Moms + Dems

3:05 pm EST May 4th, 2006 | Politics | 12 Comments

Interesting rebuttal to the story by Caitlin Flanagan making the rounds on the right about how us Democrats are somehow driving stay-at-home moms out of the party.

Second, my problem isn’t with Flanagan’s lifestyle choices, it’s with her lying about them. Having a full-time nanny until her children went to preschool makes her privileged; it doesn’t make her an at-home mom who’s given up her career for her family, and I did take the time away from my family to point that out in a book review recently. And now she’s traveling the country flacking her book, flirting with Stephen Colbert (OK, I admit I’m jealous), creating straw women and writing about her martyrdom at the hands of feminists, all the while bragging about how she’s an at-home mom: Well, I don’t know how she does it. Except with a lot of self-delusion. And a lot of self-dramatization. Her reference to herself in Time as “the beaten wife of the Democratic Party” is an analogy that beaten wives everywhere are sure to appreciate.

Flanagan’s shtick isn’t so much about enduring domestic violence as it is about selling books and getting rich and, really, that’s fine with me, I’ve got plenty to do myself. But the notion that feminists or Democrats or liberals are demonizing her lifestyle choices is ludicrous. I happened to be lucky enough to make choices similar to Flanagan’s when my daughter was small: I worked part-time and had an at-home baby sitter (but only three days, not five) until my daughter went to preschool; I worked at home until she was 8. (Since then, we’ve both lived at Salon.) My problem is not Flanagan’s putting her children first, if indeed she’s done that; my problem is her misrepresenting her choices and then boasting about her fantasy family — and then having the gall to condemn other women for not living that fantasy life themselves.

A full time nanny? Yeah, that’s the average American woman right there… not.

This supposed war on stay-at-home moms, is that before or after we destroy Christmas and Easter?

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12 Responses to “Moms + Dems”

  1. trevorwells says:
    May 4, 2006 at 4:05 pm

    Don’t cha just love the hypocrisy of the right-wing, pull-yo-self-up-by-yo- bootstraps-crowd, as they play the victimology card while some underpaid au-pair is changing their child’s poopy diapers for less than minimum wage. What a load of B.S. These wealthy elites are always the victims as evidenced by their SUV’s, ostentatious lifestyles, and six-figure incomes. These are the same people who hire illegal immigrants to do their scut work and then demand a crackdown on illegal immigration and an end to affirmative action because somebody might actually be helped and the scales of justice balanced.

  2. duros62 says:
    May 4, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    Oliver, I don’t get it. The piece was written by a democrat in reference to another piece written by a another democrat, stay-at-home-mom posturing aside.

  3. Oliver Willis says:
    May 4, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    And Flanagan’s piece was an attack on Democrats for supposedly not being pro stay-at-home mother, which is bunk.

  4. duros62 says:
    May 4, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    No, the way I read it was that the Democrats have let Repulbicans hijack the notion that any traditional family is a republican family. It was an attack on Democrats, sure, but not for being anti-SAHM (stay-at-home-mom).
    I think it said more about the reporters interviewing Flanagan who just assumed she was a Republican.

    Didn’t we do that whole thing with Hilary and the “I don’t bake cookies” hoo-ha?

  5. Frank_D says:
    May 4, 2006 at 9:05 pm

    duros62: At least you can read the writing on the wall. From the Time.com article (by Flanagan):

    The Democrats made a huge tactical error a few decades ago. In the middle of doing the great work of the ’60s–civil rights, women’s liberation, gay inclusion–we decided to stigmatize the white male. The union dues–paying, churchgoing, beer-drinking family man got nothing but ridicule and venom from us. So he dumped us. And he took the wife and kids with him.
    And now here we are, living in a country with a political and economic agenda we deplore, losing election after election and wondering why.
    It’s the contempt, stupid.

  6. Frank_D says:
    May 4, 2006 at 9:05 pm

    It’s a matter of who you want to believe… Even if Flanagan is not one of the housewives she wrote about, what she said is still true.

  7. goatchowder says:
    May 4, 2006 at 10:05 pm

    Heh. Every stay-at-home mom I know– as well as every one of the few stay-at-home dads too– is a full-on hardcore partisan Democrat.

  8. Wilbur says:
    May 4, 2006 at 10:05 pm

    The stereotype that democrats are contemptuous of white males and s.a.h.m’s is no more true than the stereotype that republicans are contemptuous of black people and career women.

    …actually probably less true: witness the hysterical Hillaryphobia on the right.

  9. framefan says:
    May 5, 2006 at 9:05 am

    Cue the moonbat attack dogs: “Flanagan couldn’t possibly be a REAL Democrat, or a REAL s.a.h.m.! She’s a…….blah, blah, blah.

  10. Tom says:
    May 5, 2006 at 9:05 am

    Since when do stay at home moms travel around the country to promote their books? Is this woman some sort of shelled creature, like a snail, enabling her to carry her home around with her?

  11. midderpidge says:
    May 5, 2006 at 11:05 am

    By definition democratic GOTV efforts don’t work on stay-at-home moms.

  12. elrod says:
    May 5, 2006 at 6:05 pm

    I’m a stay-at-home dad so I know somethinhg of what she speaks. I spend all day with my two children (ages 2 and 4, the youngest actually turns 2 on Monday) while my wife teaches third grade. I do my work (finishing a Ph.D.) at night after the kids go to bed (or when they’re napping). Fortunately it’s worked out for us. Nothing substitutes having a parent home with the kids during early childhood. I take my two boys to the playground all the time and it’s quite obvious the difference between those kids who have their parents around and those in day care most of the day. Full-time nannies are sort of a third way – many are around the kids so much that they become surrogate mothers. I live in Evanston and there are a lot of people here with enough money to spend on a full-time nanny.

    When it comes to politics, these stay-at-home moms I see everyday at the playground are about 90% staunch Democrats. Now that’s just Evanston, which gave Kerry 83% of the vote. But I’ve seen or heard absolutely nothing hinting that the Democratic Party somehow thinks these women have made poor choices by staying at home with their children. I think Caitlin Flanagan has set up a huge straw man argument about the Democratic Party. Sure, there are hardcore feminists who belittle stay-at-home moms. Unfortunately I’ve seen some of them within academia. Their double standard is fascinating. They think that female grad students who have children are somehow setting their careers offs and “letting all women down,” but they LOVE it that I am a grad student/stay-at-home dad because it let’s my wife pursue her own career ambitions, and it shows how men can “sacrifice” too. Whatever. Either way, none of this has anything to do with the Democratic Party or its leaders. I’d love to see her evidence to the contrary. Her column has not presented any.