As the parent of a special needs child it is moments like Sarah Palin being offered as a role-model that are truly exasperating. Let me start by saying being in this position is full of difficult choices. When I joined a local support group for parents I was told basically, one parent will HAVE TO stay home to take care of the child, and it's usually the mother. I was not willing to quit my job both because I like it, and we can't afford it. The ONLY way we've made things work is by having my husband help equally, and at times for a variety of reasons including problems with our son, he was under employed. I would have been willing to do it, but that's not how the dice rolled out.At this point, both of us working is best for our family economically, and emotionally.

I notice most of the families with special needs children have a stay-at-home-mom, and a father who works more than full-time. The result is the discontinuity in how well dad (or the absent parent) gets along with and even understands what's going on with the child. It's like ALL the child care is abdicated to the stay-at-home-parent. I know my husband doesn't want this, and I wouldn't relish that role either.

Now I hear, "Hey, you don't have to quit working, just quit sleeping!" Truly, an unappealing alternative. I can't be Sarah Palin, I won't be a stay-at-home-special-needs-mom­, I can only do my best. If I seem to delight in cracks in the marble of Mrs. Palin's perfection, I will cop to being petty, but then, I'm only human, not a patron saint of motherhood.

Why is this about you? You yourself admit you are not average in how you handle your situation. You are just doing what you need to do to make it. Why does she need to be average? She will most likely have more advantages in terms of child care options than you do. That is not fair, but that is the truth. It is not fair that both of you have this extra difficulty handed you in life and to your families as well. But in the end those are the things that make our families special and dear to us.

That's the crazy thing, she does have more options, but apparently has forgone using a sitter, or childcare for her family. She has options I could ONLY dream of, but doesn't use them. OTOH, it's early days yet, as Trig gets older, he could well need outside therapy appointments (the stage I'm at now), which entails a lot of shuttling around. You can "hire" that out by getting a transport service, but then you don't make contact with the therapist to discuss what's going on and you end up "out of the loop". It sounds like her husband is on a leave of absence, which will ensure care of Trig, but she'd still be out of the loop (something I loathe in a lot of special needs dads). Based on the comments from some Alaskans on other threads, it's sounds like she coped with it in Alaska by re-locating the capitol from Juneau. That won't be an option. OTOH, if she is limits her role to a "you die, I fly" vice presidency, she could handle a lot between funerals. There is no way she would be able to do a veep role like Cheney, or Gore, which means that this will cause the a diminution of office (which could be a good idea given where it's gone recently) but do we want the first female veep remembered for making that job a "mommy track" position?

So, if she has her husband perform the childcare role, she is something you loathe? Amazing? Mommy track? Isn't it you who has artificially made that the only option? Please, I have heard just about enough from the supposed champions of women on this blog. At the end of this election we could have felt like we had a great moment for American women regardless of the outcome, instead at this time I feel like we have gone back 40 years.

Look, if she has a special needs child, there is NO WAY she can keep up with being an involved parent and be the VP of the U.S. I don't like it when fathers do this with their special needs kids, WHY would I cut her slack for doing the same crap? I'm not giving her a double-standard, I'm holding her to the same standard, which is, don't source all your parenting to one adult in the family. I think it has an especially pernicious effect on special needs families.

Mommy track is not her only option, but with that job there are many fewer options:

1. Keep up as a full-time mom, and international leader. She couldn't even manage the governership of a state with a population that is smaller than metro Little Rock without trying to move the job to Anchorage (http://fray.slate.com/discuss­/forums/thread/1725882.aspx). That won't fly in D.C. although many would love it if it did.

Make the world follow her (and Trig's) schedule. I'm sorry, but they won't reschedule a state funeral for her, even in Luxembourg.

Make the cabinet meetings follow her family schedule, I'm not seeing that happen either.

2. Do less with the job (Mommy track it). Go to conveniently schedule cabinet meetings and funerals. VPs of the past have gone years without doing anything significant. LBJ loathed the job for just that reason.

3. Let dh take over the child rearing, and concentrate on career. This is a choice MANY men have made, including many men with special needs children. I think it's a crappy choice (for anyone male or female) to make, but it is a path to power. She will not just miss many milestones, she will not be able to make informed decisions about Trig, and his care because she will be out of the loop. I’ve seen it happen with fathers, I don’t think her ovaries will give her any immunity to this.

She IS being held out as an example both to women and mothers. I don't find it charming, I find it pernicious and annoying. You say she is just making choices like I am, well John McCain made a choice, he chose her, and it was because she was a super mom. You may think I'm full of crap, but I think that vision of motherhood is crap.

What I want is special ed transport not to be cut. I don't use it myself, but it was a life-saver for my sister who had kids at three schools at two schools with three different schedules and one at a distantly located special ed program. The current Republican admin was going to cut it from the Ed budget in the upcoming fiscal year.

I want not to be pandered to but, when the best argument for her is she is a "hockey mom", excuse me for questioning.

I'm not holding her to a different standard, I'm saying that being the kind of Mom she claims to be, and the kind of VP we've come to expect without ONE of those things coming up short is well nigh impossible. We might have been having the same conversation about John Edwards family (wife with cancer, young kids, hey, what's your priority), but for that campaign blowing up.

Look, it's early days yet with Trig. She might get lucky, he may not need many "interventions", but pretty soon if he's like a lot kids in his condition, he's going to need therapists, etc. and I don't know if she realizes how much work she has ahead of her, not just as veep, but as a parent.

