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With a ticket in my hand for Senator Barack Obama’s Los Angeles rally, I weighed a new, personal dilemma; do I bring the kids???
As the mom voters gear up for ’08 many of us are finding ways to juggle activism and parenting. Is it smart or just plain insane to bring 2 and 4-year olds to a rally? Learning experience, or props for the media? Will I even hear the Senator over my daughter’s cries for more goldfish crackers?
As fate would have it, motherhood kept me from the rally entirely…the winter, kid ear infections took over and I spent the day administering antibiotics instead of hearing about economics. Such is motherhood and such is the life of a naptime activist.
Over at The Soccer Mom Vote, Tamara talks about her town of Austin’s Obama sighting, saying the Senator was hailed and vigorously applauded by an enthusiastic crowd, “I worry that oftentimes when people gather to hear someone speak, they want so much to hear what they want to hear, that they frequently applaud too soon. They hear ‘troops in Iraq’ or ‘the state of healthcare’ and instantaneously go nuts with the cheering and the hand-clapping before they hear anything of true substance from the speaker. I want more substance.â€
Meanwhile Punditmom is actually courting a crowd mentality to check out what the Bush Administration is doing, “Programs that mostly impact children and families are getting an even shorter end of the stick through reduced funding than usual -- funding that those programs might never get back, even if a Democrat takes back the White House in 2008.
Aren't these few examples reason enough to start rallying the Get Out the Vote people?â€
As I stayed home from the rally tending to my brood, I wondered how much we moms are missing having to juggle children and causes.
Amy at Equally Shared Parenting says its not a matter of balancing, so much as helping initiate change, "...fixing the out-of-balance lives of mothers is not going to be about teaching them techniques to keep their sanity - yoga classes, pampering, etc. Equal sharing isn't about such quick-fix techniques either. It is a whole new, egalitarian mindset that benefits men as much as it benefits women. After voting and working, it is the rest of our story."
So instead of feeling left out of my chance to attend a rally, I hopped on the web and signed petitions, forwarded articles, and donated. Learning along the way I could actually change the world while changing a diaper.
Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest also blogs at Queen of Spain and the Huffington Post
