Mom's in the House - With Kids at Home

catzmeow · #1 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 10:57 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...802167_pf.html

Quote:

Before the sun rose over their Florida home, Debbie Wasserman Schultz pulled the thermometer from the mouth of her 8-year-old daughter, Rebecca, and checked the mercury: 103 degrees.

Stay home? Or go to work? It's a dilemma familiar to millions of working mothers. But her situation is complex: The job is 1,037 miles away, in Washington.

She got on the plane and flew to a New York fundraiser and then on to Washington for her workweek as a Democratic congresswoman. She knew her husband could handle Rebecca's fever.

Still, the guilt traveled with her. "It feels like someone's ripping my heart out," she said. "No matter how good your spouse is, kids want their mom when they're sick."

Wasserman Schultz, who also has a son, Rebecca's twin, and a 3-year-old daughter, is part of a select group, the 10 women in Congress raising children under 13. It's probably a congressional record, although no one has kept this particular statistic.

They reside on a shaky high wire, balancing motherhood with politicking, lawmaking, fundraising and the constant shuttle between Washington and their home states.

Most of the House members live apart from their children during the week, parenting by phone, e-mail and faxes and relying on husbands, family or nannies to fill the gaps. It's a lifestyle dictated by election cycle. The four senators live with their families in Washington but wake to the daily frenzy of integrating children into unpredictable workdays that can exceed 16 hours and fray relationships.

And they all live with a reality possibly even more difficult: The public will scrutinize and judge the mothering choices these politicians make. It is this that sets them apart from other professional women and their male counterparts in Congress, and the 10 in the group are keenly sensitive to it.

If they have private moments in which they question the work-life balance, most are reluctant to reveal them. Instead, they say their kids benefit from the special opportunities -- picnics at the White House and VIP tours of landmarks -- and get early exposure to public service. One boasted that her daughter, when she was 11, could rattle off an explanation of the Medicare "doughnut hole."

Several are determined to show that a woman can raise a family while serving in Congress. Nearly all say they feel compelled to use their own perspective as the tiny minority of working mothers in Congress to represent the 70 percent of mothers who have school-age children and jobs outside the home.

"In the Senate Finance Committee, we were talking about higher education and I looked around the room and thought, 'I'm the only one saving for college,' " said Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), whose twin boys are 11. "I'm not professing that my colleagues with grown children are any less compassionate. They're just not going through it."

Dear Democrats:

Please show some consistency. Quite clearly, these women should NOT be representing you in Congress. After all, it would be evil for them to put their careers ahead of their children. I wonder if their kids will end up pregnant and one of you will post a thread about that, too.

Working moms = bad for kids. Right? Even though 70% of mothers in the U.S. do, in fact, work.

I hate to quote Michelle Malkin here, but she's too right on not to:

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Ain’t feminism grand?

Thanks.

Catz

Yeshua_Lives · #2 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catzmeow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...802167_pf.html

Dear Democrats:

Please show some consistency. Quite clearly, these women should NOT be representing you in Congress. After all, it would be evil for them to put their careers ahead of their children. I wonder if their kids will end up pregnant and one of you will post a thread about that, too.

Working moms = bad for kids. Right?

I hate to quote Michelle Malkin here, but she's too right on not to:

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Ain’t feminism grand?

Thanks.

Catz

...but ...but....her children could grow up believing a WOMAN can ACCOMPLISH anything!!!

+++

F. Mulder · #3 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catzmeow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...802167_pf.html

Dear Democrats:

Please show some consistency. Quite clearly, these women should NOT be representing you in Congress. After all, it would be evil for them to put their careers ahead of their children. I wonder if their kids will end up pregnant and one of you will post a thread about that, too.

Working moms = bad for kids. Right?

I hate to quote Michelle Malkin here, but she's too right on not to:

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Ain’t feminism grand?

Thanks.

Catz

Excellent post!

