Margaret Feike's Open Salon Blog

Where Mothers Win Influence

Wed, 23 May 2012 10:05:15 -0400

My son Woody is in Washington D.C. for three days on a class trip. We had to wake up yesterday morning at 4:45 a.m. to get him to school by 5:30. Normally he doesn't get up until 8:00. What a struggle it was! I thought that kid would miss his bus. He banged on my bedroom door for 15 minutes shouting, GET UP MOM! while I held a pillow over my head and pretended I was sound asleep. Finally he picked the lock and threatened to pour a glass of water on me.

He's been pumped about this trip for a long time and I have a feeling he's going to be even more pumped, with patriotic fervor, when he returns late Friday night. One of the many places they'll visit is Arlington National Cemetery.

"I want to be buried there someday," he told me not long ago.

Woody has gotten it in his head he wants to join the military, most likely the Army, after he graduates high school. He says he wants to "serve his country."

I've told him he could do pretty much the same thing by getting a job as a waiter at a high end restaurant. "It's safer, the pay is probably just as good and you can sneak me free food," I told him.

"Why do you mock my dreams," he asked me. "Why don't you want me to do what makes me happy?"

That's not it, exactly. Over the years, I've strenuously tried to steer, influence, strong arm and bully my kids into doing what I think is best for them. Because I'm sure I know them best. They've just as strenuously resisted. Numbers 1, 2 and 4 are particularly stubborn. But I always thought of Woody as my pliable one. He's not a tough guy. And he's certainly not "Army Tough."

He was coming along just fine until he was bitten by the military bug. I'm not sure how it happened but I suspect his best friend's father has a lot to do with it.

Connor's dad is an ex-Marine and he's putting ideas into Woody's head. Even worse, he's a heavy metal fan and he's introduced him to some truly odious bands including Judas Priest, Metallica and Slipknot.

I've schemed about breaking up the friendship because of these things but at least Woody and Connor only saw each other occasionally outside of school.

That's about to change. The other day Woody told me Connor and his family are moving into our neighborhood. They'll only be a street away. Not only is that man going to be able to stoke Woody's star-spangled dreams more frequently but I'm afraid the next time he has to wake me he'll blast a head-banger version of "Reveille" outside my bedroom door.

When Woody asked me why I don't want him to join the Army I listed every negative thing I could think of about the military including how badly soldiers are treated when they come back from active duty. I brought up Vietnam. He knows about my opposition to our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. I've told him about all the senseless deaths.

"But it's not all bad. We have to have a military. Connor's dad was proud to serve and he thinks I'd be making a good decision."

The thing is, I can't think of a good solid reason to give him against signing up and I resent Connor's dad, whom I've never even met, for being able to fill the void with his own reasons in favor of it.

Woody signed up for an ROTC class in the fall. When he wavered about taking it I used clever reverse psychology and encourgaged him. I assumed he'd end up hating it and wished he'd chosen a study hall instead. And that would be the end of this "serve my country" nonsense.

But he's excited about it. He's really looking forward to it.

I console myself by thinking there are four years between now and what I irrationally think of as Woody's deployment. A lot can happen in four years. Maybe I'll even cotton to the idea of having a son in the Armed Forces. Even though right now I think of myself as the only drill sergeant he'll ever need.

I'm not going to say anything negative again about his choices, mainly because he asked me not to. "You know you're only alienating me when you do that," he warned.

He's right, of course he is. I've decided to be supportive of my son. He loves to read so in the spirit of detente I offered to get him some books about the Army since I'm turning over a new leaf. He liked that idea. "Get me some real-life, patriotic stories about guys who've served, okay?"

"Sure will son," I chirped.

I've never read a book like that. I don't even know of any.

"I'll have a good one waiting for you when you get back from D.C.," I told him. He's excited. I got him John Krakauer's Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. I'm going to lie and tell him I didn't read it. I'm going to lie and tell him I didn't even know Pat Tillman died. That it just jumped off the shelf at me and seemed exactly the kind of story he was looking for.

I have no compunction about this. The military lies and covers up things all the time, including the way Pat Tillman died. If they can do it and be forgiven, a mother should be afforded the same consideration.

Betrayed. By My Own Mother.

Sun, 13 May 2012 23:05:46 -0400

The first clue that my relationship with my mother was about to change was when, toward the end of my first pregnancy, she announced she’d quit her office job at a discount store. She did this as she nonchalantly put it, to “help me with the baby.”

“But you live three hours away,” I said. “How much can you help?”

“Oh don’t you worry,” she said. I can hop on a Greyhound and stay as long I want.”

I had no idea, how could I? When I was growing up, there were no babies in our family, in our neighborhood or anywhere around. I’d never seen her with a baby. I assumed I was the apple of her eye, the one who put the spring in her step, the bloom in her cheek. I assumed I always would be.

