[kabumpo]

I’m sorry to write this, but I have thought from jump that BRistol was bad news. I understand being rebellious — I was — but my rebellion didn’t hurt my family’s mission. She should have married him immediately so as not to damage her mother’s campaign and then gotten a quiet divorce later if it didn’t work out.

[utahagen]

I agree with you that they should have got married immediately, which is what Sarah Palin wanted. However, I think it was Levi Johnson who dragged his feet on that and Bristol, afraid she'd lose him, backed him up. I believe Bristol would have been happy to get married, but now that there's no real stigma to having a baby out-of-wedlock — or to abortion, for that matter — young women have much less leverage than they used to and they settle for what they can get. That is why the teenage pregnancy rate often doesn't go down when teenagers are pelted with contraceptives. The girls subconsciously — or consciously, sometimes — want to get pregnant as a way to hold on to their boyfriends. When they do get pregnant and the guy won't marry them, they parrot the guys’ “we shouldn't rush into anything” line.