Very well said indeed.

lubbesuh:

So, if she has her husband perform the childcare role, she is something you loathe? .

I think that Bristol is going to be the one performing the child care. for Trig and for her own.

But that may just be my cynicism talking.

From what I've seen, "hubby" don't give up his sno-mobiles and sports for nuthin'. The Palins aren't a family I approve of.

That's a bottom line.

I think everybody gushing over Alaska's first family should ask themselves if they are the family they want running this country.

The original article jumps to conclusions. Sarah has expressed no interest in cutting back on services to working moms or special ed children: that is only in the mind of the original author! We each, as women, have different abilities and priorities. We need to celebrate one another's accomplishments, not envy or criticize each other! Sarah's accomplishments are remarkable and admirable.

Those who know Down's Syndrome children would point out that there is a tremendous range of its impact on the family, from minor to overwhelming-- that there are, in general, other disabilities which are much harder on families-- and that the future experience of the Palin family is unknowable, at this early stage.

Readers should expect to discover Sarah's numerous political accomplishments, in the next few weeks. Being a capable working mother is only the beginning of who she is! Just as McCain seems happier to let others talk about his POW days, Sarah seems happier to let her political accomplishments speak for themselves. Only her detractors tar her with the label of "working mother." And then go on to suggest that she is not supportive of workplace accommodations for women. Way out of line!

Just when I think the American political circus cannot become any more ridiculous, along comes Sarah Palin. You know, if she were from the South, she'd probably be called "po' white trash." As for judgement and executive leadership (if one can keep a straight face thinking about this in her case....), it seems to me that someone who condemns sex education and supports "abstinence only" birth control got precisely what she deserves in the person of her unmarried and pregnant 17-year old daughter. Quite some demonstration of leadership, eh? And then there is the inconvenient--and politically incorrect--fact that most intelligent and educated people are aware that the risk of a Down's syndrome pregnancy increases geometrically after about the age of 40. So she has had another apt lesson in the consequences of stupidity and ignorance....and still hasn't learned. Not unlike Bush. Appropriately, she is now a 21st century Republican hero!

This is exactly what I was thinking as well! Her MO is to close the barn door after the horse has left!

She could have at least swallowed the load and taught her daughter that as well.

She is the worst choice as a running mate. I could have tolerated Freddy.

Weren't there any other possible female choices to choose from?

Well, we know she cut funds for support services for unwed teenage mothers. That suggests something, no?

Running on the platform of "cut your taxes, no tax increases, power of the individual and "getting government out of your life" (a Palin direct quote from a day or so ago), it's a challenge to imagine how the McCain-Palin ticket will have the funds or will to prioritize fully funding the federal share of special education funding. That means that education for children with special needs will continue to be a very ugly proposition in far too many schools where local dollars can't meet needs. A not-unusual route in education for a child with Down Syndrome today employs a fulltime paraprofessional to accompany the mainstreamed child. It can easily cost a school more than ten times the cost of a general education student to educate a student with significant special needs. I favor such education, but the question that is relevant is, what in McCain and Palin's history suggests that THEY support such funding? Similarly, the baby out of wedlock issue...do McCain-Palin support funding so that 17 year old mothers can become educated and self-sufficient? It's easy to say, "let their family support them," but we all know that while the Palins will find some extra cash to support the new family, that support is all too often not available for unmarried young mothers.

In sum, I am disgusted with the whole Palin issue. Disgusted because we allow the republicans to talk about tax cuts and the horrors of governments, while touting the "rightness" of having illegitimate babies and babies with significant life challenges. For many citizens of the United States, without government support, those choices are either impossible or fraught daily with incredible woe.

Here's a question: Would Palin take away the public school's role in educating her child with Down Syndrome, since that's really socialized education? McCain doesn't want health care available to every American because it's "a bureaucrat make decisions for you". Well, I've got news for McCain-Palin...schools every day make decisions for families...where your child attends, who teaches them....and, it appears we have a common acceptance of that system, warts and all. So, my quarrel: What is it we want: tax cuts, less government and a death of programs that will benefit the people making choices that Palin touts as worthy of honor and respect, is it an honest discussion about hard choices for funding and how those choices work to SUPPORT families at ALL socioeconomic levels, or is it the typical republican tradition of empty rhetoric about support of families while giving tremendous tax breaks to the wealthy few, who after all, can just buy the supports they need when they make those "good" choices.

tresbienz wrote the following post at 09/05/2008 1:10 PM:"What is it we want: tax cuts, less government and a death of programs that will benefit the people making choices that Palin touts as worthy of honor and respect, is it an honest discussion about hard choices for funding and how those choices work to SUPPORT families at ALL socioeconomic levels, or is it the typical republican tradition of empty rhetoric about support of families while giving tremendous tax breaks to the wealthy few, who after all, can just buy the supports they need when they make those "good" choices."

In actuality we want better accountability and usage of the taxes we already provide not necessarily tax cuts if they are being utilised in an appropriate manner.

Our budgeting process is cumbersome precisely because of "accountability" run amok. Especially when it comes to social serivces, the "accountability" is part of what turns a $7.00 hammer into a $700.00 hammer.

The sad reality of the last 50 years of government history is that the GOP typically expands the SIZE of government all the while cutting programs - often by implementing lots more layers of "accountability" (read bean counters), Only the Dems have been able to shrink the size of the government.