Posted on 01/08/2009 1:52:14 PM PST by presidio9
With her Camelot pedigree and Park Avenue address, Caroline Kennedy is not exactly the average American woman. But many women identify with her impulse to enter the work force after two decades of child rearing.
Kennedy's bid for the Senate has reignited the "mommy wars" between mothers with careers and those who take a break from paid employment. Like Kennedy, many women face resentment when they return to the work force after raising kids and doing volunteer work.
"She's a Kennedy, but she's a lot like us," was the headline of a Dec. 28 column by Anne Glusker in The Washington Post. "If you strip away the glamour, the name and the money, then Caroline is ... me. And many of my friends."
Kennedy, 51, graduated from Columbia Law School but never practiced law. She raised three children, wrote and edited several books, served on the boards of public service organizations and worked as the unpaid chief of fundraising for the New York City schools.
Now that Kennedy's three children are adults or nearly so, she is opting to get back onto the career track, though on a much grander scale than most women.
Some experts who study women's careers see Kennedy as a potential model for women without her connections.
"My research shows that almost 40 percent of women do take an off ramp and do all kinds of things in the private sphere, whether it's saving the wetlands or running the PTA," said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Center for Work-Life Policy and the author of "Off Ramps and On Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success." "But none of that gives them much credit in the world of work."
Critics of Kennedy's sudden interest in the Senate see a dilettante with a
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Actually, I think liberal use of “you know” has the same root as liberal use of “ummm”, namely that the speaker has trouble organizing thoughts and putting them into words fast enough to speak with continuous content at a normal pace.
you read my mind my FRiend.
She's a member of the highest caste of the Liberal Elite. THAT makes her 'glamorous' and peons like you and I are not supposed to question the natural order of things when faced with the shining visages of our Divinely Appointed Rulers.
This whole Caroline issue is really stupid. What happened to Nita Lowy, the woman who has worked her way up through NY politics and wanted to run for Senator, but got a visit from Hillary and decided not to?
Mahat, I dispute the glamour part. She is worth over 100 million...she couldn’t drop by the CVS and pick up some Oil of Olay?
And the ‘rearing’ quote...what no nannies or domestic staff? We are to believe that hausfrau Schlosssssssburg has been toiling away, Swiffering the Park Avenue Penthouse all these years? No. She is not the average American mom. Whoever in Kennedy camp who came up with this cockamamie plan, should be fired.
It all comes down to the Kennedy Quota in the US Senate that must be upheld. Of her generation’s cousins, I will concede that Sweet Caroline is probably the only one who could pass a drug test.
I suppose that is better than being a model for rear-entry women.
Well silverleaf, see how far your small thinking gets you. Luitenant Gov? Pfffft...
Yeah, all of you multi-millionaire women, here is how you get back into the job market.
I'm going to have my wife look into this.
Ping for later
C’mon! Did I REALLY need to put a sarcasm tag on that? Geez.
Having an actual face is so XX Century, girlfrien' ....
Barney Frank and Jim McGreevey: Currently among the most prominent, um, re-entry politicians.
And it ain't enough.
Actually, the Skeletor moniker has (rightfully) been assigned for years, to Mr. Jennifer Lopez. Marc Anthony reigns as media Skeletor.
I believe we need a more creative tag for Frau Schlosssssssburg.
BS. The ‘re-entry’ women I know couldn’t just say they wanted a certain job when they were ready to go back to work or switch careers. Sometimes they had to go back to school, sometimes they had to take an entry level job in order to get a foot in the door, sometimes they had to volunteer to build up a network of contacts.
I hate to play the race card here, because I’m sure Caroline Kennedy does NOT resonate with most white women, but only a middle class white woman would compare herself to a rich white woman who never had to do a thing in her life and say, ‘hey, she’s just like me!’ Dim women are just so...dim.
I never thought of the US Senate as a re-entry position. Maybe I could give it a shot after working 5 years before marriage and kids in mortgage loans at a couple of Savings and Loans! I’ve only been out of the job market for 30 years, but hey, I’ve been Class Mom, PTA President, on the School Board of our kids’ Catholic School, and on the Parish Council. I’m just as qualified at Caroline, right? ;o)
But I think the media has gotten enough mileage out of Caroline's "seat," so now they're floating "re-entry women" as another attention-catching double-entendre.
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