No, Jeb Bush did not say unwed mothers should be publicly shamed

I must’ve missed the “everyone make stuff up” memo circulating through media channels this week. Thankfully, I’m just a blogger.

Tuesday, the Huffington Post published a post with the headline, Jeb Bush In 1995: Unwed Mothers Should Be Publicly Shamed. There’s just one problem though — that’s not what Jeb Bush said. Not in 1995 or otherwise.

The post focuses on a book Bush wrote called Profiles in Character. The book was published in 1995. Gawker, Wonkette, Raw Story and others then reblogged using the same, incorrect headline.

Ignoring what Bush’s book said, Laura Bassett wrote at the Huffington Post:

Public shaming would be an effective way to regulate the "irresponsible behavior" of unwed mothers, misbehaving teenagers and welfare recipients, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) argued in his 1995 book Profiles in Character.

In a chapter called “The Restoration of Shame," the likely 2016 presidential candidate made the case that restoring the art of public humiliation could help prevent pregnancies "out of wedlock."

Here’s how the passage in question actually reads:

One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but nowhere in this passage do I read “unwed mothers should be publicly shamed.” Sure, Bush talked about shame, about how the decay of the family unit was no longer shameful (and he was right), discussed that there once was a time when communities collectively “frowned on” promiscuous behavior and that it served as an effective deterrent. But not once did he say nor did he imply that unwed mothers should be scorned, shamed, and cast from polite society as HuffPo suggests.

Explaining Bush’s advocacy for punishment that embarrassed offenders for petty crimes, Bassett wrote:

Bush’s ideas about public shaming extended beyond unwed parents. He said American schools and the welfare system could use a healthy dose of shame as well. "For many, it is more shameful to work than to take public assistance — that is how backward shame has become!" he wrote, adding that the juvenile criminal justice system also “seems to be lacking in humiliation.”

In the context of present-day society we need to make kids feel shame before their friends rather than their family. The Miami Herald columnist Robert Steinback has a good idea. He suggests dressing these juveniles in frilly pink jumpsuits and making them sweep the streets of their own neighborhoods! Would these kids be so cavalier then?

I’m really not seeing the problem here.

HuffPo goes on to compare this example of shame with the horrific suicide of a thirteen-year old girl:

It’s worth pointing out that the kind of public shaming Bush described has come under fire recently in response to the growing trend of parents humiliating their children on social media to punish them. A 13-year-old girl committed suicide last month after her father posted a video of himself cutting off her long hair on YouTube because she had disobeyed him.

No, it’s not worth noting. Not in the least bit. How in the world is the tragic suicide of a young girl remotely related to silly, but effective punishments for juvenile offenders?

Regardless of what you think of Governor Bush as a Republican presidential candidate, this type of reporting is the only shameful part of the equation.

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