You hear about these people who lose limbs but are so sure they can feel the sensations of a foot or a finger, they reach for it only to find nothing there. That’s sort of what it’s like in an empty home that’s normally filled with shrieking, giggling, wiggling, dancing, “she’s trying to get me!” shouting, mess-making, milk-spilling children.
I keep acting as if the kids are here, keeping the TV low and shutting the bedroom door. It’s bizarre to step out to walk the dog or grab a bagel and forget that I don’t have anywhere to be. Anyone home waiting for me. Anyone to even check in with.
I’m almost paralyzed by the options and how much I’m hoping to accomplish before they’re back home nine (9) days from today. I’m not off to a very good start.
I spent pretty much the entirety of last night researching whether Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to cover for her teenage daughter who was actually the pregnant one. (Thanks Deb for the twittered link to Kos.) I am generally reluctant to jump on to wacky conspiracy theories. But this one gives me pause.
Also it’s just so perfect for Labor Day. Heh.
It would explain why a vehemently pro-life woman would risk the life of a special needs baby when she noticed that her amniotic fluid was leaking, by finishing a speech in Houston, then rushing not to a Dallas hospital–but to the airport so she could catch a commercial flight from Texas to Seattle, then a connecting flight to Alaska. And once she landed, instead of heading right to the major Anchorage hospital she drove 45 minutes to her hometown hospital. Oh and she never informed the flight crew that she was in labor, and no one saw any evidence of it.
Oh, and was back at work three days later.
Oh, and her daughter conveniently had “mono” for 5-8 months and was pulled out of school this entire time. But Palin never worried about having a high risk pregnancy around her highly contageous teenage daughter.
What 7 months pregnant looks like in Alaska when your’e 43. Things really are different there!I don’t care whether you vote blue or red or flaming neon orange–as moms, does this story make one lick of sense to you at all?
I smell a ghost pregnancy.
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Edited to add:
Evidently this post is rubbing some people the wrong way. What can I say, I’m a maverick! A rebel!
The question has been posed whether I might first broach the Sarah Palin subject with a line about how her nomination is a good development for women and good for working moms.
Let me answer: No, I don’t think this is a good development for women.
Madeline Albright was a good development for women. Hilary Clinton was (and is) a good development for women. Margaret Thatcher was a good development for women. Even Condi Rice was a good development for women. Those are women who worked their way up with impressive knowledge and credentials equal or surpassing any of their male counterparts; not appointed for reasons that are still beyond me. (Or, more likely, because McCain couldn’t do Lieberman and he nixed Romney and Ridge and so went with the person he’s met once who looked good on paper.)
I fear that having an unqualified woman like Palin–she’s on record saying she knows nothing about Iraq or the role of the Vice President–in the national spotlight is sealing up some of the cracks in that ceiling and it just kills me. Just freaking kills me.
Am I excited about the theoretical prospect of a working mom in the white house with a SAHD taking care of the kids? You betcha. But I am not excited to see a deer in the headlights debating one of our country’s foremost foreign policy experts in a few weeks. How does that benefit anyone?
The pregnancy BS – that’s a distraction but it captured my imagination this week and so I wrote about it. I still say it stinks. If I’m wrong, I’ll be the first to say it. You can count on it. Consider it…a campaign promise?
61 shards of brilliance… read them below or add one
1) i agree that this her choice as VP pushes the progress made by women like hillary clinton backwards. it’s sad.2) while not impossible that a teenager would have a baby with downs syndrome, it’s much more likely from a woman of 44 than of 16, given how the risk increases as the woman ages. That said, the whole plane ride story seems really fishy. I’m not 100% on board with the ghost pregnancy idea (especially since it seems that the daughter is *currently* 5 months preggers), but I am troubled by the pictures of her looking not pregnant at all and the water breaking but getting on the flight anyway…heck, when my water broke early, we debated whether we had time to go home and feed the dog before going to the hospital that is 10 minutes away. NO WAY would have have GOTTEN ON A PLANE and then driven past 2 larger hospitals to a smaller one. I would have gone straight to the closest hospital, no questions asked!! regardless of whether the whole story is a lie or a cover up, or just a bad decision, it is a clear indication of why she has no business being SO CLOSE to holding the highest office in the country. Has the McCain campaign ever heard of vetting?
And here I was thinking she’s named a couple of her kids some f’ed up shit. Honestly, I think McCain just shot himself in the foot….maybe he shoulda just hung out with Cheney. I am with you 100% on this one. As a mother (and an intelligent woman), I resent the assumption that I’m too stupid to see the truth. Or to see that he picked her, just hoping to get the Hillary supporters.
There’s just something so bizarre about the whole thing. Do I care if she faked a pregnancy to cover for her daughter? At the end of the day, not really. What bothers me most is how oblivious she seems to the needs of her family. The *last* thing Bristol needs right now is to have deal with this situation in such a huge spotlight (and the poor father, oh my God). Even if the press does back off, the past few days of speculation are enough to do serious damage to the psyche of any 17-year-old I’ve ever met.And Trig–poor kid. Assuming he’s hers, I think the decisions she made after her water broke indicate an ambivalence toward a special needs child, especially since she knew *exactly* what she was doing–and risking. Ditto the decision to go back to work so quickly. But I’m biased–my brother was severely disabled, so I tend to be sensitive any time a special needs kid seems to get a raw deal.I’m someone who has had to make hard decisions between what might be an exciting opportunity for me and what my children and family need. I can’t compare it to being offered the vice presidency, but even on a smaller scale, it’s hard to walk away from what seems like the chance of a lifetime. But parents (of both genders) have to do it all the time. Sarah Palin has to know she’s not really qualified; she has to know that with everything that’s going on with her family, it’s hard to imagine a worse time to drag them all along on a national campaign.I would love to see a working mother in the White House, but I’m hoping this one never makes it past the complimentary tour.
