Sarah Palin's Children and Life in the Public Eye

Nov. 18, 2010— -- It's never been easy to be the child of a famous politician, but this week has served as a reminder for Sarah Palin's children that the spotlight on her can shine harshly on them.

That spotlight has shown brightly this week: "Sarah Palin's Alaska" debuted on TLC to record-breaking ratings on Sunday, and Bristol Palin advanced to the semi-finals of the popular ABC show "Dancing with the Stars." Bristol, a teen mom, also debuted a new PSA to promote safe sex.

But Bristol's run on DWTS has been dogged by rumors that her mother's political machine is behind her popularity, that voters said they liked her dancing because they really liked her mother. There has been a between the judges' scores and the viewers'. The 20-year-old daughter of the former Alaska governor was booed Tuesday night when it was announced that she had made it to the semi-finals of the competition.

The Palins are a special case. No other political family has welcomed television cameras into their house for an all-access reality TV show, and Bristol chose to be in the spotlight on "Dancing with the Stars."

On Tuesday night, the audience was audibly shocked when it was announced that Bristol and her partner Mark Ballas had beaten pop singer Brandy and her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who received a perfect score for one of their dances the night before.

In addition to the audience members, other competitors found it hard to believe – cameras caught professional dancer Derek Hough with his mouth agape.

Bristol has adamantly defended herself against the ballot stuffing rumors. "There's no politics involved in this," she told Access Hollywood. "I know this -- people always focus on how far we've gotten in this competition and 'it's because my mom' -- all this B.S. and stuff when really it can work the opposite way. I've got so many people out there attacking me every day because of who my mom is."

In an interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters over the weekend, Sarah Palin said she had braced her daughter for the criticisms.

"When 'Dancing With the Stars' called her and wanted her to be on the show, I said, 'Bristol, you know you're going to open yourself up to criticism just because of your last name. And Bristol said, 'Mom, you know it doesn't matter what I do. They're going to criticize me, so I might as well dance.'"

Last night the 2008 vice presidential nominee tweeted that she was "proud of all the competitors & pros in DWTS. Nice journeys & beautiful, inspiring stories shining through each individual!"

While Bristol's dancing controversy rages on, her younger sister Willow, 16, has also set off an explosion by posting homophobic remarks on her Facebook page, a reminder that everything the Palin children do is under the public microscope.