Lauren Boebert announced that next month she would become a grandmother. She revealed this family news at a women’s breakfast during CPAC last weekend — after she received a “mothers of influence” award.
“I’m going to tell you all for the first time in a public setting that not only am I a mother of four boys but come April, I will be a Gigi to a brand new grandson.”
Dear God, another one of His army has put her foot in it. Conservatives demand we all live up to their “Christian values,” while they rarely do. These sanctimonious gits are most gratingly hypocritical when it comes to sex. Their message is clear, “ do what I say, not what I do.” Take Boebert. She carries her rabid religiosity like a security blanket. “I am a Christian. I have deep faith... They thought they canceled Jesus, but you can't cancel God.”
Christians like her believe a person should have one sexual partner in their lifetime. And the sex part of the partnership should start after they are married. However, on Judgement Day, the divine arbitrator will weigh her in the balance and find her wanting.
At 17, being a typical American teenager, Boebert was fornicating — without a ring on it. She probably abided by her no-contraception philosophy because she got pregnant and had her first child. It was not until three years later that she married the child’s father.
Do not get me wrong. I do not hold it against her that she had a baby. As far as I know, it was her choice — at least to have it after she discovered she was pregnant. However, I do blame her for increasing the odds her son would become a father at 17.
As anyone who has been a teenager knows, teens have a spotty record of making well-informed decisions. That is why the law prohibits minors from signing contracts and mandates that, in the US, you have to be 21 to smoke and drink. Adolescents need parents to give them the tools to make the best decisions — which conservative Christians do not.
Prospective parents should plan their parenthood — it is far too important to be left to chance. I will bet the farm that Boebert’s son and his lover (all we know about her is that she is over 14) did not have a sober heart-to-heart and decide that the moment was right to start a family. They played with fire and got burned.
Teenagers have sex, look at Boebert — and her mother, who had Lauren when she was eighteen. Which, if you do the math, makes her a great-grandmother at 54. The abstinence-only strategy to prevent unwanted pregnancies relies on the assumption that teens will have better impulse control than some middle-aged Catholic priests and a bunch of adult conservative moralists. The results are predictable.
Teens kept ignorant by their parents are more likely to have unwanted pregnancies and catch STDs. I cannot say that Boebert or her husband failed to give their son the complete rundown on the consequences of sex. However, the odds favor that proposition.
The real tragedy is to the offspring. The children of teen mothers do not do well compared to the children of adult mothers. According to research available at the NIH:
“It is clear that being a child of a teenage mother often entails numerous risks: low birth weight, complications of the mother's pregnancy and delivery, and health problems associated with poor perinatal outcomes; greater risk of perinatal death; lower IQ and academic achievement later on, including a greater risk of repeating a grade; greater risk of socio-emotional problems; a greater risk of having a fatal accident before age one; and finally, a greater probability of starting one's own family at an early age.”
Credit where credit is due, Boebert has done well. She was a legitimate business owner and twice elected to Congress. She is still married to the father of her children, although theirs is a noisy and belligerent partnership — at least as far as the neighbors are concerned.
However, her story is not typical. Her son might do the right thing, but often a teen mother is left to raise the child alone. Boebert is also in a position to provide for her grandchild. Teenage pregnancy usually exacerbates the chain of poverty.
Boebert, as you might expect, misses the big picture. She announced her pride in her son and his girlfriend. And complimented them for making the “right choice.”
“I am just very proud of both of them for being responsible for their situation. This is a huge responsibility they are taking on. They made the right choice. Nothing was forced on them. This is a decision they made on their own,”
It is blind ignorance to claim that “nothing was forced on them”. In all likelihood, ignorance forced parenthood on them. And I question how much the decision was theirs when at least one of his parents — I cannot speak to the expectant mother’s situation — has a national profile as an extreme anti-choice zealot.