Ann Romney's struggles

Bit of buzz today about this verbal slip by Ann Romney at a speech in Stamford, CT.:

Romney alluded to the fact that not all women can stay at home saying, “I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.”

Commentators are being careful not to misinterpret it, but I'm not so sure she didn't actually mean exactly what she said. People are forgetting the Mormom church is very much against women working outside of the home. Their elders preach financial sacrifice so they can devote themselves solely to child rearing and homemaking for their husbands. So she may well really love that some women have a valid excuse to seek a fuller work life than being simply consigned to mere chattel status.

Thinking, this pandering is the real insult to mothers forced to work.

“I know what’s like to finish the laundry and to look in the basket five minutes later and it’s full again. I know what’s like to pull all the groceries in and see the teenagers run through and all of a sudden all the groceries you just bought are gone,” Romney said to the crowd. “And I know what’s like to get up early in the morning and to get them off to school. And I know what’s like to get up in the middle of the night when they’re sick. And I know what’s like to struggle and to have those concerns that all mothers have.”

Clearly, Ann is still milking the diminishing Rosen kerfluffle with this, and it's pure bullshit.

Ann doesn't have clue what it's like to have never-ending laundry when you have to cart the wash to a laundramat, nor has she worried about how she's going to pay for that second trip to the grocery store. She's never had to explain to her kids why there's no food in the house because they ran out of money. She's never had to drag herself off to a crummy job after staying up all night with a sick kid, nor has she had to choose between taking time off from a job to care for them and not being able to pay the utility bills because she's lost a day's pay.

Of course, this sob story no doubt plays well in Stamford. She's pitching a big money crowd where no mom really has to work an outside job. But she will never know the struggles of all mothers. She never can, because she'll never have to make the agonizing choices forced on poor moms by the contraints of poverty. It's deeply insulting that she never acknowledges her own advantages in making those bogus claims. [photo via]

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