Come FLY with me

Back in May of this year I was starting to really lose it. Q had just recently gotten his Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis. I was trying to figure out which therapies to try and, since I had very limited funds, what I could do with him myself at home. I was overwhelmed trying to take care of a 3 year old and a one year old already. Add in another hour or two of specific therapy a day and suddenly I was getting nothing done. The house was a mess (not that it was ever perfect to begin with), I was a mess, and I was just plain getting lost in the shuffle. Then two different people mentioned a website to me, and after I went there and joined, I was able to start to put my life back into some kind of order. It may sound crazy. DH calls it a cult. But I have to tell you about it in case you need it like I did.

Meet FlyLady. Flylady is for people who have problems getting organized and focusing. FlyLady is for people who are perfectionists and never do anything for fear that it won't be perfect. If you are born organized (BO in flylady terms) and you are not a perfectionist, go about the rest of your life happily. You do not need flylady. If you are not organized and you don't care, also go about your life. You don't need anybody to change you if you're happy. However, if you are neither of these things, if you are a mess and unhappy with that mess, not able to keep your house, or your life, in order and it drives you nuts, please go visit flylady.

I hesitated to talk about flylady earlier because well, for one, it is kind of a cult, with its own jargon, endless e-mails, and large following. But I guess also because it is kind of the thing you might expect a housewife to do. Kind of like watching Oprah. (Though Oprah does have some very good shows from time to time. Not that I watch that sort of thing. ) It is the kind of thing a typical middle american white Christian housewife would like. And I guess above all I do not see myself that way. That's another blog entry but let's just say that though I feel that being part of the flylady cult, or FLYing in Flylady terms, has changed how I look at my house and even at my life as a whole, I am a little ashamed of needing so much help to keep myself on the right track.

I'm not going to explain the system to you. She does that far better than I ever could. And if you're interested you should check it out. I warn you ahead of time that flylady sends out a lot of emails. And she doesn't do well with whining. It's kind of like tough love. But if you let it, it does work.

I will share with you some of my favorite nuggets of Flylady wisdom:
1. You are not behind! I don't want you to try to catch up; I just want you to jump in where we are.
2. Housework done imperfectly still blesses your family.
3. You can do anything for 15 minutes.
4. Take babysteps.
5. You can't organize clutter. You can only get rid of it.
And my all time favorite:
6. Your house (life, relationships, work) did not get dirty overnight. You can't expect to get it clean in one night.

I admit that I have kind of fallen off the bandwagon lately and I have to revamp my routines and get back to where I want to be. But I guess the best part is that I am in control. If I want it to get better it can and if I decide some things won't work for me (I still don't wear shoes in my house. Flylady would not be pleased!) I don't have to do them. But I am decluttering my house, my life, my mind, and making room for other, better things. If you're interested in decluttering, organizing, and finding some peace, then please, come FLY with me.

You can tell everybody this is your song

Recently I got my hair highlighted. I had thought about doing it for some time. I had never colored my hair before. My hair is really dark brown but with some natural auburn highlights. I always wondered if a little more red would look nice. Being that I am into trying to look a little more hip and a little less boring old mom, I decided to try it. I love my hairdresser. It took me forever to find one I liked down here. But finally I did and so I trusted her to make me look good. I had no idea what it would like. It was kind of a leap of faith.

When I got to see my hair after they washed off the color solution I was a little shocked. My highlights are like a burgundy red. More red than I expected. Certainly not what you might call natural looking in my hair. But somehow it was really cool. I loved it. A color risk I probably never would have taken if I had picked it out. And so much better because I didn't get a chance to say no. It was just there, making me look different, cool, and good.

It was quite a shock to pretty much everyone who knows me. Most people really like it and if they don't, I don't much care. But I would kind of catch people staring at me or looking at my hair like they had to kind of fit it in with their image of me. I must admit I'm finally starting to get used to it myself after a week and a half. I would look in the mirror and go "whoa!". And it made me start to think about those reality makeover programs on TV. Those people look so different when they're done. How hard is it to get used to that image in that mirror? Do their family and friends still see them or do they see a totally different person?

