Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper:
What if Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin called up
Smartmom and demanded a meeting? It would make sense given that both
are working moms often accused of exploiting their families for the
sake of their careers.
If this did happen, Smartmom would almost certainly want to meet up
at Connecticut Muffin on Seventh Avenue after drop off — what better
place for a working mother (even one running for vice president) — to
meet other working moms (mama a mama).
Chances are, Palin would probably seem like any other multi-tasking
Park Slope mother sipping iced coffee, checking her Blackberry and
overseeing little Trig Paxson Van Palin in a Bill and Ted stroller —
except for the men in dark suits talking into their lapels (her Secret
Service detail).
And what if her daughter Piper started throwing pieces of bran muffin at the pigeons like a typical Park Slope 7-year-old?
“Stop playing with that mangy little bird. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t bring my rifle,” Palin might say.
Dressed in a business suit, funky eyeglasses and power high heels,
Palin would no doubt look like any other ambitious Park Slope working
mom on her way to the law firm or corporate office — except for the
fact that she happens to be a pro-life, anti-gay, fundamentalist
Christian who supports the war in Iraq, believes in the death penalty,
gun control and creationism and, as governor, did little to change a
school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the
country.
Still, Smartmom and Sarah have quite a bit in common. Both are
outspoken about being working mothers and love to tell the world about
their children. Both firmly believe that motherhood and the PTA
prepares you for just about anything (but not, Smartmom adds,
everything).
Like Smartmom, Palin believes that being a mom shouldn’t get in the
way of a woman’s goals and ambitions. But that’s easy to say. Not every
woman has the resources or the stamina for the double life of a working
mother. Nor can everyone afford to pay for a great babysitter, daycare,
and someone to help clean the house — those things that make working
life less taxing.
Smartmom found herself wondering what her mommy friends would say if
they saw Palin sitting at Connecticut Muffin. So she asked them.
Warm & Funny, a widow who lost her firefighter husband on 9-11,
e-mailed with this: “Facing a cafe full of stroller moms is probably a
lot more harrowing than shooting a wolf point-blank from a helicopter.
“Looking around at all the exhausted moms, clearly Palin understands
the sacrifice and commitment it takes to raise a healthy, secure
child,” Warm & Funny added. “So I am confused why she would ask
someone without resources, a husband and money to have a child even if
she was raped or the victim of incest.”
Smartmom’s pal, Wisegal, a working writer with a special-needs kid,
had this to say: “Most experts agree that children — especially
children with disabilities — ought to nurse their children for at least
a year. I guess that means that Palin will be pumping on the campaign
bus and carrying her youngest from state to state for three months?”
Opera Diva, a successful opera singer, voice teacher and mother of a
13-year-old boy, said that Palin’s right to be proud of her daughter’s
decision. “Thank God she lives in a free country where she still has
the right to choose,” Opera Diva said.
If Palin came to Park Slope, the land of Obama posters and buttons,
Smartmom would also want to show her some of the area’s great public
schools (where education is valued above all else), the Food Co-op
(where organic food, green politics and Socialist values co-exist
reasonably), the Community Bookstore, which carries many of the books
Palin wanted to ban as governor, and Babeland, the sex toys for women
shop near Flatbush Avenue, where, well, you know.
Smartmom would want to show off the small town feeling of Park Slope
and all of its interesting and opinionated citizens. However, if Palin
was hoping to snag a few undecided voters on Seventh Avenue she’d be in
for a surprise.
Clearly, she’s no fool, but maybe she doesn’t understand just how
different the Park Slope doctrine is from, say, the Bush doctrine.
Smartmom tried to imagine sitting with Palin at the green plastic
table in front of her apartment building sipping Chardonnay at the end
of the day. Parker could play with Mrs. Kravitz’s son over by the
garbage pails while Trig slept in her lap.
Mrs. Kravitz once donated a kidney to her husband and is a strong
believer in stem cell research, something that Palin opposes. She said
she’d surely ask the governor why she’s against something that could
help save lives.
In her fantasy, Smartmom imagined the limousine that would come to
take Palin, Trig and Parker away. And she imagines how glad she would
be to see her go because Sarah Palin isn’t the kind of mom that
Smartmom likes to hang out with.
Not only is she anti-choice, anti-gay and anti-everything that
Smartmom believes in, she displays a mean, disdainful attitude toward
people she disagrees with.
And if John McCain believes that he’s going to get even one vote
from the women who supported Hillary Clinton, he’s got something else
coming.
Now Hillary is someone Smartmom would love to have coffee with at Connecticut Muffin. Whaddya say, Senator?