As my due date approached, “the baby” was all she could talk about and she began shopping with a vengeance. She bought baby supplies, called long-distance at odd hours to give unwanted advice and attempted to decorate the former office in the apartment that was now going to be a nursery as she made increasingly frequent visits via Greyhound from Cleveland to Columbus to help me prepare for the blessed event.

When I told my husband Keith she didn’t approve of him painting the nursery so close to the due date because fresh paint couldn’t be good for “the baby,” he said she better watch it or he’d paint her out of the picture.

He was more concerned than I was. My mother was delighted to have a son-in-law and she'd doted on him from the get-go. The guy could do no wrong. They got along better than she and I did, so well that sometimes when we’d visit her or she’d visit us, they’d stay up after I went to bed, even all night, laughing, talking, smoking, drinking beer together then when dawn broke one of them would make a pot of coffee. I didn’t mind. I took it as a compliment of my excellent taste in men.

She used to watch our wedding video over and over again and blubber, carrying on about what a gorgeous couple we were, how we looked like Barbie and Ken, how lucky she was to have us.

Now she was reading Barry Brazleton, telling me to take vitamins, admonishing me not to gain too much weight and lecturing Keith on his smoking habit.

She wasn’t buying us stuff like she once did either. She always used to show up with something for the apartment or something special for “her Keithy-poo”, usually sports-related.

Now she came bearing diapers and wipes and Onesies and blankets and rattles.

When I announced I was going to breastfeed, she wasn’t happy. “That’s ridiculous. What’s wrong with formula? It was good enough for you and your sister. If you breastfeed,” she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust, “no one else can feed the baby.”

“Maybe she can get something from the doctor that’ll make her produce milk, so she can breastfeed too,” said Keith. “Maybe I can too. Then she can sleep in bed with us and we can pass “the baby” back and forth while we take turns breastfeeding. Like I always say, six nipples is better than two.”

“I’ve never heard you say that,” I sniffed.

“You haven’t heard half the things I’ve been saying about your mother,” he muttered.

“She’s just excited.” I felt like I ought to defend her even though I thought it was weird that she was looking forward to this baby more than I was.

“Excited? Have you looked at her eyes lately? Those aren’t the eyes of an excited person. She’s crazy and she scares me.”

He missed his m-i-l, I could tell. He missed talking to her about gardening and the Reds versus the Indians and politics.

I should have worried too. But when she announced she was going to stay “for a while” after the baby was born, I was seduced by her promises of cleaning, doing laundry and cooking her son-in-law’s favorite meals while we bonded with our new baby. Her promises were like a Siren’s song to my ears.

When I went into labor in the middle of the night, she and my father burned rubber down I-71 from Cleveland to Columbus within seconds of hanging up the phone. She barged into the delivery room even though she wasn’t allowed and began blowing smoky Virginia Slims breaths in my face thinking she was performing Lamaze.

I grabbed Keith by the collar and whispered, “Get her out of here, now, before this baby’s born having an asthma attack.”

She left the delivery room. But she didn’t leave Columbus. She sent my father on his way back up I-71 with a breezy, “You’ve got enough food for a month in the freezer. I’ll call you every night!” And sometime in the hours between me entering the hospital and leaving a week later after having an emergency C-section, her terminology changed. “The baby,” became “my baby.” As in “her baby.”

The laundry piled up. Keith cleaned because I was in too much pain. In the evening when he came home from work, he’d sniff the air and whisper sarcastically to me, “What’s that smell? What tasty meal did she cook me tonight? It smells like...like...like delivery pizza. That I have to order.”

Every morning was the same. She’d get up early and announce everything she was going to do, then scoop “her baby” out of my arms, sit on the couch cooing at her, singing to her, prattling baby talk.

This went on all day and night.

“I can’t stand this! I want my mother back,” I ranted to Keith. “She doesn’t want to do anything but sit and hold it!”

“Listen to you. You’re calling you own child ‘it.’ She’s got to go.”

She did occasionally lift a finger or two, mainly to smoke on the front porch when she reluctantly had to relinquish the package to me so I could nurse my new daughter.

And she wasn’t completely unaware of her behavior. She laughed at herself and said things like, “I know I should put her down but I just can’t get enough of her. And she’ll grow up so fast.”

Keith dubbed her “The Jaws of Life” since he said that’s what it would take to pry our child out of her possessive grip. But he soon shortened it to “Jaws” and took to calling her “Jaws” to her face. She was oblivious, lost as she was in babyland.

After two weeks of her we were exhausted. I called my father and begged him to come get her. I had a sinking feeling things were never going to be the same between us again.

The day she left, we went out to eat. She was squeamish about taking “her baby” in public - think of all the germs, she said - but we went because I insisted. And I wanted to see her squirm.

I ordered everything I could think of to prolong her ordeal. Finally she got mad at me and said “No more! You’re not hungry and we have to get my baby home before she catches something.”

