Our 5-year-old daughter has Down syndrome. [...] "I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it! I KNEW John McCain couldn't resist putting a baby with Down syndrome up there on the national stage — that opportunist!!" [...]
"And what the fuck does this woman think she's doing; does she have any idea what it takes to raise a kid with Down syndrome? She thinks she can be vice president and take care of that baby?"
I stopped, startling myself, and clapped my hand over my own mouth. Where had that come from? How Sarah Palin parents her kids is absolutely none of my business. I know that. At least, the rational me knows that. [...]
I have two daughters — Sophie, my 5-year-old, and Annabelle, who is 7 — and I have a full-time job.
My own balancing act is inelegant. Forget leading the free world; I can't even balance my hair on the top of my head as well as Sarah Palin does. I don't wear high heels. My glasses were on clearance at LensCrafters. And my milk never did come in, so I never got to leave a meeting to breastfeed. I sneak out of bed at 4 a.m. to get some work done before it's time to make lunches, so I can sneak out of work at 2:30 to take my kid to her Brownie meeting. My eye twitches all the time from fatigue, and there are currently three overflowing baskets of laundry in my living room. My office is even worse.
I know how hard it is, being a working mom. And how important. [...]
As a staff writer at New Times for many years, I wrote a lot about John McCain — on other topics, too, but a lot about McCain. When Annabelle was born, that continued. It wasn't until Sophie came along that I felt compelled to take a different job at the paper, as an editor. It's just as tough, but not as all-consuming as writing those long cover stories we publish each week.
So, basically, I stopped writing about McCain so I could spend more time with my baby with Down syndrome (I was also, frankly, banking on the notion that he'd never make a run for president in 2008) and now here he is, poised to be the next leader of the free world, and his running mate is a woman with a baby with Down syndrome. [...] Tell me you wouldn't run around your kitchen shrieking, too. [...]
Palin is shamelessly using her personal life to sell her candidacy in a way that's reminiscent of just one other politician I can think of — and that's John McCain. But at least in McCain's case, he's his own pawn, vis-à-vis his POW story. Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig are their mother's pawns. [...]
And you expect me to rely on Sarah Palin, a woman who wants to ban books and teach creationism, and John McCain, a man who wants to ban government spending on almost everything but war, to help me take care of my kids? [...]
I don't know if Sarah Palin would create a safety net strong enough to catch Sophie, but I do know one area of my daughter's life (both my daughters' lives) that interests her greatly.
Reproductive rights. [...] When it comes to this topic, to be honest, I can barely bring myself to think of Sophie. [...]
What if — and I can hardly type the words — someday Sophie meets a bad man? Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion under any circumstance, including in the case of rape.
I am clearly not done shrieking.
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