I see the video's message in 2 ways:

-somewhat true-- if you don't have money or class privilege like her, you WILL have a hard time being a teen mother-- BUT I believe that you can still make it work.

-somewhat PATRONIZING-- so only rich girls can "PLAY" while underprivileged girls aren't allowed to "play" ?!?!?!

Privileged teenagers (who are, by the way, more likely to abort than disadvantaged ones) will often be provided resources that mediate the negative consequences of keeping their child. In contrast, when disadvantaged teenagers become mothers, it tends to entrench their disadvantage.

I'm not sure this is true. I thought I'd read statistics a while back (and of course, I have no cite) suggesting that teen parenting actually has a much greater impact on privileged teens' trajectory that on disadvantaged teens' trajectory.

If I remember right, disadvantaged teens who did not get pregnant didn't do much better than the ones who chose to parent -- and the ones who parented tended to receive significant social support for that choice.

OTOH, privileged teens who did not get pregnant tended to do quite well, but the ones who chose to parent received very little support from their families/communities and tended to do significantly worse than their non-parenting peers.

So sick of Bristol Palin trying to tell us all about sex and the way things are. Here, I look at her horrific People cover and and her desire for no one to get it on: http://heatherleila3.blogspot.com/search/label/pregnancy

I think this is a ridiculous imagining of what it's like to be a disadvantaged teen mother. It's as if a group of rich people got together and tried to imagine what it would be like to be poor...and came up with their super-nice, super clean apartments devoid of the stuff THEY would have owned, without realizing that even poor, disadvantaged, not famous people fill in their lives and homes with something. Hand me down furniture, toys from the Salvation army, old posters, dirt and messes they haven't had time to clean, and ESPECIALLY family and friends. And just because these things aren't expensive and weren't purchased in matching sets at upscale stores does not mean they are worthless or don't count. While it's great to see a rich white woman recognize her privilege, she should have gone a step further and found out how other women actually live. Hint: it isn't in a vacuum.

Bristol Palin = Hypocrite

The weirdest thing is that the commercial makes it sound like if you're a teen and also rich, then raising a kid is no big deal. Even with support, raising a child at any age is really difficult. Being rich doesn't make the baby stop crying at night. Doesn't make your body heal magically. Doesn't erase the emotional issues that can arise from having a surprise pregnancy. Doesn't make it easier for the kid who may eventually want to know more about why her or his family is the way that it is. These things are not insurmountable, but they're not cakewalks, either.

Bristol Palin is getting paid $100K to sell pictures of her baby to the media and invited to appear on TV shows. Getting pregnant was a career move.

Question is - what impact down the room will it have on her child knowing he was a prop paraded in public for money as a mistake and moral warning?

Another interesting thing about this placement is the "pause ... before you play" slogan. As if she's advocating that the two teens should stop, think about what it would be like to have kids, and then continue going on their merry way and they would have fulfilled the advertisement's mission. Or that they had paused for a moment and *gasp!* put a condom on.

Extensive case of Palin Derangement Syndrome on display here...

Bristol Palin got a LOT of flack for presenting an unrealistic image of teen motherhood-- an image where you finish high school, have a supportive family, don't have to worry about money, blah blah blah. After MONTHS of being held as the ultimate hypocrite because HER MOTHER opposes premarital sex and ran as a family values candidate, and as the worst possible role model for young girls-- many articles claimed she would cause other teens to get pregnant, especially since she's using the pregnancy and her mother's fame to help provide for herself and her child-- she started participating in programs and advertisements that discourage teen pregnancy. I absolutely read it as her saying "Okay, okay! Teen pregnancy is bad! I'm an unrealistic situation and I know it! STOP CRITICIZING ME!"

I feel really, really bad for her. If she doesn't talk about the bad aspects of teen pregnancy, she's a horrible person and a hypocrite. If she does, she's a horrible person and a hypocrite. If she tries to hide from society, she'll have the same problems all teen moms do, plus paparazzi staking her out and everyone talking about what she could be so ashamed of. If she tries to make money from her fame, she'll be lambasted for using her child to advance her situation (never mind that advancing HER situation is also providing for the child's future). All because her mother ran for vice president at the worst possible time in her life. Worst of all, she complains one bit about how much it sucks to raise a crying child in the public eye, she'll be privileged to one group and a horrible mother to another group. What on EARTH is she supposed to do?

I kind of dislike it when people talk about teenage pregnancy. I was pregnant at 18, I have 3 kids. I'm not rich but my husband makes 4500 to support us while I only make 350 paid for by the state to finish my degree (in Singaporean/Brunei dollars). In a few months I will continue for another two years to be paid for by the state between 500-1500 dollars to finish my M.A. Sure, I have my own house and we have two cars and my husband also has a plot of land. Am I THAT POOR?! I find it a bit insulting that people assume just because I have kids and married early and am continuously studying I'm poor. There are really poor people out there who really need help. I hope these development theorists would stop attacking us in the effing Third World for having children early.