End the Mommy Wars

I'm a mommy who has serious concerns about Palin's family choices. Generally, I do not criticize other women's choices that are different from my own but when you are held up as a roll model for women and our daugters and that your (apparent) success is meant to support the deception that women can do it all - all at the same time. I have a serious problem. We are highly talented and very capable but we all have the same 24 hours in the day. The weakness in Sara's own family that results from her choices is personal. But when we parade Sara Palin as a champion of future women, we weaken the next generation of familes.

I don't believe that a candidate (male or female) that doesn't understand a family in crisis should have any part in the running of our country. Where are the "values" that leave a newborn at three days to return to work? And, where are the "values" that would subject her teenager daughter to this media circus? She should have said "no thanks" to McCain and taken care of her family...if she is such a star...her time would wait!!!

Perhaps it would be appropriate for the public to concern itself with politicial candidates' career ambitions in relation to family obligations and challenges regardless of the candidates' gender. I can't help but care if a candidate makes his or her political aspirations a priority at the expense of family (and please don't try to convince me that the Vice President -- and potentially the President, of the United States -- will have ample one and one time with a four month old son, a pregnant seventeen year old daughter, and three other children while actively addressing the needs of the nation). For me it is a ,matter of character. I am a single professional woman, and I need to make difficult choices when faced with balancing my childrens' emotional needs with our family's financial obligations. It's important to me that the candidate I vote for has, by and large, similiar priorities. One day my children will not need my attention to the degree that they do now. But while they do, they will have it. The responsibility I accepted when I chose to have my children supercedes my professional ambitions. And I believe that I'd feel the same way if I were a man.

Mommy wars it is! The issue over stay at home moms vs. working moms will be debated for decades to come. The point is that I have seen stay at home moms raise some pretty screwed up kids and hard-working moms raise some great ones. Because a mother chooses to work vs. stay at home does not make her a better or a worse mom. My personal opinion from my many years of observing children grow up is the ones with working moms tend to be more self-sufficient and less needy when they grow up - especially the men!

I am a working mother and I struggle every day to be the best mother I can be and also keep my boss happy, my husband satisfied and my house maintained (not necessarily in that order). It is not easy, but it can be done. If I truly mean it when I tell my daughter "you can be anything you work hard enough to be" then I have to support Palin in her decision to run. It will mean sacrifices for her family and her personally, but what political person has not had to make sacrifices for the greater good when they chose to enter politics. What is politics, if not standing up for others, even if it means sacrificing yourself? She is a mother of five and is willing to sacrifice herself and her family time to make a better world for her five children, her son at war, her grandchild soon to be born and my child as well. She has the drive to see it through and I for one applaud her for it and will support her in her task. My vote is for Sarah.

I am sorry, I personified the single working mom for 14 years. I lived in a state 2300 miles from my family, and I must admit that I believe God did help me by placing people and employment at a place that was sympathetic to the demands of motherhood. I was 33 years old, had a decent job and ONE child, and though there is nothing I would change, I would never reccommend such a situation. To be seventeen and pregnant is far from a prerequisite for successful child rearing, and so what if she marries the father? How many teen age love affairs are everlasting ? Yet a teen husband andwife with a child? Are you kidding??? How can this woman even contemplate being Vice president of the USA and she has FIVE children and an expecting grandchild whose mother is 17? How can we as a country even contemplate allowing any one with little experience, still a somewhat young mother herself put that kind of strain on herself ? Superwoman is a comic book character. But what I have surmised is that being an attentive and supporting mom is not this woman's priority or she would not be in her situation.. Hillary was done with child rearing, and though she was always politically active, A 24/7 job I'm sure she had the good sense not to try to do. She found balance in her life, and Chelsea is a product of that balance. I am not impressed by this woman, strictly from a moral standpoint and my belief in you should always do the right thing. I am ashamed of John McCain for putting this woman in such a position. I know work and family can be done, I've done it, but five children in this day and age is a bit extreme and vice president of the USA is also an extreme job, it is impossible to do both without one or the other and most cases both suffering irrepairble damge.

Seriously? We've had all this time to hear every little detail about the Obama/McCain/Biden personal bios and political histories. McCain nominates someone that most people have never even heard of, whose entire history (political or otherwise) is unfamiliar, and people are crying foul over all of the questioning? This is politics...it's a public process. Answer the questions, answer the criticisms, or go home.

It is amazing to me the hypocrisy that still exists everywhere in politics and how as voters, we still don't focus on the right things. Shouldn't the focus be on the economy and the war and the security of the country? Instead we are focused on the issue of a woman running for vice president and how she balances that with raising a family. Goes to show you how many uneducated people are out there today. Did anyone question President Clinton when he was running with a teenage daughter living in the white house how he planned on balancing raising a daughter and being the president. And shouldn't the people that are so concerned about Sarah Palin's ability to raise children have been more concerned with the fact that both of the Clinton's were involved in politics when President Clinton was in office? Have we all forgotten that teenagers will usually do what their parents DON'T want them to do?

The lack of education in this country is really showing if we are more concerned about the sex of our candidates than the education of our children. Wake up people and focus on the REAL issues!!!

This is about choices ??? Sarah Palin???s and John McCain???s.

First ??? and this relates directly to Ms. Deveny???s article ??? there is the issue of the choices faced by Sarah and Bristol Palin. Being pro-choice, I can understand and, indeed, find laudable Governor Palin???s decision to have her latest child. One has to wonder, however, about Bristol???s ???choice??? to have her baby and to marry someone who might not make the best father and husband. To what degree was that ???choice??? forced on young Bristol by her very ambitious mother? Governor Palin???s decision to plod ahead with a national political campaign ??? a campaign she must have known would shine a bright spotlight of publicity on a daughter in crisis ??? speaks volumes about the Governor???s priorities and, yes Ms. Deveny, her mommy skills.

The second point relates to Mr. McCain???s choice - forced on him by the ???Base??? that smeared him in 2000. It has been described as a ???bold gamble.??? But, one must ask, a ???bold gamble??? with what? It???s one thing to gamble ??? boldly - with the future of a political campaign; it???s entirely another thing to gamble ??? recklessly ??? with the future of our country. Is it his to gamble with?

???Boldly,??? by the way, connotates ???strength.??? But Senator McCain???s caving in to the expediency of winning at any price reeks of weakness ??? the sort of weakness that throws into question the entire narrative of courage being woven around him. Courage, after all, is not just physical.

Yes, there???s one more choice that needs mentioning ??? ours!

"John McCain made a rushed, misguided, flat out wrong choice in choosing her, not through any fault of Palin's. "

Really? Her being in the running for this position for months is making a rushed decision? Why? Because you don't know her? Because she is "new" to the national political scene?

In my book that is good - she is not a bloated, sycophantic career politician. She has fresh eyes and a history of acting against corruption. That will be a welcome "change" in Washington. All that - versus Biden - 36 years of being a Senator - and NOTHING else.

She is a clear choice for the "change" Obama supposedly represents.