The Woefully Wacky World of Willow.

Being a child of Sarah Palin is NOT for the faint of heart.

You are written about it tabloids, trotted out on stage in front of millions of people, and joked about on Late Night comedy shows. All in all it can be exhausting.

Fortunately each of the children seems to be possessed of some almost supernatural ability.

Track is the SUPER patriot, who ALWAYS wanted to serve his country and certainly did NOT go into the military because of legal difficulties at home.

Bristol is the independent motherly one who, according to Levi Johnston, has been doing the majority of the child rearing in the home for a number of years. That probably did not prove much of a challenge to Bristol because according to "Going Rogue": "She was a neat freak and a perfectionist. She potty trained herself at fourteen months." (P 57) "Kind of an old soul, mature beyond her years, she grew up with an uncommon work ethic and great disdain for drama. She did not like gossip or wasting time." (P 58)

Of course number three daughter Piper has become the darling of the media, and her mother's constant companion. Apparently eschewing any need for a public education, Piper is learning life's lessons by observing her mother's tumultuous career first hand, and receiving instruction in the importance of packaging when it comes to politics and celebrity, over the less important substance. (Hopefully it is not too late for somebody to rescue this child, wipe the glitter make up off of her face, and set her feet on the path to a normal life, but I have my doubts.)

Trig Palin is at the epicenter of Palin's popularity, and nature has seen fit to shield him to some degree by taking away his hearing, reducing his ability to see the rabid crowds, and slowing down his intellect to keep him from a constant state of panic. (Of course he is clearly NOT receiving the kind of therapy that his syndrome requires, so he may also suffer some long term deleterious effects from Sarah's approach to mothering.)

Which brings us to poor Willow. The proverbial middle child, and the one who usually suffers the most difficult identity crisis of all.

No doubt Willow Palin herself is a very special child as evidenced by her unbelievably acute diagnostic abilities, such as recognizing that Trig Palin had Downs syndrome despite the fact her mother had callously kept that detail from her children.

In her interview with People magazine, Sarah recounted the conversation. "He looks like he has Down syndrome," Willow said, looking at her mother. Sarah tried to reassure her daughter. "If he does, you know you will still love him, Willow. It'll be okay." Unsatisfied, Willow asked, "Why didn't you tell us?" Sarah went into an explanation about how she wanted to keep the pregnancy short their sake, and she also admitted she was busy and had not reconciled her own ambivalent feelings. She apologized to her children for the deception but wanted them to understand: "Trig is perfection, and I cannot imagine life without him." Willow was completely forgiving, telling her mother that none of it mattered; Trig, whose name is derived from two Norse meanings--"Brave victory" and "True"---was her brother, and she loved him. (Chapter 13, pg. 187)

Willow has also spent her time on parade before the crowd, just like little Trig, of course, unlike Trig, Willow is capable of demonstrating her disgust with the circus like atmosphere that surrounds her mother.


And according to Sarah's book "Going Rogue" Willow has also been the victim of some truly reprehensible threats against her person.

"In that first year, I was alerted to threats against Willow by students at her Juneau school, one particularly disturbing. Someone posted a note on an Internet site threatening to gang-rape her at school. I never felt safe for her after that. Later, the same thing happened to Bristol."

That allegation is truly shocking! WHY would ANYBODY threaten to harm this child, and her sister? As a father I know that I would be absolutely livid, as I am sure that Sarah and Todd must have been, and DEMANDED an investigation into these threats.

However my instincts seem to be at odds with the instincts demonstrated by Sarah and Todd.

Palin provided no details about where the Internet site was, how seriously she took the threats, how she knew it was posted by students, or what steps she'd taken to ensure her family's safety.

Former Juneau School District Superintendent Peggy Cowan was superintendent during the period in question and said she never heard of such concerns.

"That was never reported to my office," she said. "I am completely confident that I never heard that."

Had a report been made to Juneau schools, Cowan said she would have worked with the principals at the schools to determine how seriously the threats should be taken and how to ensure the safety of the children.

Juneau Police Chief Greg Browning similarly said his department has no record of ever being alerted to such threats.

His department's school resource officers are in Juneau schools daily, and would likely have been alerted to such threats, had they been made, he said.

The Alaska State Troopers provide a security detail for Palin, but trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said the first they heard about the allegation was from Palin's book.

"AST has no record of a report like that being made to our agency," Peters said. "Additionally, we have no way of determining if a report of that nature was made to another agency."

I am sorry, what? NOBODY was contacted about these threats? Nobody?

Instead of contacting the authorities and demanding an investigation, apparently, according to Palin, they gathered up their kids and hightailed it back to the "safety" of Wasilla. Which left the kids responsible for these threats free to continue terrorizing the children of Dzantik'i Heeni Middle School. I mean if they could frighten the Governor of the state into taking her children and running away, what would stop them from continuing this crime spree?

Unless, dare I say it, this NEVER happened. Is it possible that Palin is such a pathological liar that she would use fabricated threats against her children to cover for the REAL reasons she left Juneau? I think most of us who have been paying attention to this woman know the answer to that question.

And do you know the sickest thing? She still may be doing it.

As many of you have heard, Willow is attending school in Palmer. The reason given for that, as has been reported to me by various sources, seems to be that Willow was the victim of "harassment" from the kids in Wasilla. Is this in fact the reason, or does it have more to do with some marital difficulties? What do you think? And is this just another case of Sarah using Willow to garner sympathy and provide cover for the real reasons behind the change which may not be as palatable to her minions?

It has been suggested that Sarah Palin suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a disease in which: a person acts as if an individual he or she is caring for has a physical or mental illness when the person is not really sick.

Only in Palin's case instead of her children suffering from a sickness, they are always in some kind of jeopardy. They are either being threatened at school, under attack by the media, suffering insults at the hands of late night comics, or being harassed by reporters. In this way Sarah is able to get undeserved sympathy from the public while reinforcing that "Mama Grizzly" persona.

But what does that do to her children? How do they process the fact that their mother is using them as flesh covered excuses for her bizarre behaviors, and then virtually ignoring them when the cameras are turned off?

Like many of you I have very real concerns for the Palin children, and worry about their future. All I can think to do at this point is to constantly call her out on her lies and hopefully force her off of the national stage and back home where she can spend some of that SarahPac and book money on some much needed family therapy. I think we can all agree that it is way past time to get some mental health professionals involved here.