Recently, the Democratic chattering class and the media have developed a fondness for mommies and babies that they have never before displayed (it must have been all those cute pictures of the Palin family with their Down Syndrome child.)
Suddenly, liberals everywhere--especially feminists--are incredibly concerned that if Mrs. Palin becomes the Vice-President of the United States, poor baby Trig might be deprived of 24-hour a day access to his Mommy.
This, we are informed, would be a disaster of epic proportions.
But why?
Aren't these the people who are endlessly scolding those of us on the socially conservative side of the spectrum for our silliness in expecting children to have both a Mommy and a Daddy?
Daddy Todd Palin, currently the First Gentleman of Alaska, is a stay-at-home dad, and plans to continue the practice as the Second Gentleman of the United States. He is, by all accounts, a devoted and wonderful dad. Mommy Sarah takes her baby to work with her as needed, and the family all works together.
But if this is unsatisfying to formerly anti-traditional liberals, would they like to withdraw their support for homosexual couples having and/or adopting children? Particularly when both parties are working?
If it's okay--even, many argue, preferable--to raise a child with two Daddies and no Mommy, or two Mommies and no Daddy, why is it suddenly child abuse to raise a child with a full-time Daddy and a working Mommy, and lots of relatives, sitters, and nannies (as I'm sure will be available to the Vice-President of the United States)?
I'm just asking.
I would also like someone to tell me how old one's children must be before one is allowed to enter the full-time work force? I ask this because I always thought feminists were adamant on getting us all back to work as soon as possible after giving birth, but now Sally Quinn tells me that Bristol Palin--an engaged young lady (when I was a feminist, everyone over 12 was a "woman" (or "womon," if she were a lesbian or an enlightened radical)--requires the care of her mother for an unspecified amount of time:
McCain claims he knew about the pregnancy, and was not at all concerned. Why not? Not only do we have a woman with five children, including an infant with special needs, but a woman whose 17-year-old child will need her even more in the coming months. Not to mention the grandchild. This would inevitably be an enormous distraction for a new vice president (or president) in a time of global turmoil. Not only in terms of her job, but from a media standpoint as well.
So, does that mean that we should not hire as public servants anyone whose children are small, or in poor health, perhaps people whose siblings are on the edge of divorce, or who might have any reason to think about their family--even a little bit--while at work? What about people who have elderly parents who might become ill or die?
And is this requisite judgment retroactive? Do we judge politicians on this behavior in the past? If so, what do we make of Joe Biden, who was sworn in as a Senator at the bedside of his critically ill sons after an accident that took the life of their mother and brother? Was that the wrong choice to have made? Should we now judge him to have been an unfit parent and bar him from the vice-presidency? Or is the Senate so much less stressful and time-consuming than the Vice-presidency that it doesn't matter--and, if so, why is it considered on the Obama side to be so much better a training ground for the office than a Governorship?
And why, oh why didn't anyone question the propriety of John Edwards continuing to ravenously seek the presidency--an office very few people really wanted him to have in the first place--while his wife was, quite literally dying of cancer? Why didn't anyone ask whether that would have been a terrible distraction to the devoted husband he was claiming to be at the time?
Is it because he is a Democrat, and the media rule on Democrats is "touch not mine anointed?" You'll note that the Republicans didn't ask the question; they're too polite. But until the media clarifies its rules on family devotion, I will remain in the dark.
No, really. I just don't understand the rules.
Like, did anyone bother to ask Jack Kennedy about his children? As I recall, they were small at the time (remember John-John saluting the coffin?) I seem to remember that the Kennedy children were all over the White House all the time. Lots of cute family pictures of babies playing near the President's desk and all that. Is it only okay for men to bring their children to work?
The Obamas kids are both girls, both will reach the age to make sexual mistakes before eight years in the White House are up. Is it too much pressure to put them in the White House? Might all that stress lead them to rebellion?
And what about Michelle? She already works. how is she going to handle the pressures of being First Lady, all the travel and entertaining, while trying to be a good mother to two little girls, driving them to ballet and piano lessons? She's already talked about how much time she spends planning their lunches and reading labels on the food she is buying--how will she ever find time for all that in the demanding pressure-cooker that is the life of the First Lady?
I'm not asking these questions, but I do wonder why the media doesn't.
After all, they don't seem to have a problem prying into when Bristol Palin might have become pregnant, whether the Palins were married when Track was conceived, what discussions the Palins had with their doctors about the impending birth of their baby (normally, under liberal rules, an unheard-of intrusion into the right to privacy; HIPPA takes a dim view of it, too), and a lot of other things that used to be labeled "off limits."
I'm just asking for a set of written guidelines, that's all. Just tell me the rules.
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