Palin nominated for worst mom

With all the power vested in me as a political blogger and mother who raised two smart, kind, involved, beautiful daughters in the Great State, the Lone Star State, the Friendship State, the Longhorn or Armadillo State, I do hereby nominate Sarah Palin the worst mother of the latter half of 2008. I would have picked her for the whole year, but there's that mom who microwaved her infant and even Palin isn't THAT bad: She only threw her teen into a whirlwind and under the campaign bus with the whole world watching.

I think, and have lived my whole life with this credo, that women who have children should be with those children, as much and as long as she can. She should be close enough to feed them problems to solve as they gain the skills and information to solve them. For example, at 2, they should be able to choose between two outfits and whether it's OK to wear them inside out. They learn from consequences if they scream and lay on the floor at pre-K because they don't want to wear their coats outside, they get cold on the playground. They learn the stove is hot by a little touch on the outside of the oven. They don't learn to dress warmly by running naked in a blizzard or that fire burns by sticking their hands in the fireplace.

When they mess up, say, get a grasp on the physical principle of gravity by jumping off the porch and spraining an ankle, a mom should be close enough to dry their tears and apply ice and hugs. When they start taking on the bumps and bashes of social interaction, get snubbed by the popular kids or pinched or punched by a bully; when they just give up on ever learning algebra; when she starts her period and needs a change of clothes; when that first crush breaks his heart, Mom needs to be there to listen to those huge problems. And they are huge. They are earth-shattering, because that's all the world they know and that's how they learn to cope with life. That's the second wave of their core concepts of whether the world is a basically good place they can trust or whether life is hard and punishing and its them alone against it all.

All of us mothers in the latter part of the 20th century and the first part of the 21st understand the reality that we must work and we are going to miss many of those moments in our children's lives. We have to deal with them when we get home from work. And in this horrible economic time, more and more women are forced into the workplace who would choose to be at home with their kids, a choice less advantaged women have never had.

There are so many wonderful fathers out there; single fathers, we can just plug into those lines above as Dad in place of Mom; so many terrific guys who are choosing to be the primary caregiver to his children to allow his families needs to be met immediately with Mom coming in to reinforce that as soon as she in from work. We have Joe Biden as a role model of how a loving, nurturing father can go to work in a powerful office, with the support of family members and great caregivers, and come home every night and listen to their stories and problems. Biden, however, did not seek the vice presidency, the heart-beat away position, when he was performing the vital role of Mr. Mom.

BUT, Sarah Palin's story is vastly different from any of that. She has five children, one going off to war, a young teenager, one who looks about 8, a special needs infant and a teenager who is about to become a mother herself. I don't know much about Mr. Palin, but he doesn't appear to be much of a Mr. Mom. I don't think he stayed home from his commercial fishing business to take care of the newborn baby with Down Syndrome when Sarah Palin went back to work three days after the baby's birth. And in the tragic case that she does become president, she could be locked in a war room for days at a time; in her office conferring with economic advisors past their bedtime and too late for talking for weeks at a time.

So here are the wherefores I would attach to my nomination:

-- Whereas Sarah Palin knowingly brought her daughter and her daughter's baby daddy into a political maelstrom at the most painful, scary and stressful time of their lives;

-- Whereas Bristol and Levi, living in that fishbowl, must make decisions that they and their baby will have to live with the rest of their lives;

-- Whereas she has three other children who, if she should get her wish to be vice president and becomes president, will know for the remainder of the next four years that they come second to every other person in America;

--- Whereas they will have no Mom there -- to dry their eyes, dream of their futures, put it all in perspective, tell them to get over it, look at their great art and put it on the refrigerator, help them to learn from their mistakes without being crushed -- until after all the people's work is done in war and in peace;

-- Whereas Bristol will pretty much be on her own to plan her wedding, learn how to be a Mother and wife and deal with the public stress (oh, Bristol, here carry Trig in front of your belly and spread the blanket out so no one can see that pooch you got going. Stop whining, that baby's going to be the first grandbaby of the first Republican woman nominated vice president)

-- Whereas Mr. Palin is not Michelle Obama, who is willing and able to be the primary parent 25 hours a day;

-- And Whereas Sarah Palin will be spending much of her first year in office learning to define the borders of Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq (special tutors must be employed because her boss doesn't know it) and studying what this economics thing is about in a country that is not oil rich and has more than 600,000 people within its borders;

I do hereby nominate Sarah Palin the worst mother of the last half of 2008 and, in an unimaginable nightmare, the next four years.

You can cast your vote here or e-mail me at kismetacres@hotmail.com