Yesterday the media went on non-stop about CNN contributor Hilary Rosen’s remark to Ann Romney, that she never worked a day in her life, and that somehow this comment insulted all stay at home moms. Somehow her words were construed to say that t she meant stay at home moms don’t work. Even President Obama stood up for Mrs. Romney.
Am I the only one who knew what Rosen meant by her comment? I knew she was talking about working outside the home. Everyone already knows that parenting is a full time job. The conversation should have been about how most mothers do not have the luxury of choosing to stay home.
Instead Rosen was immediately reprimanded by everyone and their mother (pun intended) for stating her opinion. Mrs. Romney snapped, “My career choice was to be a mother, and I think that all of us need to know that we need to respect choices that women make. Other women make other choices, to have a career and raise a family, which I think Hillary Rosen has actually done herself.”
Romney and Rosen are not typical working mothers, and if anyone thinks they are they should talk to mothers who work in restaurants, hospitals, teach their kids or clean their homes. Both Romney and Rosen never have to worry how they will make their mortgage payments, or rent, or health insurance, or have to miss work (and a day’s pay) to stay home to care for a sick child.
Low-income women have had to work for as long as I can remember, and I don’t mean just single moms. I remember reading Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique years ago. Its introduction describes what Friedan called “the problem that has no name” — the widespread unhappiness of women in the 1950s and early 1960s. The book discusses the lives of several housewives from around the United States who were stay-at-home moms raising their children.
That book was written about and for middle class white women. Married and unmarried low income women of all races had to work every day just to make ends meet and probably were too tired to feel unfulfilled or bored. This book only reflected the sentiments of a small group of middle-class women. Yes, it’s true that in the 50s and 60s women found it harder to have careers because of social norms but that didn’t mean women were not working lower wage jobs.
These days I don’t know any women who can afford to stay home and live off their husband’s paycheck. In fact I do know some women who are working two jobs because their husbands have been laid off. I say stop attacking Rosen for speaking up to Romney who in my opinion does not have a clue what it’s like for the majority of women who are raising a family and have to work.
Everything you say may well be true.
But in politics, perception often counts for more than truth. And Rosen’s comment simply feeds into the “elitist liberal” canard.
It’s great to see Mika Wallace’s first story up! Welcome to the Blog Squad!
Thanks Greg! I am honored to be among so many talented and thoughtful writers.
*Mom scrubbed floors, cleaned out toilets, cleaned out cupboards and storage areas for the bathroom, watered the outside plants and grass, cleaned every room in the house and vacuum everywhere, did all the laundry and took some things to the cleaners, went to store almost daily and had the food on the table every night at 5:10 PM when Dad got home. Mom, took me to school before I had a car and walked me to the bus stop. Mom also monitored my movements home every day at 3PM when school got out. Mom, bought all my clothes, made sure I always had enough milk and cereal along with monitoring my every move until I moved out of the house. Mom, never had any cleaning ladies but did get my cheap stepdad to get someone to wash the windows quarterly. Mrs. Romney probably wasn’t as responsible….but who knows and who cares? Someone should ask her how many paid personell she employed to help her with the daily household chores.
rw
*Mom also, watered outside daily, took care of our dog King when no one was home, including feeding him and brushing him, cleaned the pool by brush and skimmer between monthly acid treatments of the coping. She added the chlorine and put the cover over the pool on windy days. There are a 1000 things she did that as a terrible son….have probably forgotten. Good moms were great….in the day!
rw
Ron & Anna, your mom sounds more like superwoman!
Let’s see…managing 5 boys, multiple luxury homes and properties, staffing those places, coordinating schedules of all the kids, and…maintaining a marriage to Mitt?
Priceless!
PK,
you are absolutely right.
*Mike Wallace: Actually she was SuperWoman. She was a painter with oils of both
figure, face and beautiful flowers. She wrote her first novel at 30….was definitely a Renassance woman, who was a great Astrologer, wrote one of the best books on Numerology ever written and wrote five or six philosophical uplifting books and novellas. She was a film starlit in the 40’s, worked the Hollywood Canteen, was an Earl Carroll show girl and went to school with Scotty Beckett and Donald O’Connor at the
Hollywood Professional School for budding actors and actresses. She got married to the Step Father in 1947 and stayed with him until her death in 1977. She was also a dancer who perform at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles with her younger sister Patty – doing a tap dance routine with a Goat Cart…..go figure…must have been the
grandmother’s idea. She wound up holding the horse for Lucille Ball in the Great Zeigfield or the Zeigfield Follies…..can’t remember which right now. She was offered a roll to replace Irish McCalla on Sheena Queen of the Jungle….which Ron said no to..
being that he was 13 and just going to a new high school and didn’t want to explain any such thing to his classmates. She was a great mom…..that had to work to support
her little boy during WW II.