unless it's in my office and I have to try to understand why someone might think like that.... ;)

[EFerrari]

34. There's no way. They're toxic as hell and maybe armed.

Not negotiable.

[MattBaggins]

35. I don't know them so unsure

They are probably actually very nice typical teenage kids.

[MullenBank]

36. Hell yeah

They seem like good folks apart from their politics. My kids hang around lots of different kinds of families. They don't live in an echo chamber.