Picket Fence Post

A U.S. intelligence officer and terrorism expert with decades of experience, Gina M. Bennett, a mom of five, wants us to think of national security, terrorism and foreign policy issues in an entirely different way, from the perspective of a mother who’s raising her children.

Teach your children that, at the end of the day, telling the truth is always better than lying. Stand up to bullies and don’t allow them to define who you are. Pick up your own messes. Choose your friends wisely. Always try to understand why your child’s doing something obnoxious/irresponsible/insane/irrational so that you can try to figure out a way to try to stop or dissuade her from doing that in the future.

Bennett’s book, National Security Mom: Why ‘Going Soft’ Will Make America Strong, reminded me of that old Robert Fulghum book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. Only its focus is on parenting and national security. Everything Bennett says she needed to know about that subject, she learned from her family.

Bennett recently fielded six questions from me about her book (published by the woman who published my book, FYI) and about national security and parents, as we prepare to go the polls and pick a new president in less than a month.

Meredith O’Brien, Picket Fence Post: Why did you write this book and for whom did you write it?

Gina Bennett, author of National Security Mom: After 20 years of countering terrorism from inside the covert world of the Intelligence Community, I came to realize that the most powerful weapon America can wield in this fight is the courage of the American people. For years, my colleagues and I have worked daily to collect intelligence, uncover plots, identify key leaders and figure out how to stop terrorists from carrying out their attacks. But no matter how hard we work, there will be times when terrorists will succeed in getting past our security efforts. But when that happens, it does not have to mean that America was defeated. As long as Americans stand united in the aftermath of such a tragedy and refuse to change because of it, the terrorists are the ones who will be defeated.

Terrorists don’t seek death and destruction alone. They want to use the horror of their attacks to shake our faith in our form of government. If we remain committed to our democratic principles and ideals, we rob them of their attempted victory over us and undermine their future influence. The men and women in government can’t do this alone. Every American is our partner, and I wrote this book to convey that message. I also wrote with parents, and especially mothers, in mind because I felt the national security debate was overwhelmingly dominated by “insider” jargon that left many parents feeling like outsiders. But you don’t have to understand all the intricacies of the intelligence, law enforcement and military efforts in countering terrorism to be an informed participant in the national security debate.

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During last night’s vice presidential debate a number of references were made to the candidates’ parenthood.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a self-described pitbull of a hockey mom, said that if you want to gauge how people are feeling about the economy, just go to a kids’ soccer game, talk to the parents and you’ll hear expressions of fear and worry about the future. She also said that, if elected, she’d bring her Main Streeter, average mom point of view to Washington.

Meanwhile, Senator Joe Biden said he understands all too well what it’s like to be a single dad who sits around the kitchen table wondering how he’s going to take care of his kids and pay for all their expenses. In an emotional moment, he choked up recalling the fatal accident that took the lives of his first wife and his daughter, and sent his two sons to the hospital. The Wall Street Journal’s The Juggle blogused Biden’s moment as a jumping off point to discuss whether single dads get enough credit for their parenting.

Meanwhile, both candidates, as well as Senator John McCain, have sons serving in Iraq, making the discussion of the war in Iraq a very personal one as well as a policy-oriented exercise.

My favorite moment:The post-debate photo op, where the Palin and Biden families converged on stage. It was the most genuine, real moment of the whole event. However as I watched Palin’s daughter Piper, 7, walk around holding her infant brother Trig, I was holding my breath because it didn’t look like she had a solid hold on him. Just like when Mama Palin gave her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, I was sure Piper was going to drop her brother.

Get my take on the overall debate performances in my Suburban Mom’s Political Fix.

Image credit: New York Times/James Estrin.

I had the pleasure last week of sitting next to Alice Domar, the keynote speaker at the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce’s Women’s Initiative dinner. (Note: One of the event sponsors was skirt! magazine, which is owned by the same company as P&K Magazine.) Domar, an internationally known expert on what’s called the mind-body connection, discussed the main themes of her new book, Be Happy Without Being Perfect, specifically on how and why women should let go of the illusion of perfection.

What struck me about Domar, wasn’t just that during dinner, she was a down-to-earth person who spoke with ease about how her tween-aged daughter was upset that Domar had to be out for the evening and about her exploits helping her daughter sell Girl Scout cookies outside a local grocery store. It was that what Domar said — both at the microphone and away from it – was real, didn’t seem rehearsed/polished (even though this is a person who toured with Oprah in 2004-2005 and regularly appears on national television) and indicated that she understands what it’s like to be a working parent circa 2008 during an “epidemic of stress” like the rest of us.

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Soccer mom.