It seems to me like most people get one image of you in their heads and they are loathe to change that image no matter what else may be going on. My grandmother still interacts with me and expects me to act like I am about 6 years old. Dependent on her for everything. Unable to make a decision and certainly unable to raise my own children. I have tried to counteract this but it's kind of like hitting my head against a brick wall.

Why is it so hard for us to really see people, to know who they are, and connect with them where they are now instead of where we think they are or should be? And it gets even more complicated when we start to make an image of people in our heads that have nothing to do with who they actually are. We want them to be a certain way and we keep trying to put them into that box. Only they don't fit there.

I think this is so hard for parents especially. You have a dream in your head about your child, who you'd like them to be, the kinds of things you'd like them to do. Only they have their own agendas, even as early as 16 months (Yes C I am talking about you!) and you cannot change that.

I think it is hardest maybe when we fall in love with an image we have of someone and then they fail to live up to that image. We spend our lives trying to hold them to that standard. Constantly frustrated when they fall short of the idea we have of them. But that idea is really based less on them and more on what we would like our perfect partner to be. Only perfect partners don't exist. Perfect children don't exist. Perfect parents don't exist. We are who we are (red highlights and all). The trick then I guess is trying to get people to really see, and accept who we are.

Are you listening? I'm trying to sing my song.

Kind words

It was a banner day for the children in my family. To start with DH is off on a conference (Lucky rotter! When are they going to have a Housewives Association conference? I will certainly send in my proposed paper for that!) and my mother flew in from NY to spend the weekend with me and the kids thereby ensuring we're all alive when DH comes home. C is working hard on being classified as the most devilish, difficult, but adorable toddler in the DC area. So in that quest she managed to get a hold of my mascara this morning, opened the cap, and preceded to smear it all over her new baby doll's mouth. This took all of about 30 seconds, probably a world record time. I'm not sure if she thought she was feeding the baby or putting lipstick on it but she was talking to the baby the whole time she worked and she was very miffed that I spoiled her fun. And yes, this child is all of 16 months old.

Later C decided that the laundry basket at the top of the stairs certainly did not belong there. To rectify the situation she decided to push it down the half flight of stairs to the next level of our house. Only she forgot to let go of said basket, meaning she tumbled down after it. Wood stairs mind you, no carpeting here. This left her with a nasty bruise just below her left eye and it left me with a permanent jittery feeling for the rest of the day. She doesn't seem worse for wear other than having a major shiner. I on the other hand will probably have nightmares replaying her slow motion roll that I was at the bottom of the stairs to witness. It was an accident of course. For the last month of so C has been going up and down that half flight of stairs like a trooper, following her brother and getting things out of her room. She is very careful generally and if she can't walk down holding the railing she will scoot on her bottom. I don't think she quite realized that this laundry basket would move as fast as it did and I was only able to shout out to her as I saw her approach it but I wasn't fast enough to stop her fall. Ah guilt. What else would a mother subsist upon if it wasn't for guilt.

Not to be outdone Q decided he could be as difficult as his sister. Maybe it was because her fall made it necessary to skip his speech therapy or because I was paying too much attention to her afterward, but he decided to go crazy running around the house. Which was fine until he tripped over the dog (she likes to get in the way when you're running around) and seemed to twist his ankle. It isn't swollen but as of tonight he was still limping on it.

