I never write political posts. Ever. It’s just not my bag.
(Unlike my friend,
Amy, whose bag it totally is, since she’s currently
authoring the Dem-leaning blog at
BabyCenter. Yay, Amy!)
But this morning as I went to check my email, I saw a Yahoo!
News story that I couldn’t help clicking on, and then writing about.
I don’t know squat about Ann Romney, except that she’s a
Republican, she’s married to Mitt, and she’s a mother.
(I don’t presume to understand any of her
or her husband’s views on religion, healthcare, education, politics, or whether
they drive a domestic or imported car or prefer Burger King over McDonald’s. I,
frankly, don’t care. I won’t be voting the Republican ticket in November, no matter
who wins the nom. So, there's that.)
There is only one reason I clicked on that article: she is a mother.
This fact alone nullifies the
statement that she “hasn’t worked a day
in her life.” Upon reading the headline, I instinctively knew Ann was of the
stay-at-home variety of mothers, and somebody had used that against her.
This is where I’ve deleted great rambling paragraphs
about Ann Romney’s being white, and rich, and fay-un-cee and not being circumstantially forced
to choose between being with her children and working in a factory or at a temp
service or in a high-rise office building. The why and the how of her
life choices have no bearings on this post.
When I saw that the
person who made the statement is a Democrat, I was disappointed. When I saw
that the Democrat who made the statement is a woman, I was saddened. When I saw
that the woman who made the statement is a mother, I was outraged.
According to Wikipedia,
the woman who made the statement is Hilary Rosen; “a partner in the political communications
firm, SKDKnickerbocker with offices in DC and New York and LGBT activist.”
Also, according to Wikipedia, she has a son and a daughter (twins) with her
former partner.
She’s a Democrat.
She’s a woman.
She’s a mother.
I am embarrassed for her, for the statement
she made.
Women have to keep constant vigil, we have to fight, we have to earn, we have
to wage war against a world that says
we are not smart enough or strong enough to be on par with men. We should not
have to do battle within the XX-chromosomed arena to prove our worth. We, as
mothers, should not ever ever accuse
another mother of not working a day in her life.
I have friends who
prefer to work full-time outside of their homes. I have friends who don’t have
a choice and, in order to feed their children, work full-time. I have friends
who work part time.
Who have nannies.
Who employ their own mothers.
Who take parenting shifts with their spouses.
Who are single.
Who have the luxury (and yes, it is absolutely a luxury- if you choose to see it that way) of staying home full-time with
their children. All of them, every single one in every single situation, work.
I have walked in
almost all of those particular shoes:
Single mother working full time.
Married with my husband working during the day and myself working a graveyard
shift.
Full-on stay-at-home-mom earning no income.
This is where I’ve deleted great rambling paragraphs
about how maybe that was the intent of Ms. Rosen’s statement- that since Mrs.
Romney never held a paying position, never contributed income to the Romney
family’s already-sizable bank account, that what she did as a mother and wife (and
daughter and friend, and breast cancer survivor and…) did not count as real work. That you don’t work in this society unless you are
earning money.
Currently, I
stay at home with my kids during the day and wait tables two or three nights a
week.
Every family’s
circumstances, struggles, finances, values... are different. Not one family dynamic is the same as another’s. It is not up to the public, to strangers, to someone
from the opposite sex or the opposite political party or the opposite end of
the socio-economical spectrum to say whether what we do, the choices we make
for our families, works or not.
The faster we learn to support each other- as mothers, as women, as actual human beings all running the same actual race- the better our country will be.
No matter which side of the fence you hang your political hat.
.
