For the Media

I find myself thinking a lot about Sarah Palin. Mostly because every reporter, friend, colleague, and stranger who I meet lately wants to know “what do you think about Sarah Palin?” I wonder, as I quickly examine the person asking the question, what is it they want me to say about her? I wonder what it is I want to say about her. It is a great question – what do we think about Sarah Palin? In many ways, it is the question for a generation of women whose mothers stayed at home baking cookies, throwing parties, and keeping things on track, whispering in their daughter’s ears the entire time “Don’t do what I did. Learn to take care of yourself. Be independent.” People across the country have projected on to Sarah Palin their hopes and fears about working women and the choices they have made.

It’s not so much what I think about Sarah Palin, but what Sarah Palin makes me think about. She makes me think about the multiple young women I know who spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on post-graduate degrees and who now spend their days at the park or driving from birthday party to birthday party – all the while paying down the law school or med school debt. She makes me think of the men I work with, whose wives left lucrative, productive careers to have and raise their children and how guilty the men feel about it (and what role their wives play in fostering the guilt). She makes me think of my uber-professional, working women friends and how they celebrate their success and child-free life. How they talk about what a drag it would be not to be able to go to a movie or go shopping or fly off to Europe for a business meeting or vacation – all the while knowing that each of them is very familiar with that lonely place in their head where they wonder what they’ve given up, what they’re missing, and if they are going to regret it one day.

There’s not a woman I know who thinks she has nailed the balance between education, career, and motherhood – no one is sure they got it right.

What concerns me about the reaction to Sarah Palin on this dimension is that it suggests there may be a new generation of mothers out there, with post-graduate degrees, jobs, and a decent amount of guilt and uncertainty, who lean over and whisper into their daughters’ ears, “Don’t do what I did. Don’t try to do it all, you’ll regret it. Make a choice and be happy.”

And I just can’t decide whether that’s progress.

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Comments

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effemberg says:

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Palin still lacks experience. http://divorceline.org/blog/

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Mirror, mirror on the wall, can she really do it all?

Comments

garden says:

effemberg says:

David Mushroomer says:

David Mushroomer says:

pri says:

rid says:

ruj says:

tibet travel advisory says:

Rusli Zainal Sang Visioner says:

Simone says:

Devi says:

divorce advice says:

Stacy Winters says:

bill says:

nicky says:

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