Posted on 09/05/2008 9:56:29 PM PDT by Lorianne
I called my husband hours before the Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin was to speak before the Republican convention. I asked him how many kids she had. Five, he said without missing a beat. How many does McCain have? No clue, he said. Romney? He caught on quick (he's used to these pop-quiz phone calls).
He said, well, wait, Palin's been in the news, blah blah, and I said, save your breath. I had no clue either just how many kids John McCain had, and I had absolutely no excuse: I had written TV news for a decade when four of his kids were still quite young.
I probably wrote about the candidate, oh, a hundred times, ranging from tiny mentions to longer stories. And why didn't I know how many kids he has? Because, of course, he is a man. And no one asks those questions of a man.
If you are wondering, he has a total of seven kids, and the four youngest were born during his early days in the Senate. How did he ever manage to "do it all"?
Consider this my open apology to the Alaska Governor for reacting like a Victorian prig on word of her selection as McCain's running mate. Truly, my first thought was "doesn't she have a baby? And one with Down's Syndrome?" Then I thought, "wait, she has four other kids TOO?"
After that came the next wave of pernicious speculating, after it was revealed that her teenaged daughter is pregnant. "Isn't she going to have to clean up that mess too?"
Now, granted, I do have one mitigating factor for this incredibly sexist line of interrogation for the VP nominee. Palin has aggressively billed herself as a mom, and so thinking of her in that role is inevitable.
But that is no excuse. Questions about who's doing drop-off and pick-up, who is changing the diapers, who is in charge of the kids are ones that never enter my mind with a male politician. I call myself a feminist or something like it, but who am I kidding?
think I would have been less inclined to internally grill Palin before I had kids. Now that I'm a parent, my sexist attitudes spring not just from preconceived notions, but from the reality that I see day in, day out.
It's not just some ill-founded impression we all have about women and their double burden of home-life responsibility. It is the reality. The women on average are quite literally cleaning up the messes, even if they are working just as much as the man.
And I am complicit in this inequity all the time, because I enable the fathers. As a room parent at my son's school last year, did I demand the fathers' email addresses along with the mothers'? Nope. When I recently wanted to set up a play-date with my son's friend, did I get in touch with Dad, even though Mom works just as hard, if not harder? Nope. If some child has his shirt on inside out, or has grimy fingernails, do I ever secretly tsk tsk Dad? Nope.
And who do I blame in my own home if clothes remain unwashed, or toddler teeth unbrushed? I blame myself, of course, even when my highly-evolved husband insists that he dropped the ball too.
So I congratulate Governor Palin, and the fact that as a working mom she didn't tsk tsk herself out of her own ambitions. She doesn't need another finger wagging in her face. And from now on, this finger-wagger will be sitting on her hands.
Linda Keenan is a contributing writer at Burbia. Linda worked 7 years as a head writer/senior producer for various programs on CNN. Before that she worked as a writer/producer for Bloomberg TV. She now writes satire, primarily about parenting culture, at Thoroughly Modern Mommy ...
I’ve got one EXACTLY like that, but she’s all mine!
My sympathy is sincere though, because she’s as rare as an Obama accomplishment.
LOL!
Like that's going to work, after they threw Hillary under the bus, AND McCain has already beat them to the punch and made history doing it!
Obama will look like a stupid lying panderer to the entire country. Especially the women!
And in the very unlikely event he got away with it (somehow), AND was miraculously lucky enough to find a liberal Sarah Palin, how on earth would they gain enough traction in the next two months for it to work?
Hail Mary, indeed! LOL
Geraldine Ferraro has already won the sell-out award from what I’ve read on other forums. The Hillary fans understand the politics of Hillary having to support Obama for the sake of the DNC, but they weren’t as understanding of Geraldine until someone pointed out that her finances are connected to big DNC supporters.
LOL!! Cute! :D Hopefully we won’t be such a debate again about women voters.
My wife is actually registering to vote this year, something she said she’d never do.
I dunno... it still looks like it looks, and that is bad. Perception is everything in politics, and Hillary is going to look like a broken down whore begging for Obama.
Yeah, "poor Hillary", she just keeps getting done in by these awful men.
Give me a break. That woman gave up any respect she might have gained when she played Obama's pimp game. I fully expected her to stand up to Obama and fight for the nomination, but no, she took another black eye "for the sake of the DNC".
Just like she "took one for the team" from Bill.
She threw away the last of whatever personal honor and integrity she had left, that night. The woman has no credibility left at this point.
I don't know that that's going to generate enough sympathy to rescue her political career. Some stains just never come out.
This is a pretty good article. Really hits home for me, as a Gen-X, mostly stay-at-home mother of 4 children, but who also works for pay 19 hours “at the office” and 5 hours at home.
She’s right on target and I’m glad she’s apologizing. Feminists are all incredibly stupid and old-fashioned. We are in a post-feminist era now.
Hi Yaelle—there you are!
I just wanted to add something else about stay-at-home mothers. While I support them completely, and in fact am one, basically, there are some women whose talent is so enormous that to be a stay-at-home mother is basically a waste of God’s gifts to that woman.
Sarah Palin is one of those women. It might have been better for her youngest baby if she were chosen to be VP when he was a little older, but her time is (apparently) now.
It’s my understanding that Todd Palin is a stay-at-home dad, correct?
Not to mention twice-monthly cleaning services!
My two favorite days of the month, and so worth every penny.
SNAP!
I can’t wait to use that line!
“She is 64 years and has wanted to vote for a woman since college...”
Odd, she had her chance in ‘84 - where was she then?
Heh.... yeah, that line works every time!
I wonder if the Dems will ever figure out why the women threw them out of the (White) house?
MSM/Dems: "Honey, please. You know I love you! I'll give you anything if you let me back in!"
Good for the author! She shows some integrity in admitting she was wrong.
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