The Skeptical Optimist

I remember how horrified I was personally when the United States re-elected George W Bush after what was in my opinion 4 years of incompetence. In the run up to the election, I thought there was no way this guy who had dodged the draft, lied about weapons of mass destruction, given tax breaks to the very rich (etc) could beat the Vietnam war decorated veteran, intellectually minded and stentorian looking John Kerry… of course I was wrong.

Let me be frank about my liberal bias here: I read the New York Times daily and subscribe to the New Yorker and it doesn’t help that I spent my formative college years in a fairly left leaning campus where Republicans were treated at best as oddities and at worst as crazed pariahs. Till now, every time I meet an out and out Republican who seems like a really nice reasonable person, I can’t help but wonder - how did you elect the guy who with one decision is responsible for so many American military deaths, maimed veterans, billions in US taxpayers money lost to corrupt war contracts and I’m not even going into the biggest tragedy of all: the unthinkable number of Iraqi civilian deaths and the equally unimaginable trauma that this 5 year conflict has brought to the Iraqis. But I digress. I’m sure everyone has their reasons, they’re just not transparent or readily understandable to me.

What I wanted to write about was the new frenzy around the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Apparently, “white women” (talk about the racist undertones here) are rushing in droves to support her, so much so that Barack Obama is down in the national polls.

Let’s look a little closer at her appeal here: she’s got that frontier, never say die mentality of the Alaskan moose hunter, plus she has 5 children, including a Down syndrome baby whose condition she knew of prenatally and a pregnant teenager who at age 17 is going to marry the father of the baby. I can see her appeal to conservatives: her steadfast pro-life stance and her insistence that evolution may not be the right thing to teach little children in schools. I respect opinions of this group of people, in so far that, this is consistent with their world view and they are voting as such, fair enough.

But for the rest of the womenfolk in the US, and let’s face it, McCain did not nominate Sarah Palin for her foreign policy or even national policy experience or for her ability to be a worthy commander-in-chief (being photographed in military uniform with the troops doesn’t count) if he has a bad biopsy. He nominated her to peel of some Hillary Clinton supporters who were on the fence about Barack Obama and to invigorate the Republican conservative base.

So that’s what makes all this talk about feminist power and identity politics stink. So ok, she’s a working mother - but as one astute American mother pointed out : there are quite a few jobs where you can successful “juggle a blackberry and a breast-pump” (and I would add a pregnant teenager and 3 other kids) but Vice-President is not one of them. I don’t care what sexist labels you throw on me, they don’t work. I am the working mother of 2 young babies and let me tell you, I’m not vice-president and it is not at all easy. Multiply the responsibilities and consequence of my work a thousandfold and you get Sarah Palin and it’s looking pretty scary. This is a woman who preaches abstinence, but not quite successfully to her daughter, and someone who took a plane trip to give a speech in spite of the fact that her amniotic fluid was leaking. She also knew that her teenage daughter was knocked up and decided to accept the presidential nomination in spite of the fact that Bristol would be exposed to relentless critique from the media. What kind of mother does that?

These are not sexist comments at all. While McCain campers might cry: you wouldn’t ask this of a man! Let’s see- how many men running for national office have more than 2 kids, any under 1 year and can even get pregnant while on the job? This is not about gender at all, this is about who is the more competent for the job and who is able to focus completely on the task at hand.

I find it frightening that some Americans want “an average, normal working mother/family” to be one step away from the White House. We want our leaders to be the best of us, not the mediocre. We want them to have gone to the best universities or have a long experience in national and foreign policy. Just because a politician can relate and empathise with the ordinary man, doesn’t mean that his political leadership will be the best for the middle class or the blue collar worker: just look at those segments under the Bush administration.

So it’s disingenuous when Palin talks about 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling and and insult to Hillary. If Palin shows up her inexperience, her potentially dishonest portrayal of her time as Alaskan governor and generally dumbs down the debate on foreign and national policy by launching meaningless attacks on her opponents, then I would argue that glass ceiling is going to be much thicker than it was when we started in this American election season. And in the end, this ceiling is just in our minds, we should be electing people based on ability, vision and honesty not race, gender and political affiliation.

Tags: palin, politics, republicans, working mothers

In Singapore, when I tell most people that I’m 28 this year and have not one, but two young children, I’m usually greeted with gasps of surprise and disbelief. I know I buck the demographic trend here; most of my peers are either single or of late, married without children, with no plans to have any soon.

There are many reasons for this, especially from the women’s point of view. It just isn’t really possible in most cases to juggle work and childbearing and rearing without paying the price for it - either in time for yourself, your spouse or your ambitions. In my opinion, the government’s recent fairly generous reform of maternity benefits, childcare leave and tax rebates to encourage couples and especially working women to have children or have more children can only work in a limited way. What really needs to be addressed is work-life balance and how women pregnant or with children are treated at the workplace, in public and in private. Recent letters and articles in the papers like “Battering Ram or Stroller” really leave me wondering whether Singapore as a country is ready for a baby boom. After all, it takes a village to raise a child.

Sometimes when I read online or print responses of people who are unwilling to accord pregnant women at the workplace with benefits or feel that they should be penalised for taking time off work, I know for sure that they don’t know what it’s like to have a newborn, toddler, young child or even a teenager. No one, even parents themselves, can really tell you how hard the first few days. months and years are of bringing up a young child. No one can really describe not getting more than 2 hours of sleep at stretch for 3 months or how post-partum body chemistry is so volatile. No one tells you just how this new human being is completely dependant on you for everything, so much so that even if you forget just once to clip a fingernail or wipe a skinfold there will invariably be a scratched cheek or an unexplained rash. And no one can really convey what it’s like to have a child sick, wan, limp with a high temperature; or even the trauma of watching your careful doctor insert a needle that looks almost larger than a newborn’s vein into the tiny hand of your baby. Having children is a decision yes, but also a sacrifice, a challenge and an effort that definitely needs more than one pair of hands, or even two pairs of hands.

My own experience? Having two is more than enough for me at this stage in my life - maybe even for good. I’ve started giving away maternity clothes and baby wear to my friends and colleagues who are embarking on the brave new journey that is parenthood. I’m glad I made the decision to have my kids early; there are some things that I’ve definitely given up, like more of a nightlife or disposable income to do what I please with. But these are nothing compared to the pillowy cheeks and rascal grin of my 15 month old and the made-up songs of my 3 year old, sung at the top of his voice early in the morning. And they’re definitely nothing compared to the hug, kiss ritual at bedtime or the little voice calling out after me “Night Mummy, Love you Mummy”.

So why don’t I want anymore? I want to spend time with each of them individually, I don’t want to get a maid, and I want to get to know these little human beings that I made properly. The reality of the situation is, we have to be a two income family and I’m not sure that I’m cut out to be a stay home mother. Throwing more money at the situation won’t solve any problems, even giving more leave - which is the better of the two ideas. But really, what needs to change are the attitudes of the people around us, our colleagues, strangers on public transport and queues. In our get ahead or get left behind city, we need to stop feeling resentment for people who get different treatment for having children.

Tags: babies, children, government policy