The “mommy wars” — the seemingly endless debate over whether mothers should work or stay home with their kids — erupted into a new arena this week: the Xcel Center in Minneapolis, where Republicans were preparing to nominate Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Suddenly, on political blogs, “mommy” blogs and on cable television, male commentators and mothers alike were asking whether Palin — the mother of five, including a pregnant 17-year-old and a 4-month-old child with Down syndrome — should be even running for vice president at all.
“I would DEFINITELY NOT run for VP of the United States if I had a very young special needs infant and a pregnant minor,” was a fairly typical entry from a blogger identifying herself as “Suzeet” on PittsburghMom.com.
“There is a time and place for everything, and now is not the time for Palin to put her career before her family,” said “Suzeet,” who described herself as “an over-achiever working mom with three kids and three stepkids.”
McCain’s campaign denounced as “chauvinists” those who questioned Palin’s ability to be a mother and a candidate at the same time.
Nancy Pfotenhauer, a senior policy adviser with the McCain campaign — and a mother of five herself — bemoaned the “double standard” being applied, not just by bloggers, but by “Democratic activists trying to pull down the McCain-Palin ticket.”
“Let’s not go after someone’s family,” she said in a phone interview from McCain headquarters.
Palin’s dilemma, in some ways, is one that many women can relate to: According to the most recent government statistics available, nearly two-thirds of American mothers with preschool-age children were in the labor force in 2003.
Palin also isn’t the first female politician to be criticized for seeking electoral office instead of staying at home with her children. When Jane Swift ran, unsuccessfully for governor of Massachusetts and gave birth to twins, she was criticized for conducting state business from the maternity ward.
And for Pennsylvania Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin, hearing CNN commentator John King wonder this weekend whether Palin could handle five children and the vice presidency was “deja vu all over again.”
When she first ran for Superior Court, Melvin — who, she says with a laugh, has “only six” children — was asked in an appearance before a Pennsylvania Bar Association panel that would grade her qualifications for the post, ” ‘Who’s going to take care of all your children?’ “
“It took my breath away,” said Melvin, who won her judicial race with the help of her husband, Greg Melvin, an investment banker who worked from home and handled child care duties while she traveled.
Melvin is a Republican, but even some Obama supporters — and strong feminists — were annoyed Tuesday by this new line of questioning about Palin’s career and motherhood choices. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, called the questions “ludicrous.”
“It’s absolutely sexist,” added Kate Michelman, former president of the National Abortion Rights Action League. “It’s these old, deeply held attitudes surfacing again about prescribed roles for women. I have questions about her candidacy for reasons that have nothing to do with her role as a mother. I so deeply respect her strength, though, at knowing what she wants to be doing, what is hard to do, and balancing her professional life with her family life.”
Not all feminists agreed, however.
At MojoMom —which “explores the intersection between feminism and reality” — one poster, Karen Maezen Miller, argued that the debate over Palin’s caregiver arrangements “is not really about women, or motherhood or families or choice, or the freedom but the disingenuous way in which her party co-opts and corrupts the truth of the matter for mere political gamesmanship.”
Indeed, “there is a huge implied insult to Mr. Palin,” added Pfotenhauer, of the McCain campaign.
“There seems to be this presumption out there that Mr. Palin can’t parent, which is offensive.”
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