Security mom.

Alpha mom.

NASCAR dad. (One of the few father-oriented voting bloc monikers)

Mortgage mom.

Military mom.

Hockey mom.

Now, in today’s New York Times, I stumbled upon yet another entry in the let’s-define-moms-who-vote-in-some-quirky-way that I’d never seen before: Wal-Mart mom.

Why the attempt to label mom voting blocs? “Married women and women with children vote in higher proportions than single women,” an expert on women and politics told NBC this spring. “. . . Whatever affects their families, whether [it] is their children or their spouses or their own aging parents, family issues are of central importance.”

I don’t necessarily agree. Not every mom I know votes on the same issues. Not every mother votes on family issues. Or on education policy.

Believe it or not, it’s been my experience that women base their votes on all kinds of different issues, reflecting their individual values and priorities. And, like dads, they don’t vote in lockstep. Not all the soccer moms I know, for example, vote for the same people.

I’m with blogger and mom of three Erika Jurney who told NBC: “The people who place value on labels like ’security moms’ are pollsters and politicians, but in real life people are multi-dimensional and these tight labels are meaningless.”

Item #1: School Supply Woes in NYC

When it comes to crazy-long school supply lists, apparently my kids’ public schools aren’t the only ones doling them out. The New York Times ran a page one piece about schools in the New York area and elsewhere which are asking parents to shell out big bucks for supplies, including one mom who had ”10 boxes of baby wipes” on her kindergartener’s list.

“. . . [A]ccording to the New York State School Boards Association, supplies run an average of $100 for high school students and $60 for middle schoolers,” the paper reported. In some school districts, the school supply lists have grown so large that school boards have stepped in and placed caps on how much families should be asked to spend:

“In the suburbs of Rochester, the Gates Chilli Central School District last year capped the amount that parents were expected to spend on supplies at $10 a child, adding $100,000 to the budget to make up the difference. The sprawling Fayette County Public Schools in Lexington, Ky., set the limit this fall of $120 a child for the year, including field trips.”

Item #2: How Palin Does It

Answer (according to press reports): Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has a husband named Todd. Who’s the father of their five kids. Who works part-time. And takes care of the children (all but the baby and the eldest – who’s deploying to Iraq this month – are in school all day). The Palin family, you see, works together. Just like the Obama family, only no one’s asking Barack Obama how he’s managing to parent his two school-aged daughters while he’s on the campaign trail. So let’s back off the Palin-is-a-bad-mom garbage, why don’t we. It’s an unbecomingly sexist attack. ‘Nuf said.

Item #3: ‘Hockey Mom’ Humor

The line of the night, as Sarah Palin accepted the Republican’s VP nomination: “You know [what] they say [is] the difference between a hockey mom and a pit-bull? [*pause*] Lipstick.”

Palin’s speech — including the lipstick comment, at 8:50 – can be found here.

There they go again.

Savaging a working mother of small children for her choices instead of just trying to understand her decisions and realize that each family and each woman is very, very different.

This time it’s GOP VP nominee, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a mother of five, who’s in the cross-hairs. She had a baby in April. And returned to work days after giving birth. Before the birth, Palin reportedly got on an airplane while her amniotic fluid was leaking after consulting with her doctor. Now, because she went back to work, because she boarded that plane and because she’s got a baby and is running for vice president, people are all over her. Calling her a bad mom and questioning her competency, particularly because her 4-month-old has Down Syndrome. (And I’m not even talkin’ about Palin’s policy positions, qualifications or her teenage daughter’s private situation which even her opponent says should be kept out of the political arena. Let’s leave those items aside and focus on the attacks on her bio.)

Today’s New York Times has a page one story about what they coyly dubbed, “The Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition:”

“. . . [T]his time the battle lines are drawn inside out, with social conservatives, usually staunch advocates for stay-at-home motherhood, mostly defending [Palin], while some others, including plenty of working mothers, worry that she is taking on too much.”

The article continued:

“In interviews, many women, citing their own difficulties with less demanding jobs, said it would be impossible for Ms. Palin to succeed both at motherhood and in the nation’s second-highest elected position at once . . . Many women expressed incredulity — some of it polite, some angry — that Ms. Palin would pursue the vice presidency given her younger son’s age and condition.”

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As I continued to marvel at the surprising GOP vice presidential selection, I fired off a column about my impressions of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s first national speech to the folks at Mommy Track’d in a piece entitled, “McCain & The Working Mom.”

Additionally, I wrote an essay about the difficulties working women have when they are asked to speak at national political conventions when their spouses are running for president, called, “Michelle As First Lady: General Election Edition.”

