Picket Fence Post

Hey, have you heard that there’s a U.S. Senate election happening today in Massachusetts? It hasn’t received all that much coverage, has it? Have you caught any of the ads for Republican candidate Scott Brown and Democratic candidate Martha Coakley? Maybe you’ve heard a bit of talk about it on the radio, that’s when you weren’t being incessantly reminded that some 62-year-old would-be rapper recently sang a ditty called “Pants on the Ground” on American Idol.

Seeing that I’m a politics and news junkie (read tons of news, watch political TV shows, listen to talk radio), the U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts to select someone to complete the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s term has become major grist for kitchen table conversations at my house. The three Picket Fence Post children joined The Spouse and me and watched some or most of the final Senate debate on TV last week (seems like eons ago) and they kept asking who that “Kennedy guy” was since they hadn’t heard The Spouse or me mention that he was even running. They found it patently unfair that the third party candidate — Joseph L. Kennedy – was asked by the moderator whether he’d vote for Brown or Coakley if he had to choose between them.

As political ads (many negative ones largely from the Coakley campaign) have been rolled out at such a brisk pace that their sheer volume nearly blocked out the sun, the kids asked more questions, like why the negative ads had such grim music and ominous voice-overs making it sound as though the world would end if the other person were elected.

In short order, the members of the Picket Fence Post family started lining up behind candidates, and suffice is to say there wasn’t unanimity, which has caused some friction . . . like when The Youngest Boy pumped his 8-year-old fists into the air and started chanting his candidate’s name in the face of his 11-year-old sister who’s backing a different candidate.

I’ve attempted (key word *attempted*) to tamp down my own enthusiasm for a candidate as I’ve been vigorously lobbying The Spouse (who always waits until the last minute to decide on a candidate) that my choice is the right one. However I didn’t want the rugrats to witness me pestering their dad while I was simultaneously preaching about the importance of being civically engaged and voting, no matter what one’s political views might be.

Today, on Election Day, The Spouse was working from home and the children had no school so we decided, as a family, to go vote together. There was jostling over who got to hold the two ballots and over who got to feed them into the machines (we have fill-in-the-circle ballots at our precinct). The jostling was exacerbated by the deep red/blue division between two of the kids and inevitably devolved into tears because The Youngest Boy didn’t get a chance to put a ballot into the machine.

Seeking political reconciliation, after we got home, The Youngest Boy and I baked some vanilla cupcakes and swirled red food coloring into six and blue into the other six. Once they’ve cooled, we’ll frost them and decorate them all with red, white and blue sprinkles. The plan is to enjoy them together in front of the TV at around 8 p.m. after the polls close, with some hot cocoa in hand. It’s supposed to be a celebration of Election Day and how lucky we are to have choices. I’ve warned both factions within the Picket Fence Post household that poor sportsmanship and gloating will not be allowed. That’s the goal anyway. Political, all-American unity. Under one roof. While enjoying red cupcakes and blue cupcakes decorated by red and blue sprinkles. My fingers are crossed.

Image credit: Metrowest Daily News.

Item #1: Mass. Mom Delivers Own Baby

A story in my local paper made me think, There but for the grace of God go I.

The story was about a Massachusetts mom of a 3-year-old whose labor with her second child came on so hard and so fast that she wound up delivering her 6 pound 4 ounce baby alone in the vehicle while her mother ran into the Emergency Room to summon hospital staff for help. As the baby, Grace Emily-Marie  was making her way into the world, Meghan Aucoin’s mother drove her to the hospital and by the time medical staff returned to the vehicle, Aucoin was holding her daughter in her arms.

Makes me shudder. That was me with The Youngest Son. Eight-and-a-half years ago. Baby was coming out when I was still in my bathroom. The Spouse loaded me into the car, drove like mad to the hospital, then left me (because I was unable to walk) laboring in the car as he ran into the ER to get the doctors . . . except that the doctors got to me in time and The Youngest Boy was born shortly after I was wheeled into the hospital. I became known as “the lady who almost gave birth in the parking lot.” Now Aucoin IS the lady who gave birth in the parking lot. My hat is off to her.

Item #2: 8-Year-Old on Watch List

Reading a page one story in the New York Times today about an 8-year-old third grade New Jersey Cub Scout who’s on the Transportation Security Administration’s watch list as a potential security threat does not make me feel safe. A boy named Mikey Hicks shares a name with “someone named Michael Hicks [who] made the Department of Homeland Security suspicious and little Mikey is still paying the price,” the Times reported.

This boy has been subject to pat-downs and questioning when flying on commercial aircraft with his family, starting when he was, get this, 2 years old and was frisked at an airport in Newark because his name was “on the list.”

I was incredulous. A 2-year-old being searched and treated like a potential terrorist? Seriously? I don’t know about you, but it wouldn’t instill confidence in me to see a kid in Pull-Ups being frisked before boarding an airplane because his name is “on the list.”

As Hicks’ mother said, “Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch — someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal. A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”

Their congressman, William J. Pascrell, told the Times, “We can’t just throw a bunch of names on these lists and call it security. If we  can’t get an 8-year-old off the list, the whole list becomes suspect.”

