Mommies, Make It Stop!

By Kadzi Mutizwa

“Work” and “working” have become loaded words.

In the ongoing “Mommy Wars,” the latest shot has been fired by Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen. Last week on CNN, Rosen declared that GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, “has actually never worked a day in her life.”

Of course, we all understand Rosen meant that Romney (as a stay-at-home mother) was never part of a payroll system or subjected to an all-staff meeting. But she chose (pretty instinctively, it seemed) not to couch her point in those terms.  Payrolls and meetings = work/working. Everything else = play?

 

(Not all stay-at-home parents belong to the Romney family’s tax bracket. And one parent’s assumption of full-time child care duties can make a critical economic contribution to a household’s solvency.)

Everyone from Democratic Party bigwigs to The Real Housewives of New Jersey’s Caroline Manzo has made their censure known. So Rosen has apologized for the sloppy statement, and has explained where she’d been going with it.  But why was the jab thrown in the first place (and on the record)?

I’ve known too many other Payrollers who (if you really listen to the subtext of their commentaries) look down on the Stay-at-Homers, the same way a lot of atheists look down on religious people.  Which leads to too many of the Stay-at-Homers’ defensive questioning of working mothers’ priorities, launching too many of these insipidly distracting “Whose hard work means more?” battles. 

Moving forward, here’s a democratic strategy that may help steer us onto the much-needed road to détente: when broaching predictably sensitive topics (such as those touching upon another person’s lifestyle), stay as specific and accurate as possible. Details will get you everywhere. Thus, if you want to make the argument that a wealthy homemaker who has never held a wage-earning position is probably not the best go-to source for guidance about the economic concerns of wage-earning or income-seeking women, then say that. Encourage more people to listen to and remember these kinds of extremely valid substantive points  . . . instead of allowing the focus to shift to counterproductive philosophizing about how expansively the definition of “work” should be viewed or who really has the hardest job in the world.