Image credit: Associated Press/Kiichiro Sato.

At 44, she’s the first female governor of Alaska.

She used to be a TV sports reporter.

She played girls basketball and is into outdoorsy kinds of things, like hunting.

She has five kids, including a 4-month-old with Down Syndrome.

She calls herself a “hockey mom.”

And today, GOP presidential nominee John McCain picked her, Sarah Palin, as his vice presidential running mate.

It will be interesting to see how much her motherhood and her baby play into the media coverage of her selection. Barack Obama has two little girls — ages 7 and 10 — but his wife and his mother-in-law are taking care of them while he’s out on the campaign trail. Will Palin’s husband garner the type of coverage Michelle Obama gets when it comes to issues of balancing work and family? This, my friends, is going to be very, very interesting.

Image credit: Daylife/AP/Al Grillo.

Item #1: Adam@Home

I’ve been loving the latest Brian Basset cartoons, Adam@Home, where a work-from-home dad named Adam (has three kids and a wife who works elsewhere) is fielding online questions about what it’s like to work at home with kids bustling about and fighting. This week’s cartoons have cut a wee bit too close to my life’s experience as a work-from-home parent. I have several of the comic strips up on the fridge and in my home office that regularly make me laugh, though, sadly, the humor is lost on the children.

Item #2: thirtysomething Online

Shh! I’ve got a secret. If, like me, you’ve been waiting patiently (or in my case impatiently) for the 1980s thoughtful yuppie drama thirtysomething to be released on DVD (or VHS) and cannot, for the life of you, understand why it hasn’t come out yet, I have a solution for you. Try YouTube. Type in “thirtysomething.” Scroll down the page and you won’t be disappointed.

After watching many of the episodes which are 20+ years old, I find that — fashion aside — they hold up well, particularly when it comes to the angst one of the lead characters, Hope Steadman (Mel Harris) felt about working parenthood. (During the series, she wound up working outside the home after being an at-home mom for a while.) The clip below is from the first episode of the second season after Hope had decided to go back to work at an environmental magazine when her daughter was 20 months old. She and her husband Michael were also debating whether to have another child.

 Item #3: Halloween ALREADY!

It’s the first full week of August. My family just got back from our summer vacation, and what am I finding, other than beach sand still littering the mini-van? Halloween stuff for sale in stores and e-mails in my inbox from Halloween costumer purveyors. This initial Halloween appearance seems earlier than last year when I first spotted Halloween products while shopping for my twins’ late summer birthday party supplies. I say to you premature Halloween pushers: No mas! It’s scary enough to think about back-to-school shopping (school idiotically starts BEFORE Labor Day around these parts), I don’t need the added pressure of Halloween costume shopping.

Item #1: No ‘Bliss’ for Real Moms

Galt Niederhoffer wants all of you mommies to knock it off with your mommy propaganda, saying stuff like “motherhood is bliss” because, as she says on The Huffington Post, it’s not. In her post entitled, “The Bliss Myth: Cut the Crap Mommies,” Niederhoffer wrote:

“Why not acknowledge that frustration, boredom, guilt and ambivalence are universal, unavoidable facets of motherhood? Sharing will make us better and happier mothers, affording women the comfort of community and the benefit of shared information — the very tools we need to transcend motherhood’s challenges.”

Well, if Niederhoffer had been reading the Picket Fence Post, she would’ve never gotten the misguided notion that parenthood is bliss. Maybe I should e-mail her a few links to places where she can get a reality check on what real, non-blissed-out parenting is like here on Planet Earth.

Item #2: Family Meals Good for Parents Too

Speaking of real parenting . . . Slate’s Emily Bazelton tells us that while we’ve all heard about how absolutely fantastic and grounding it is for children to sit down with their parents for family meals each night — family-meal-eating kids are less likely to get into trouble, are more likely to feel closer to their family, get higher grades, become rocket scientists, etc. – it’s also good for parents too. Bazelton wrote:

“The research by lead author Jenet Jacob of Brigham Young University found that among 1,580 parents who worked at IBM, those who said their jobs interfered less with being home for dinner tended to feel greater personal success, and success in relationships with their spouses and their children. The working parents — both mothers and fathers — had all of these buoyant feelings if they made it home for dinner more regularly, even if they still worked long hours. They also felt more kindly toward their workplace.”

I know I’d certainly feel better if The Spouse were home more often for family meals, then I wouldn’t be the only one to develop a migraine when the kids say they utterly loathe what I’ve made for dinner (there’s always at least one protester per meal), then watch them sulk and, in at least the case of one child, literally throw up all over the kitchen table in order to avoid eating the baked chicken. Good times.

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