Wow, this was low. Very low. There is so much to disagree with on the issues, I can’t believe that you would sink to this level of conspiratorial theorizing.1. Why the hell would she fake a pregnancy only to be scrutinized within an inch of her life a few months later? 2. The fact that she is a political 180 to what you would like in a candidate does not mean she sets the women like Clinton back. Arguments like that set women back. For fuck’s sake, when I vote for a man I don’t even consider if voting for one would set men back, and neither does any man I know. And some men I know think all liberal men are pansies. (I live in the South.) They still don’t think liberal male candidates are turning the rest of them into pansies.3. I do think she is going to have to answer some questions on HOW her family is dealing with their seemingly many issues. But until those questions are answered, how can anyone criticize them? Ask the question, then step back and wait to get your answer. 4. Why the hell must we hate the political opposition? Maybe it’s living in the South, and maybe it’s because I have family members to totally disagree with me on issues, but I can’t be that hateful. I just want to know what these yahoos are promising, if they have the guts to deliver and then VOTE.
I’m surprised more people didn’t comment on the odds of a 17 yo having a Downs baby (1 in 1700ish) vs. a 44 yo (1 in 32).But I guess somebody has to be the “1.” We shall see…
Re: EGMIs there really a problem with a woman having a child and deciding to return to work? Does that really demonstrate that she is somehow slighting her child, or that she is slighting her child because he has special needs?Is there really room for us to criticize her for the choices she has made or does make in parenting her children? In birthing her children? Do we actually have enough information to do so? Do we really know her body or her delivery preferences/priorities better than she does, enough for us to say that she shows ambivalence?I don’t think so.My husband is very good friends with a man named Douglas. His wife had a baby last year. She went into labor on Monday afternoon and had the baby that night (11pm, I think, is when we got the call). She went back to work on Wednesday.And the fact of the matter is that nobody here, not even me, can really call her a bad or neglectful or ambivalent mother for doing so. I may not agree with her course of action (or Palin’s actions) with regards to her family, but just because I would not personally engage in them does not mean that the person who does is doing a poor job.You know what would eliminate the VP problem? When this country was started, the man who won the election was President and the man who came in second was Vice-President. Now, the VP position is admittedly more powerful and presitgious than it was in those days, but come on, wouldn’t it be good to go back to that?I’m all about balancing power, though, about having two different perspectives adequately represented, etc. So it could just be me.
Anon 6:34 (geez, can’t you people at least use fake names and make it easier on me?)I completely respect your pov and I am in fact envious of your benevolence. But I need to say for the record, I don’t think that she sets back women candidates simply because I disagree with her.I don’t agree with women like Olympia Snow or Kay Bailey Hutchison on a lot of their positions, but I think they’re pros and they are a better example of what politicians–on either side–have the potential to be.
Anon 7:01You’re right, there’s no way of knowing exactly why Sarah Palin has made the decisions that have led her to this particular moment in time. I didn’t call her a bad mother or neglectful mother, just an oblivious one (which we can all be from time to time). If she were a neighbor or an acquaintance, I probably wouldn’t even give it a second thought. But I will criticize anyone who stands up and says she has the judgment to make the best decisions for the country when it doesn’t seem like she’s willing to make the best decisions for her family.Deciding when (or if) to go back to work is a very personal decision under the best of circumstances, and I’m sure that a state governor has a few more factors to consider than most of us who have to make that choice. But it’s been my experience (and I actually do have some, from my own family as well as close friends) that having a child with special needs–even if you know in advance–turns your world upside down. True, going back to work after three days could be one way of trying to get your equilibrium back…or it could be a way of running away from the situation.Only Sarah Palin knows for sure, but I still don’t want her for Vice President.
Sorry, etiquette mom. just see your remarks as haughty, unfair…and well, bitchy. Negative campaigning at its worst. Bummer. Signed, Obama’s biggest fan.
Sorry if this was mentioned already, but I only skimmed the comments…Even if the whole faked pregnancy were true, why the back story of the water breaking, flying back to Alaska, etc.? Wouldn’t it be less messy to just fly back then say, “hey, fast labor, here’s the baby!”There are also < HREF="http://www.adn.com/626/story/382864.html" REL="nofollow">medical professionals quoted in the original story<> back in April re: the birth, with her OB/GYN saying he had to induce — are we to believe they are risking their medical license to protect some rinky dink governor? I have to apply Occam’s razor to this one…
Prescott, just a correction: no medical professionals (s) commented that it was okay – only her confidante and family doctor. All other medical professionals say this does not jibe with protocol or common sense – your water breaks and you’re having preterm labor? You do nooooot get on a plane. “My water broke” = My daughter is in labor a month early, shit, I have to fly home to be with her.I know I’m sounding like a crazy loon right now, but I’d rather think that she was doing a noble thing and protecting her daughter’s honor somehow, than behaving recklessly and jeopardizing the well-being of her baby. I am totally open to other reasonable explanations. I just haven’t heard one yet.