Pro Deus Et Patria · #4 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catzmeow

Dear Democrats:

Please show some consistency. Quite clearly, these women should NOT be representing you in Congress. After all, it would be evil for them to put their careers ahead of their children. I wonder if their kids will end up pregnant and one of you will post a thread about that, too.

Working moms = bad for kids. Right?

You aren't seriously trying to say that this is the position of DEMOCRATS?

Try again. Try James Dobson of Focus on the Family, among the largest and most infamous right-wing Republican attack squads. James Dobson believes women should stay at home and cook and clean.

Focus on The Family / James Dobson Is LYING NOW?

Pretty poor of you to pretend like this hasn't been the position of the REPUBLICAN HARD RIGHT WING for decades.

catzmeow · #5 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:20 AM

I ran this by my daughter, who will be 15 in a month (god, i can hardly believe she's this old).

She said, "That's retarded." Then she asked: "Is Sarah Palin single?" When I told her that Sarah Palin is married, and her husband will be a full-time dad while she serves in the vice presidency...

My daughter said, "People are idiots."

Neither one of us really gets it. I've worked since she was an infant. Do I wish at times that I could have stayed at home? Of course. But, if you're going to have to work, it might as well be something meaningful where you have a chance to accomplish something.

Birdzeye · #6 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pro Deus Et Patria

You aren't seriously trying to say that this is the position of DEMOCRATS?

Try again. Try James Dobson of Focus on the Family, among the largest and most infamous right-wing Republican attack squads. James Dobson believes women should stay at home and cook and clean.

Focus on The Family / James Dobson Is LYING NOW?

Pretty poor of you to pretend like this hasn't been the position of the REPUBLICAN HARD RIGHT WING for decades.

Yabbut now that one of theirs is a mom trying for the 2nd highest office, their mantra has become:

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Go figure.

submarinepainter · #7 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catzmeow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...802167_pf.html

Dear Democrats:

Please show some consistency. Quite clearly, these women should NOT be representing you in Congress. After all, it would be evil for them to put their careers ahead of their children. I wonder if their kids will end up pregnant and one of you will post a thread about that, too.

Working moms = bad for kids. Right? Even though 70% of mothers in the U.S. do, in fact, work.

I hate to quote Michelle Malkin here, but she's too right on not to:

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Ain’t feminism grand?

Thanks.

Catz

excellent post catz !

farmer_fred · #8 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catzmeow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...802167_pf.html

Dear Democrats:

Please show some consistency. Quite clearly, these women should NOT be representing you in Congress. After all, it would be evil for them to put their careers ahead of their children. I wonder if their kids will end up pregnant and one of you will post a thread about that, too.

Working moms = bad for kids. Right? Even though 70% of mothers in the U.S. do, in fact, work.

I hate to quote Michelle Malkin here, but she's too right on not to:

If a Democrat mom chooses public office, she’s a patriot Wonder Woman imbued with Absolute Moral Authority on children’s, health, and social welfare issues.

If a Republican mom chooses public office, she’s the child-neglecting spawn of Satan who has no business debating any domestic public policy because of alleged hypocrisy.

Ain’t feminism grand?

Thanks.

Catz

Dear strawman argumenter,

Please use an existing argument to rebut rather than creating your own.

catzmeow · #9 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:31 AM

I've always been a working mom, and for that record, a Democrat, so I just assumed that the Democratic party would NEVER attack her choice to work. That would be the ultimate in hypocrisy, what with organizations like Emily's List and others trying to bring more women into politics.

And I support that. I want more women in office, because I think they have a clearer vision of what families need. I don't really care if they are democrats or republicans.

But for the Democrats to backlash against a working mom BECAUSE she's a working mom? That is such hypocrisy.

Birdzeye · #10 (**permalink**) 09-02-2008, 11:41 AM

Quote:

But for the Democrats to backlash against a working mom BECAUSE she's a working mom? That is such hypocrisy.

They have?????

And here I thought it was just a denunciation of right wing hypocrisy, y'know, where we've been hearing from James Dobson and his ilk lots of blather about how a mom's place is in the home with the kids, but the rules are different for Sarah Palin, one of their own.

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