POLITICS

When the grandchildren read this blog, they might wonder why Great-grandma kept yammering away about herself and never wrote about the Events of the Day. So I'll try. Briefly.

We are approaching a presidential election. I can't stand it. I guess this is why I don't write about Events, because I honestly can't stand to watch or listen to the candidates and the commentary--it makes me too nervous.

So, McCain has picked this Palin chick for his VP candidate. Now I really can't stand it. On a trivial note, there's the fact that everyone is suddenly making a fuss about how great her eyeglasses are, and she paid something like $400 for them (see my post on buying cheap glasses online to see what I think about paying that much for a pair of glasses).

But what really gets to me is her kids. Every time someone says something like, "She has five kids, including a new baby with Down Syndrome, so maybe she shouldn't run for VP," the Republicans get all huffy and snap back, "You'd never say that to a man."

Maybe not. Whatever. But I am now wondering if we've liberated women at the expense of children.

See, there are only so many hours in a day, and SOMEBODY has to take care of a kid once it's born. Day care and nannies can only go so far. Kids are loud, messy, and restrictive. In the end, the only people who can really take responsibility for kids are their parents, because parents are blinded by hormones.

Paternal hormones allow parents to put up with all the drawbacks that kids have and to see only the cuteness, the neediness, and how adorable it is that Junior's nose looks just like Uncle Ed's (luckily, these hormones can also kick in if you adopt a kid who looks nothing like Uncle Ed--then you can think, thank goodness, finally someone in the family doesn't look like Uncle Ed).

Only parents will stick around for eighteen years (and sometimes even they don't).

Sometimes Moms do a crummy job. I myself have done my share of crummy parenting--ask my kids, they'll probably be happy to tell you about it. But the point is, a Mom is supposed to be available. I sometimes think that ninety percent of the Mom job is just showing up.

Maybe I'm dumb and uninformed, but I kinda thought that Down Syndrome babies (the kid is five months old) require a certain extra level of observation, intervention, and therapy in order to achieve their potential. Mom's running for VP and Dad seems to go along with her, so who's holding that baby 24/7?

My husband Fred loves all the political stuff and watches hours of it on TV every night. He says that one night at the Republican convention, McCain's wife was holding Palin's baby. Then the baby got passed to Dad just long enough for the cameras to zoom in. Then Dad handed the baby (a five-month-old with Down Syndrome, remember) to the other young kid, age seven (the same age as our Lillie). Other Young Kid then held, played with, and generally messed with the baby. Kids this age do love babies, and our Amelia was a huge help to me when Lillie was born, but I did supervise them--I wasn't up on a stage somewhere hoping that somebody else was supervising them.

What the heck is a baby doing at a political convention, anyway? Can you imagine the noise level? The germs? I don't even think the seven-year-old belonged at the convention, at least not for any length of time.

There are only so many hours in a day. They've got themselves the baby. They've got themselves the seven-year-old (is Mom reading to her every day? tucking her in at night?). They've got themselves a pregnant 17-year-old (just in case a pregnancy turns out to be too much for the teen and her boyfriend to handle without help, is Mom going to be available for the prenatal appointments, for the birth, to help with the baby?). I believe a Mom and Dad can have a career and kids too, but aren't there some limits, depending on the age of the kids and the type of career? I mean, isn't the vice-president of the U.S. kind of, like, busy?

Oh, dear. I just ran across something that says that Palin is also in favor of aerial hunting of wolves and bears. Nothing like giving the critters a sporting chance, is there? Of course, if you hunt from an airplane, I guess you can take the kids with you.

Yeah, Obama has kids too. I have heard the arguments (unwillingly, out of one ear while I was walking away from Fred's TV set).

In one of my favorite children's books, Gone-Away Lake (or maybe it was the sequel) an old man sits puffing his pipe and reading a fifty-year-old newspaper. He says old news is more comforting to read, because you know you lived through it.

Excuse me. The news is on again. I have to go find myself a fifty-year-old newspaper.