To try to end the insanity my mom and I decided to get out. We went to the Border's downtown to check out some books. Only Q, who was apparently tired, fell asleep in the car and then was so out that he slept another 40 minutes or so upright in the stroller while we were in the bookstore. When he finally woke up he was very cranky and still grumpy about his ankle. We had planned to go to a restaurant that served kids pancakes, usually one of Q's favorites, but he was not impressed. As we tried to sit down both kids were out of control. Q was crying, loudly, and couldn't even tell me why. We were in full meltdown mode. The people around us were looking at us. It was quite a scene. After a few minutes the kids got their juice and breadsticks and everyone had something to play with and silence and sanity ruled again. I was exhausted and frustrated and felt like the biggest failure there is. The people in the booth next to us were on their way out. I was thinking that they were probably saying, "Thank God we got away from that crazy family!" while they were leaving. But the woman stopped and patted me on the shoulder and said, God I don't even remember her exact words. It was something like, "Don't worry. He's fine. He's a good boy. My son was just like that at his age. You'll be okay." Just writing that makes me cry. It was one of the kindest things anyone has said to me in a awhile. When you're a mom of a special needs child you are always on the lookout for things that will make your child lose it, or ways that you can calm them when they do lose it, or ways you can apologize to others when you fail at both. She made me feel so good because not only did I not have to apologize but she was praising my kid and she just understood how hard it is, how you feel so helpless sometimes to soothe your kids or protect them from any and all ills. I think I will forever remember that.

So to that woman I say thank you so much. You made what was an incredibly difficult day so much easier to bear. I looked at my now calm children, who I knew would lose it again just as soon as they felt their meal was over and I was taking too long with mine, and smiled. And I deeply hope that one day I can do the same for another stressed out mom who desperately needs reassurance instead of disapproval. And if you ever get the chance to do what she did for me, please do it and make someone else's day.

We're one, but we're not the same

"Boundary" was always a dirty word in my family. Actually that would be giving it status it really didn't even have. The idea of boundaries are so foreign to my grandmother that recently when we were discussing it she kept forgetting the actual word. ("What was that word you used again? Oh yeah boundaries. Why can't I remember that?" Why indeed!) My family is, what we in the social work/counseling world refer to as, enmeshed. No boundaries to speak of. No one seems to know where they end and you begin. Indeed I had no idea you even began anywhere. Aren't you just an offshoot of me? It is very difficult then to develop a separate identity of your own, or a life of your own, when you cannot tell what is really you, and what is really something that someone else says is you. Don't get lost here. You actually do need a flowchart to follow along but stay with me.

DH's family seems to be the exact opposite of mine. I can't actually remember what the social work term for it was (that tells you how foreign it was to me). But for the most part everyone tends to do their own thing and sometimes they talk to you but many times they don't. Now his family is huge and when I say huge, well, you just have to take my word for it. So there tends to be clusters of people that stay in touch with each other but the family as a whole is certainly not what I would call close.

Why does this matter? I think it matters because boundaries are one of the single most important things in the social world. How you see yourself and how you see other people in relation to how you see yourself is very important. How many people do you let in to your inner circle? How do you decide who gets in? How do you keep them there? Can you keep your own identity or do you get lost in theirs? Is there a hierarchy in that circle? Are some people more important than others? Why? And how would you tell that? These are all boundary issues. When DH and I were in trouble this past summer, more that anything else it was about where our boundaries were with each other and other people.

As you might imagine from the description of my family, I have problems keeping any boundaries at all. Except that I have a very specific boundary of a few people who are incredibly important to me and I choose those relationships over everything else. Those people in my inner circle are IN and I take these relationships very seriously. As a result other relationships not in my inner circle can be damaged or ignored because I have to tend to those that are most important to me. DH is the exact opposite. He has a number of relationships with other people: friends, family, students. And when he is dealing with that particular relationship it seems of upmost importance to him, and though it is important to him, he does not see these things in hierarchy and competition.

This has led to many disagreements when I say that he isn't putting me and the kids first. His response is "huh?" because he doesn't think in first, second, and third. My boundaries are so low that I feel like his absence takes a major part of myself away. His boundaries are so fluid that someone dealing with him in that moment of relationship might think "He is so into me right now!" and he is in that moment. But when he moves to the next moment he is equally so into the next person who he is talking to.

I'm not saying one approach is better than another though obviously some people are healthier about it than others. But I am saying that for any relationship to truly work and deepen you need to start to be aware of your boundaries and the other person's boundaries and how those might intersect and either work together, or crash and create a big pile of boundary rubble. I have done both. The crashing isn't pretty folks. And all you people out there that don't respect those boundaries or respect the importance of committed relationships need to wake up to the damage you are doing. You know who you are.

