Memo to Ann Romney: Motherhood is hard work, but it’s not a career
Whether you’re a father with a stay-at-home wife, a working mother with a partner, or a single mother on her own, the buck stops with you if you’re providing the primary financial support for your family—and that responsibility is often terrifying. We all have our wide-awake-at-3-in-the-morning nights, and no doubt Mrs. Romney has endured her share. But her worries, however grave, have never included the ability to feed her kids or keep a roof over their heads—and those are problems that regularly torture countless American women.
For most of them, working for pay is a necessity, and staying home to raise their children is not an option, despite the constant blather about “choice.” Whether or not we want to do so—and many of us do—the majority of us work because we have to, and our children depend on us to bring in a reliable income. No one who has never shouldered that responsibility can ever really know what it’s like—how scary it is, how hard it is, and how lonely it can feel…
When it comes to motherhood, there’s no shortage of heroism or sacrifice no matter which role you play. But for all too many families, if mom didn’t bring home the bacon, there wouldn’t be any food on the table.
Blowback
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The when…sometime in the past week.
The why…I dunno…for being herself? ;o)
I’m surprised you missed it. There was a huge party.
kakypat on April 14, 2012 at 4:50 PM
Ahh, I think you mistake liberal4life for libfreeordie, dont you?
Valkyriepundit on April 14, 2012 at 4:52 PM
Troll? Or fool…which one are you?
cicerone on April 14, 2012 at 4:57 PM
Polls. Here’s one that will drive you crazy.
Rasmussen has Mitt up by 5
Basilsbest on April 14, 2012 at 4:59 PM
This whole faux outrage outrage that the libs are now projecting is a twofer. Showcases their disdain for Moms who wander off the lib plantation and brings front and center the outrage games they’ve been playing since forever.
It should be put in their face the next time they stage a faux outrage.
HumpBot Salvation on April 14, 2012 at 5:01 PM
Pretty much. Most people would not call the collection of “jobs” they have had over their lifetime a “career”.
The snooty snotty lib-babe’s emphasis on “career” will not resonant positively with all of the married women who have “jobs” — and who do not delude themselves about having a “career” — and there are tens of millions of them. Just as there are tens of millions of working men who call what they do for a living their “job”, and not their “career”.
Affluent lefty-lib snobs living in mega-metro areas on the coasts just can’t hide their contempt for all of those other people living in fly-over country, such as the ones who have “jobs” and not “careers”.
farsighted on April 14, 2012 at 5:04 PM
Neither Mitt nor Ann Romney claimed to be personally acquainted with fiscal hardship and the tremendous stress that comes with it. All that was said was that Ann Romney told her husband that the economy was one of women’s greatest concerns. And then came Hilary Rosen’s rejoinder about Ann Romney never working a day in her life so what would she know. Leslie Bennetts’ is singing the same song, different verse, and they are still no closer a sane response to what Ann Romney actually said.
Their issue with Ann Romney is obviously not that she is a privileged white female; Rosen and Bennetts fall under the same category. Their real point of contention is the same one articulated by Linda Hirschman: “The tasks of housekeeping and child-rearing are not worthy of the full time and talents of intelligent and educated human beings.”
Threshing Flora on April 14, 2012 at 5:07 PM
Here you go.
Immolate on April 14, 2012 at 5:13 PM
Terrific.
ddrintn on April 14, 2012 at 5:18 PM
Triangulation is in effect playing both ends against the middle to appear to be the reasonable, sane person in the room. So, you have your surrogate go out there and make a comment sure to get Romney supporters riled up. Romney supporters, sensing an opening, take “riled up” just a little too far. Obama steps in and says spouses should be off limits. Played.
ddrintn on April 14, 2012 at 5:22 PM
Valkyriepundit…you are absolutely right. My apologies if I got your hopes up.
For some reason, I’ve always gotten those two mixed up.
kakypat on April 14, 2012 at 5:23 PM
de rigueur on April 14, 2012 at 4:22 PM
“… hope Romney believes it.”
Terrific! A wing and a prayer.
HerneTheHunter on April 14, 2012 at 5:29 PM
Your point is well taken. The sword does cut that way. However, it also cuts the other way.
Ann Romney has been made to look more sympathetic. The class envy card was meant to be played, but Rosen pulled out the anti-stay-at-home-mom card by mistake. The Leslie Bennetts keep raising the pot. I think we are waaaaay ahead on this one.
topdog on April 14, 2012 at 5:31 PM
Love it! Thank you!
Now, can we interest you in re-designing that awful DNC Convention logo on display at the top of the (currently) third item down on the Blog threads: “Will sex-harassment scandal in NC “doom” Democrats in 2012?” Suggestions around 4:45, 4:59PM?
de rigueur on April 14, 2012 at 5:41 PM
Same thing you got for Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, the Constitution Party, or a second Obama term. Choose one. But read the speech. And if Romney’s the nominee, and elected, hold him to it.
de rigueur on April 14, 2012 at 5:46 PM
Leslie,
It’s clear you chose to work to bring home lots of extra bacon:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/livefromthenypl/3836644589/
But that doesn’t give you the right to smear Ann Romney because she made a different choice.
pearson on April 14, 2012 at 6:02 PM
And again, that would be valid if politics worked that way. It doesn’t. What candidates say are irrelevant juxtaposed with the national conversation in an even-year November. Ann Romney being made into a sympathetic figure hurts, not helps, Obama, no matter what he chooses to say, because Obama’s opponent is Ann Romney’s husband. That’s why he’s attempting to defuse the situation. (Also, he probably legitimately doesn’t want Michelle to end up in the crosshairs, not to mention her terrorist friendships.)
If your understanding of triangulation were correct, politicians would be seeking to make the other side sympathetic all the time so they could stick up for their opponents. It doesn’t work that way. What you’re describing is a perfectly valid tactic, but there’s no radical agenda to be advanced here or even political advantage to be gained. Obama was already winning women by as much as he possibly could expect to take in November, and this conversation puts that in jeopardy. You send surrogates to attack the other side’s fake Greek columns or sexual history, not baseball and apple pie.
HitNRun on April 14, 2012 at 6:34 PM
In responding to ddrintn, you’re arguing with a guy who thinks he’s smarter than a man who made more than a quarter of a billion dollars using nothing but his brain.
Basilsbest on April 14, 2012 at 6:48 PM
Okay, how about this.
Immolate on April 14, 2012 at 7:55 PM
The problem with your triangulation hypothesis and your conclusion that Obama “won” is that Obama did not disavow and distance himself from the substance of what his minions said about Ann Romney.
And it is pretty obvious the attacks are consistent with his also obvious campaign strategy of painting Romney as the privileged rich guy.
Triangulation “fail”.
farsighted on April 14, 2012 at 8:15 PM
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