>First, I'm well aware of how teens talk. My wife's mother had another son and daughter much later in life, and I've been brought in many times to talk to them about the way they talk.
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>Second, I'm not being harsh on Willow - I'm being harder on Sarah. There's more to this story that you may or may not have heard...
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>Here are comments from Sarah Palin (on the Sean Hannity show), in defending against all the negative reactions against her entire family....."I mean, look at the other day ...Willow, finally, my 16 year old ... she had had it up to here with somebody saying very very hateful things about the family and saying mean things about her little brother Trig and Willow finally responded and she used a bad word when she responded in defense of her family. And her response became national news, even hard news copy it turned into, so that’s ridiculous and I had to explain to her ... Willow, there is no justice here but you have to just zip your lip and let’s move forward."
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>A couple of things:
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>- The entire Facebook thread has been published, and none of the other teens mentioned Trig at all.
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>- What started all this was a Facebook post that read, "hahahahaha the show fails, i think, just opinion but so do other people."
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>- Willow didn't "finally" do anything. She jumped in immediately, used the gay slur, then called someone a "dumb sh__" (or maybe it was Bristol who said that), and another person "effin fat as hell". (By the way, the person she referred to has Crohn's Disease and takes steroids that makes him overweight).
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>Sure, kids talk that way, but it shows that the Palin kids don't need much provocation. But even beyond that, Sarah Palin didn't take any responsibility, didn't offer an apology (at least I haven't seen one) - instead, she blamed the media and tried to claim victim status.
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>If Sarah Palin were truly interested in protecting her children from the spotlight, she might think twice about turning Bristol into a reality star, bringing an infant with Down Syndrome at her book signings, and exposing her other daughter's dating habits on a reality show.....This is just another lie from Palin. No one mentioned a word about Trig, yet Palin will use Trig as a defense mechanism against any type of criticism. She clearly wants to display every aspect of her family and private life in the media, but has a problem with any negative response and tells the world she'll never let Katie Couric interview her. If Palin has any brains (which is debatable), she'll realize her kids are coming off as classless, uneducated, and disrespectful.
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>I'll freely admit that I've got about a million axes to grind with a woman who says (direct quote) that she wouldn't allow her own 12 year old daughter to have an abortion even if her daughter was raped, and also bitches about Michelle Obama's anti-obesity campaign (when she never said a word about Arnold Schwarzenegger's initiatives for children and fitness). My wife is a little more liberal than I am, but we both want to punch holes in walls when we hear Palin talk.
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>(Jesus Christ, I've said two non-negative things about Obama in the last 24 hours...am I coming out of a closet????)
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My main point was that the language is (sadly) not unusual for teens, and those kids live in a fishbowl. They are pretty young to have to deal with all of the scrutiny and MASSIVE hate towards their family. More of the world hates the Palins than hate the U.S. If you had to deal with haters and public criticism every single day at that age, who knows which one would finally cause you to lose your cool. It may not even be the worst or one that you would think was so awful.