I, for one, am not always proud of the havoc I've wreaked on others in the name of trying to smother them with my non-existent boundaries or for the pain I've caused when I try to make someone with different boundary expectations conform to my standards. But sometimes it is hard to make sure I know where you end and I begin. If you actually begin then you could always leave and take yourself out of my orbit. Not a thought I like to entertain. I play for keeps with my inner circle and will fight like hell for those relationships.

People always need to know where they stand, where they end and you begin. We don't always know or aren't always honest about that.

Q has a book where people are trying to figure out a name for God, and finally in a moment of clarity they settle on "One". And the next line is "God heard and was happy." Maybe we are all one and trying to make our way back together, back to God, but damn it can sure hurt along the way. I hope my kids can recognize and remember boundaries and never have to use a social work jargon word to describe how screwed up their family is. Hope springs eternal.

My radical agenda

I'm still reeling from this damn election as all of you who are truly worried about our country should be. I found this ad that Republicans sent out in Arkansas and I just wanted to scream. But then when I started to read this flyer I realized that I had a radical liberal agenda. Imagine that. According to this document the liberal agenda includes:

1. Removing God from the pledge of allegiance
2. Allowing teenagers to get abortions without parental consent
3. Overturning bans on partial birth abortion
4. Allowing same sex marriage

Now I have very little problem with God in the pledge. I really don't care one way or another. It's on our money so why not in the pledge. You can always do like I often do in church and either skip that part it or change it in you head. (I rarely say the "Our Father" prayer as it is written.) So that's not on my agenda. But I will admit that the other three are.

I do believe that teenagers should be allowed to get abortions without parent consent. I mean they're having sex without parental consent so what's the difference. I have a little girl and I would hope that if she ever got pregnant while she was still underage, that she would tell me. If she couldn't tell me (and this would mean I was doing something SERIOUSLY WRONG) then I would want her to have the ability to make a decision that would change the rest of her life. Why is it that the right wing so wants to act like sex doesn't exist? I don't believe that teenagers should be running around willy nilly having sex with anything that moves. I think sex at its best is sacred (do not read here "only during marriage", just sacred as in "deep, important, life altering") But I also think the best way to insure teenagers don't get in trouble with sex, pregnancy or STDs, is to educate them. Much of why teenagers actually do the sexual things they do is because they don't know anything. Experimenting is learning. They're getting their education their way. I don't want teenage girls having abortions at the drop of a hat but I do want them to be able to protect themselves and respect their bodies. That means sex ed people. That's my agenda.

Partial birth abortion, pah! That is my way of saying this is the most overblown issue I have ever seen. For one, most of us on the liberal side might be a little more sympathetic if laws actually took into effect the life of the mother. I know pro-life likes to pride itself on being for life but lets be honest: pro-life is for the life of the fetus, they don't care all that much about the woman carrying it. If she dies, well so much the better, the whore. Let's be honest, no one who has ever been pregnant and really understands what it is all about, would want to have this procedure if they didn't have to. These are not elective procedures people. This kind of abortion is when there are few other options. Even still this whole thing should be between a woman, her partner, and her doctor. Keep your hands and minds out of my reproductive systems. That's my agenda.

Allowing same sex marriage is a moral value. I just cannot see the problem with this. Two consenting adults love each other and want to commit to each other. Great. What is the problem? All of us who are married are joined in some sort of civil union. It was that part of the ceremony that means we're married in the eyes of the law. Some of us also got married in a church, meaning a religious blessing. Now if you're a church that is not interested in blessing these unions, fine. Don't. There are churches who will. But that's just icing on the cake. First you have the civil part. Religious conservatives can say all they want about not blessing these marriages from the pulpit but they should have zippo to say about the state. Let's fight against divorce instead. Let's say we will help to keep marriages together, make it easier to keep REAL family values. That's my agenda.

Then the final kick to me from the flyer is the line "Liberals want to impose their values on Arkansas." Okay. But you're so much better because Arkansans want to impose their values on liberals. And I never wanted to ban the Bible. Too much good stuff in there. But it just goes to show how the republicans repeatedly lie about things and people in middle and southern America just seem to eat it up.