Item #3: Brutal World of Politics

I’m reading the book Game Change for a column I’m working on. It’s the book that’s getting all the media attention for containing a series of inflammatory comments about the 2008 presidential campaign reportedly from the mouths of marquee national politicians (Senate Leader Harry Reid, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, etc.). And as I’ve been pouring through it — reading anecdote after anecdote about searingly private moments between politicians and their spouses (the material on Elizabeth Edwards is so devastating and so personal that I feel like I needed a shower after I read it) — it makes me wonder why anyone would want to open him or herself up to such intense scrutiny, knowing that everything you say and do — even with your spouse when you think it’s private, even in front of “trusted” aides and colleagues – would someday be blabbed to reporters and made grist for late night comedians.

Image credit: Fred R. Conrad/New York Times.

A very kind BBC reporter sought me out last week to discuss the idea of a “mom vote” and how it might play out in tomorrow’s election. After our lively discussion at a Brookline coffee shop, she put together a report about women and the U.S. presidential race. he link to the BBC radio interview is here.

Also, did you happen to read that Boston Globe piece this weekend about one’s political leanings being related to your DNA? I’m just not buyin’ it.

By the way . . . am I the only one with election fever? I’m at once excited about tomorrow night — which will make history one way or another – while I’m also suffering from election fatigue. Makes no sense.

Item #1: Stone Soup Book

I love the way cartoonist Jan Eliot’s mind works. In her Stone Soup comics, she’s able to put into pictures what I labor to do with words. So, a few months ago, when Eliot e-mailed me to ask me if I’d write a blurb for her new collection of cartoons, This Might NOT Be Pretty, I felt honored.

“Jan Eliot has been spying on my family,” reads the blurb I wrote that’s on the back cover of Eliot’s newly-released book, the seventh in the Stone Soup series. “There’s no other explanation why Stone Soup so accurately captures the absurdly realistic yet painfully funny antics that go on in my house. Stone Soup is a window into the gloriously flawed American family.”

The book’s great for when you need to know that you’re not the only one who, as you’re raising your children, finds yourself in patently preposterous situations.

Item #2: ‘Desperate Housewives’ Trailer

Season five of Desperate Housewives, a once razor-sharp satire of modern life in the ‘burbs, is on the horizon. (Premieres September 28.) This season the show shifts five years into the future where everything has supposedly changed for the Wisteria Lane residents, most markedly for Eva Longoria’s character Gabby Solis, now a non-glamorous mother of two, while some of Felicity Huffman’s character’s kids are now teens and on a first name basis with the friendly folks at the local juvenile detention center.

Huffman has said that the half-decade time jump has invigorated Desperate Housewives’ writers and that the characters’ slate of stories has been wiped clean. I certainly hope so. The show has lost its mojo in recent years and just hasn’t been as good as it was in season one and early on in season two. I hope it can redeem itself. And soon. I’m rooting for Huffman.

Item #3: Tonight’s Historic Moment

Regardless of your political affiliation or for whom you plan to cast your vote for president in November, there is no question that tonight’s speech by Illinois Senator Barack Obama formally accepting his party’s nomination for president is a historic one for our country, particularly coming on the 45th anniversary of the Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. That’s the iconic speech our children are shown in their classrooms every January, the one they hear when they learn about the condition of race relations in the 1960s when King spoke and why the Civil Rights Act was eventually passed.

Fast-forward four decades later, and you can now explain to your own kiddos with pride how far our country has come from that moment to this one. This is a moment they’ll want to remember.

Image credit: Amazon.com/Stone Soup.

Item #1: ‘Mommy Porn’

That is not a typo. You have not inadvertently stumbled into one of THOSE sites, the ones that would get you fired if a supervisor happened to walk by and see it on your screen.

This item is entitled “Mommy Porn” because that’s the term Boston Globe columnist Penelope Trunk used in her blog, the Brazen Careerist, to describe the media’s fawning coverage of celebrity parents when they talk about how wonderful it is to balance work and parenthood. She says the media do not tell the truth about parenting and that the celebs who are interviewed likewise are tellers of tall tales.

An excerpt:

“So look, in the interest of truth-telling, I’m telling you this: people are not being honest about what it’s like to be with kids. People are scared to admit that they would rather be at work than with their kids, because work is easier than parenting . . . If I have to read about how much someone loves their kids one more time, I’m gonna puke. Because we all know that parents love their kids. It’s not interesting. It’s not helpful. It’s not even very relevant. For anyone.

. . . So with all the [celebrity] mommy porn, the media does a lot to make us think that work life balance is possible, in the same way anorexic bodies without treatment for anorexia is possible.

So there’s real damage from mommy porn. Everyone begins thinking that every woman should be parenting gracefully while working full time. This gives people the temerity to ask me, nearly every day: Who takes care of your kids?”

It’s a button-pushing post that is sparking debate around them there Internets.

Item #2: Obamas’ Canine Debate

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his wife Michelle debated on national television whether and under what conditions the Illinois senator would keep his promise to his two young daughters to get a dog at the end of his campaign, the Los Angeles Times reported.

While speaking on Good Morning America, Michelle Obama said she thinks their 9-year-old is responsible enough to walk a dog. The senator, however, was not convinced, saying, “But whether they’re going to be responsible . . . in the middle of the winter to go walk that dog . . .” His wife jumped in, saying, “We’re getting a dog.”

Sounds like an average, American couple to me, arguing over who’s going to be getting up on those bitterly cold nights to walk the dog. Of course if Obama wins the race, he’ll have staff who can walk the dog, so he and his two daughters would be off the hook.

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