David Letterman is taking fire for an ill-considered joke he made during his monologue this past Monday. He referred to Sarah Palin’s daughter, Willow, as getting “knocked up by Alex Rodriguez” during their trip to a Yankee’s game.
First of all, attacking Sarah Palin herself is one thing. She put herself into that position as a public figure. You might even defend attacks on her daughter Bristol during the revelation of her pregnancy. But Palin’s 14 year old daughter? She’s not a legitimate target, and Letterman should have known that.
Second of all, while Letterman’s famous for his snarkiness and borderline rude humor, isn’t this sort of low-level humor below him? He’s got a ton of writers on his staff, and the best they could do was make an obvious joke? Shouldn’t they be more clever than this?
And third of all, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. This is something we can instill in our children. As a child grows, he begins to feel his power, his growing ability to do more and more things. It’s not uncommon to see children exercising this newfound power in questionable ways. They might start pushing other children over, or take toys away from others. This is normal pushing of their boundaries to learn how things work. It’s up to us to correct their behavior and explain that life is not automatically all about their wants and desires, but that others have feelings as well.
This cannot be overemphasized. Empathy for others is a learned behavior, not an ingrained one. Children naturally have an egocentric worldview, and this can be cultivated to include the emotions of others. Kids who grow up thinking of others tend to integrate into society better than those who don’t. They’re less likely to commit crimes and more likely to develop lasting relationships, which helps everyone out in the long run.
Now, I’m not saying that David Letterman doesn’t do these things, but sometimes it’s easy to go for the easy target, the quick laugh. With a child of his own, we should hope that he learns from this.