So I say screw the south. My agenda is to have good sex, make responsible decisions about my own life, raise aware children, try to avoid sticking our kids with a used up world and an enormous debt, and making sure we aren't declaring war on various countries just because it seems like fun in all those video games. I know, I'm a true radical.

Jesus vs. Bush - Bush wins in a landslide

Okay a few more post election thoughts I need to get out.

I am beyond tired of hearing how Bush now has a mandate for his agenda. The man won 51% of the popular vote. That is a bare majority at best. Were the situations reversed and Kerry had taken 51% of the vote, he wouldn't have had a mandate either. Oh just because Bush actually won the election this time somehow that means it's a mandate. ARRRGGHH! This is a better rant about mandates than I could ever give, and I totally agree.

And I would like to get on my religious soapbox for a minute so listen up. Jesus was a thinker. I know it is somehow not in vogue to be this way anymore. As though contemplation and scholarship were somehow weak and immoral. I mean that was part of the problem with Kerry, wasn't it? The man thought too much. He didn't react and move immediately. He listened to the facts, weighed the issues, and made decisions accordingly. (Now I won't lie and say I was bowled over by candidate Kerry. I came of political age during the Clinton years and I saw him speak twice. That was charisma. Kerry didn't have that but I think he would have made a good president none the less.)

Now no one could ever call Jesus a flip flopper. (Not that most people knew what Jesus was actually saying since the man spoke in parables.) But I think it is fair to say he was not a man of action. He thought. He listened. He prayed. He spoke to large gatherings, and I'm sure not everyone there agreed with him. We only have a record of him ever really showing anger once when he overturned the tables on the money lenders in the temple. But some of his followers were very disappointed when he didn't turn out to be the war leading messiah they thought he would be. (Some even argue that this was why Judas turned him in to the authorities. Either in disgust that Jesus wouldn't do anything or as a way to try to get him to act. Obviously that didn't work.) Jesus didn't take on the authorities. He didn't tell the people not to pay their taxes. He didn't rescue them or lead them to safety the way many of them would have liked. Jesus spoke and hoped his words would lead others to change their minds, their hearts, their actions. Jesus spoke of the poor and suffering. He spent time with sinners and losers. He prayed for his enemies, he did not go out and slaughter them.

Now Bush is not a thinker. He will admit that readily. I'm quite sure he prays but does he ever listen? Bush is a man of action. He probably would have been very disgusted with Jesus were he of that time. No war? No overthrow of the war criminals? Jesus must be weak. His only true action was dying, a sacrifice for others. Bush only sacrifices others. (See Michael Moore's beautiful reaction to the election.) And I would bet that the same evangelicals that call themselves Christian would vote for Bush, a man of action and war, over Jesus, a man of thoughts and sacrifice.

This is not over. Not by a longshot. We may have a rough ride ahead of us but I guess at my core I am truly a follower of Jesus (hate to call myself Christian anymore, the term is so tainted) and I believe that if I pray enough, if I think enough, if I help enough, if I hang out with enough sinners, then maybe, just maybe I can change the world. And if I can't well, I will have at least changed myself. Jesus, forgive them, they know not what they do.

It's just not right

Now, it will get worse, much worse. How do you respond to what you cannot understand? I have few words, or maybe too many words. I cannot express how disappointed I am or how worried I am for my future and my children's future. This has already been one of the worst years of my life for a variety of reasons, but the Democrats losing not just the presidency, but losing just about everything, truly tops it off. I have not posted until now because I just was overwhelmed and feeling at a loss for words. So here I am trying to make sense out of all of this.

At first I was thinking that I would write up all that I thought might happen in the next four years, the dire predictions that I think are truly possible in the wake of the Evangelical Right being in control of this country. (I don't know how people don't look at George Bush and Dick Chaney and not hear the Darth Vader theme.) Reading around I saw that a friend of mine had done that for me, check out The Republic of Heaven. Some other blogs I read called upon people to keep up the good fight. Volunteer, organize, act. Don't give up. If you don't like the way the country is going, do something about it, don't just sit on your ass and complain. This is an admirable point of view and I don't disagree with it. Certainly we shouldn't lay down and die. In years to come there will be other elections and thanks to term limits Bush will out of office in 2008. I'm holding out for an Edwards/Obama ticket. In four years both of my children will be in school full time and I will have time to actually volunteer in a campaign. I am looking forward to it.

