No one promised me the world

Palin pushes abortion foes to form 'conservative, feminist identity'

from which: "They can give their child life, in addition to pursuing career and education and avocations. Society wants to tell these young women otherwise. These feminist groups want to tell these women that, 'No, you're not capable of doing both.' . . . It's very hypocritical."

Two things with this:

1) I viscerally disagree with anti-choicers, but the fact that their women are organizing to support female political candidates deserves respect. Even if their agenda is to destroy the rights of women to control their own bodies and lives.

2) I don't think feminists are being hyprocritical at all in saying to young women that if you choose to have a child, you will not be able to do other things that you had planned to do and still very much want to do. They're being honest, and they are assuming that these women who choose to have their children will take responsibility for their choice and for their children.

If you are 16, and you have a child, and you take responsibility for the care of that child and become its primary caregiver, hopefully alongside the father of said child but maybe not, you will not have time to do other things. Not if you are going to give that child the attention, resources, and level of comfort that it deserves. Especially with cuts to social services for the needy like the ones that are proposed in states like California. You may have time later on in life to pursue your goals, if you end up with a partner who is ready and able to support and to care for this child while you pursue your goals, or if you can find and afford a decent childcare situation. Even so, it is THAT much harder to enter the workplace and put in the time it takes for professional advancement when you have a kid to take care of, if you want to give that kid everything it needs. That means attention, encouragement, guidance, parenting. Love is a given.

"But the family can help and be a support system!" Yes, it can, but it shouldn't be expected. It is simply unfair to expect a family to absorb the burden of caring for a child because its parent is unprepared to raise it. Now, hey, if the family says, "you cannot get an abortion, and we will help you raise your child and support you as you go live your dreams" then that's one thing. If, because there is no other legal option, all families must assume the responsibility for an unprepared mother and her child, then that's totally something else and a situation that is not necessarily good for anyone involved.

"But there's always adoption!" Yes, there is. And adoption is a wonderful thing, and parents who adopt are heroes, and adoption should be made easier but still safe. Would that every child who needed a home got one, especially since there are so many out there who want children but can't have one biologically. But not every adoptable child gets a home, and if anyone's noticed what happened with Nebraska's penalty free child abandonment law, even children who have a home might not stay in it because there simply aren't enough resources for it. Is it right to bring a person into the world and then hope that by good fortune it ends up in a loving family?

For this Cephalopod, feminism is about giving women the right to take responsibility for themselves. That means being able to choose have a child and then taking care of that child without assuming that you can rely on others to make things easier. That means being able to choose NOT to have that child because you know you are not personally ready for one, and living with that decision, however hard it might be. That means there are choices to be made all through life, about what you want, what you are ready for, and what you are willing to give up. Those aren't easy choices, but they should be ours to make. Feminism never promised that I could have it all, but it promised that I deserve, and would have, a chance to get what I really want. That's not being hypocritical, that treating me with respect.