Chaotic Fringe

This pains me but I have to defend Mike Huckabee on a statement he made recently about Natalie Portman and her upcoming baby. Now, I have great issue with a lot of what Huckabee has said in the past few days. Of course what he said about Portman is so political opportunism. What happened was Huckabee was on Michel Medved's radio show ans the discussion came up about the thanks Portman made to her fiance and about the gift he gave her of their baby. Being a conservative, and for whatever reason wanting to talk about every conservative social talking point, Huckabee had to weigh in. Here is some of what he had to say -

You know Michael, one of the things that's troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, 'Hey look, you know, we're having children, we're not married, but we're having these children, and they're doing just fine.' But there aren't really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can't get a job, and if it weren't for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that's the story that we're not seeing, and it's unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock.

Now I want to give some context to why I'm giving Huckabee some slack on his statement. Many moons ago, Madonna released a video called Papa Don't Preach, which dealt with teenage pregnancy; kind of a taboo and racy topic in the 80s. There was a female comic who did a joke about the video, talking about how a girl in a classroom figured if Madonna could have a baby so could she. The comic pointed out Madonna had nannies and money so it would be easy for her to have a child without any sort of stable financial and support environment, but for the average teenage girl they wouldn't have the emotional and financial resources to do that.

The article where I got the Huckabee quote was quick to make it seem like Huckabee was a old conservative who didn't understand the nature of the world today, but he does make a point where people see people in Hollywood and assume they can have the same lifestyle. As an example, I have heard lots of people who admire Charlie Sheen. They like is life, the women and the seemingly I don't care attitude he has. Well, of course you can act that way if you can command millions of dollars for a week's worth of work. You can do that if you live in a mansion and surround yourself with people who will condone your actions. I don't think Natalie Portman is a bad person, but she is of the age, mental maturity and financial ability to take care of her child once it is born. Even if you want to condemn her for having the child out of wedlock, she is engaged to the man and will get married to him, so even if you want to be a hard nose idiot she is working to make things right by getting married, if that is the path you think she should take.

What we have a hard time learning is what is good for one person doesn't have to work for someone else. What Huckabee is trying to get across is every pregnant unwed mother isn't going to end up like Portman or even the 'stars' of Teen Mom. A vast majority of women who get pregnant, and I'm going to use the really bad term by accident, are not going to have the planning or resources to correct any issues that will come up now or in the future.

Does this mean a kid born out of wedlock is doomed to failure? Of course not. Millions of kids are born to parents who were forced into marriages, or after being married for a few years, grew apart and divorced. They will end up in the same scenario Huckabee mentioned, but they would have done things the way he said they should go. So while I disagree with the dark outcome he comes out with, I can't deny that without planning, many women who don't have a spouse will have trouble, however in saying that I'm not saying the spouse is the only way to overcome the difficulties of child rearing. The individual will determine how the child will develop.