But I think to simply stop there is to ignore what turned out to be the deciding issue in this campaign: moral values. Now let's be clear here because it seems that what "moral values" really means is that you're against abortion and gay marriage. (Let me as an aside here say that I totally do not get the gay marriage thing. For the life of me I cannot understand how two gay people getting married somehow undermines my family or jeopardizes my marriage. If you truly believe in committed relationships than why wouldn't you think gay marriage is a good thing. If anyone wants to commit to another person for the rest of their life, they should get kudos for that no matter who they are. You want a moral issue? Why is divorce so easy to get? Why do we take marriage like a trial run instead of a major commitment for the rest of your life. But I digress.) There are apparently no other more important issues in our society than those two.

I am not sure how to deal with this or fight against it. The only thing I can say is that I think the left needs to get its hands dirty in the moral debate. Let's talk about morals. Let's talk about the morality of children living homeless or in poverty, without enough food to eat while men who make billions of dollars get tax cuts. Let's talk about the morality of millions of people who have to make terrible health care choices because they have no insurance or their health insurance doesn't cover the treatments they need. Let's argue the morality of a family where two people work full time but still don't make enough money to live in decent housing and send their children to decent schools. Speaking of schools let's talk about how immoral it is to make our children into little testing robots while taking away their lunch time, recess, art, physical education, and music. Let's invoke God and talk about how this earth was given to us and our responsibility is to be good stewards of it, not to mine, drill, cut and destroy until there is nothing left. Let's talk about the morality of a policy that won't allow science to find answers to questions about stem cells because certainly we must make sure living people suffer and die so that we can save five day old embryos.

(The embryonic stem cell debate drives me nuts. When I went through in-vitro fertilization I ended up freezing 9 fertilized embryos. I would gladly give them to science to figure out to to help any number of people. I will not be using them again so they will just get thrown away. If you truly believe that we cannot kill any embryos then you must also stand up against fertility treatments that create such embryos. But of course Bush wouldn't do that. It would risk alienating all the people who need them, a good 20% of those trying to have children by some accounts.)

I will not cede my God, my vision of Jesus, to this idea that God is a angry vengeful God who only cares if pregnancies get carried to term no matter what the cost and if gay people want to get married. The religious left must begin to stand up and say God is not this small. But I have visited many religious left churches and I tell you truly, they are not even close to up to the challenge. They are so afraid of looking like they actually believe in something, that they end up being more like social clubs than houses of worship. I believe that if Jesus were to show up tomorrow he would have to say that he is appalled at what is done in his name. But I digress again. (Told you I was having trouble getting my thoughts together.)

To simply say we must organize and continue to fight is not enough because the right has taken over the language and the debate. We must somehow take it back and to start that we must become more comfortable with the language of faith and of morality. We have moral issues that we must stand up for. We have faith that we must speak of. We have deeply held beliefs that we must not give away. Don't give up blue america but please spend some time thinking about your moral issues and how you can start voting and acting with them in mind.

Looking for a "real job"

As a liberal Democrat it isn't very hard to imagine who I plan to vote for today. So it was with some annoyance that I read about Teresa Heinz Kerry apologizing for saying she wasn't sure that Laura Bush has ever held a "real job." Kerry said that she forgot that Bush had worked as a teacher for ten years before she had children. Probably the most disturbing part of this article was that I actually agreed with Karen Hughes when she said, "I think it's very nice that she apologized, but in some ways the apology almost made the comment worse because she seems to have forgotten that being a mother is a real job." It concerns me greatly when I actually agree with the former advisor to the worst President I've certainly ever experienced in my lifetime. I think I know where Teresa Heinz Kerry was going with her comments, even though she was technically wrong. And I also know that Kerry was a stay at home mom when her children were little and only took on a "real job" after her first husband died. So obviously she knows the value of motherhood and the choices some of us make to stay home with our children. But what she said made it look like she doesn't, and adds fuel to the fire of the at home moms vs. the working moms debate.

