St. Mom

I spoke to my mom today about my whole eye thing, and the first thing she said was, "I can give you my cornea," to which I said, "you can't just give your cornea away. You kind of need it." Her response was, "What do I need one cornea for? You can have it. I don't have to see out of both eyes, but you do." How crazy is that? My vision is a little blurry. It's not like I wear an eye patch! This struck me as a very "mom" thing to say. I thought it was incredibly amusing, but she was serious. She kept reminding me that she was serious on the phone before we hung up.

What does this have to do with McCain's VP choice or the Virgin Mary? Well, it made me think of moms and the expectation of sacrifice and devotion that is rarely applied to fathers. Palin is a mom, and one that is getting put through the ringer in a way I kind of expected. Now, I dislike this woman's policies, and I would never in a million years vote for her and as an American am pretty embarrassed that she could be the first woman VP (what with the ties to big oil, her anti-abortion stance, and her apparent hatred of Alaskan bears- both the animals and the gay men). That being said, there's all this discussion going around the webs and tvs concerning her ability to be a good VP and be a good mother at the same time. She's got a special needs infant, a teen-aged daughter that is pregnant, and I think three other kids that are so freaking glad right now that they aren't "mommy's little PR problem." I keep hearing about "how could she do a good job with the country if she can't run her family right?" Or, "how could she focus on VP duties with an infant and pregnant daughter?"

Curiously, these are not questions that anyone ever asked of the men who have run for VP. "Who is going to take care of your kids, Dan Quayle? Al Gore?" "Don't you think they need a father more than the country needs a VP?" I can't think of even men in managerial positions in offices that I have worked in being asked these questions. "Bill, are you sure you can handle being accounts manager of the entire company what with three young kids at home? Isn't it a little bit selfish?" How weird is it to think about those questions applied to men. It is 2008! I can forgive the lack of flying cars and food that zaps into existence out of nowhere, but the whole "women are nurturers and men are providers" stuff is way too behind, culturally, for me. And this is a big question for political pundits (who, by the way, are all such bottom feeders).

Some days I just wish we could appoint Amy Goodman as Journalism Czar. She could go from network to network and hit bad reporters and pundits on the back of the hand with a ruler and make them write ethical standards over and over again until they get them right. She could ban all hairspray from TV news broadcasts. She would erase Lauren Sanchez and the entire My 13 news team from our memories. They'd just be a bad bad dream... Oh Amy, I wish it were so.