Then I was reading my local community paper this week and it seemed I could not get away from this mom vs. mom thing. A columnist, Jen Chaney, was extolling the virtues of my new favorite show Desperate Housewives . She was comparing it to HBO's "Sex and the City" in terms of a great new female foursome. While I agree with most of what she said, ( I must admit here that I did not watch a whole lot of Sex and the City as we don't get HBO but I did see enough to understand where this columnist was coming from.) I was taken aback by her characterization of the women on Desperate Housewives. She writes, "Of course to some, 'Housewives' may not seem like the sort of show women should be championing. After all, none of the main characters work..." Okay, no they don't, outside the home at least. But three of the four have children that they are presumably staying home to take care of. Chaney goes on to say, "I think 'Housewives' tweaks the notion of traditional women's roles. Even its title is tongue in cheek. I mean, who uses the term 'housewife' anymore? Most people refer to non-working women as 'stay-at-home moms.'" Really?! Obviously she's never read this blog, but more importantly now I'm a non-working woman. I didn't know that. I didn't realize that I didn't really work. What do I do all day then exactly? It is correct to say that I don't work outside the home and that I don't bring home a paycheck but it is wholly unfair to say that I, or any other stay at home mom (housewife), doesn't work.

Chaney herself is touted as a young columnist, at least Gen X if not Gen Y, and it is fairly clear that she is not a mother. This makes me furious. If you're not a mom you don't get to judge mothers for what they do or don't do. Don't get me wrong, I do not think that all women should be mothers or that the highest aspiration for women is motherhood. In fact if you're a woman and you know yourself enough to know that you shouldn't be a mother I applaud you. There are many people out there that shouldn't be having children or at least should really think about it long and hard before they have unprotected sex. Being a mom is far from easy and takes a lot of sacrifice, time and energy, patience and love. There are many jobs that I am not cut out for and would never try to get into. It doesn't make me less of a person to say that I am not cut out to be a journalist or lawyer. Why should it make a woman feel like less of a person to say she's not cut out to be a mom? And even fewer people are cut out to be a stay at home mom. This is far from an easy job and I would challenge anyone who thinks it is to change places with an at home mom for a day. I guarantee you that at the end of the day you would think very differently.

I do believe that someone, mom or dad, should be at home for the majority of a child's first year, if not the first three years. I know many people think both parents can work full time and send the kid to daycare and everything will be fine. I have no empirical evidence that this isn't the case. But I do believe that overall it is better for the children and the family as a whole to have a parent whose primary responsibility is the children. Maybe this is an antiquated idea but given the sometimes scary state of our society I think it's something we need to seriously think about. Even after kids go to school full time, it is important for someone to be home with them after school. My mom worked part time when we were younger but was working full time by the time I went to high school. Boy did I get into a lot of trouble when no one was home to watch over me after school.

I made a decision to stay home because I wanted to do what was best for my children. Given Q's autism, it was a good decision. But I deeply resent anyone, especially a woman without children, telling me that I don't really work or that what I do isn't a real job. I worked in a "real job" for three years as a social worker and most days it was way easier than an average day on the job as a stay at home mom. And to say that women in general shouldn't look up to a group of women because they stay at home to take care of their children is unbelievable. It is stupid statements like this that ultimately keep women down. I am a feminist and a stay at home mom. I plan to teach my daughter that she can do anything that she wants, but if she plans to have children, she must realize that it is an incredible responsibility and she must be prepared to make sacrifices. Maybe that means she will take a break from her profession and stay home or maybe her husband will stay home or maybe they'll find a way to split the responsibility. But I will not lie to her and say she can have everything: a career, family, marriage, and her sanity, all at once. When we stop expecting women to do everything and be everything then and only then will women truly be free.

I cast my vote today hoping for a brighter future for my children and my country. Teresa, I forgive you. But please don't ever make me willingly agree with Karen Hughes again.