What about me? What if I caught something? My C-section scar was oozing. I hurt. I wanted to be the baby. Nothing was right and for the first time in my life I was tired of my mother.

We pulled up to the curb in front our apartment. Keith’s car was gone. He’d refused to go with us and said he was going to a bar because “drunks make more sense than your mother.”

"You're not going to tell her goodbye?" I asked him.

"Jaws won't even notice I'm gone. Just make sure she doesn't take OUR BABY with her when she leaves," he said.

When we got back from the restaurant I was the last to get out of the car. They’d already gotten the baby out of the back seat and were racing up the walk with her between them, trying to beat the germs to the house. I turned to follow and saw them at the front door, fumbling with the keys I’d given them. I couldn’t move; I thought my jacket was caught in the door.

In they went as I looked to see why I was stuck. It wasn’t my jacket. It was the two middle fingers of my left hand. Pain shot up my arm as I struggled to pull them out, but I couldn’t. I tried the door. The car was locked.

I was trapped and I panicked for a second or two but then I noticed the pain starting to lessen. There was nothing to do but wait it out. They’d realize I wasn’t around eventually, probably when “her baby” got hungry. Keith would come home. Someone would walk by and I’d ask them to go bang on the front door. This wouldn't last forever.

Neither would my mother's delirium. There was no way she could sustain it. If nothing else, the kid would get older and thrash its way out of her viselike grip. No matter how tightly she held on she'd have to let go.

Surely there was a metaphor in there somewhere although I wasn't in the mood for metaphors. I was praying my fingers weren't broken and if they were, how happy that would make my mother. I could see the delight on her face as she gleefully announced she couldn't possibly leave because I needed her more than ever.

I Finally Had A Dream. Now I Want Another One!

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:04:22 -0400

There are two kinds of people. People who dream. And people who don't have dreams. I'm the latter. Or I was until a few nights ago.

I don't remember my dreams and I cannot abide people who insist on sharing their nocturnal transmissions with me. I'd rather prop open my eyes with toothpicks and do the cinnamon challenge. But the dream I had the other night was so clear, so vivid and made me feel so alive, I can't keep it to myself.

It also challenges something I've never given much credence to - the notion that dreams are meaningful. Yes I know Freud said they were a direct connect to the unconscious but I always believed they're the mind's way of having fun, taking a little break from the bozo who runs the show during the day.

Maybe I'm wrong.

For the first time in my life, now I understand the compulsion some people feel about sharing their dreams with anyone who'll listen. They can't help themselves and now neither can I. I simply must put this out there because it was so unsettling, it begs interpretation.

...I was living in a fabulous mansion with my mother, my father and a bunch of sisters. Sort of like the Kardashians except we were prettier and had smaller butts. And we were Indian-American, not Armenian-American. More like the Karpoorangarajanguptapatelashians.

It was a Saturday morning. Me, Mom and a couple of my sisters were going shopping. Not Wal-Mart or Target or even department store shopping either. We were heading to the city as in NYC to do some private designer showroom power shopping. We were dressed for it too.

I was wearing a stunning dusky plum suit and super high black suede peep toes. And I was walking around in them without tottering, waving my arms or hugging the wall. I was walking around in them like I wore those things every day. That's how I knew for sure I was dreaming.

All of us looked good, just like in the song: nails done, hair done, everything did. We fancy.

We were milling around the two-story massive marble foyer of our Taj Mahal replica home, replete with alabaster statues of nude cavorting lovers, a melodious fountain with "peeing" golden cherubs and a ginormous stalagtite-like sparkly crystal chandelier when Mom said to me, "For the love of Krishna, you gonna do it or what."

I huffed, I shrugged, I made a big show of rolling my eyes and tossing back my long shiny black hair (I had long shiny black hair!) and then I clicked purposefully across the marble floor toward the double doors of the first floor master suite where my father slumbered.

Just before I kicked open the bedroom doors I grabbed a board I found leaning against the wall. It was one of those unfinished two by somethings you buy at a place like Home Depot.

Then I burst into the dim bedroom where my oblivious papa snored. He was a large man with a gigantic head covered in thick wavy black hair and he was sprawled across the sumptuously appointed bed on his tummy, half covered with an expensive-looking blanket.

I didn't hestitate. As I strode across the room I thought "I'm really going to miss you," raised the board high and brought it down on his head. It did some damage for sure but he woke up and managed to say "whaaaaaa...???" He looked at me in confusion, rubbed his eyes, feebly raised one arm and then I proceeded to bludgeon my father to death.

It took a while - his head was super hard and that's what I focused on - but I moved efficiently with Terminator-like speed and precision. I didn't stop until the job was done and although the room was a mess when I finished, I had not a speck of dad on me. I hadn't even broken a sweat which was a good thing because I'd have hated to get sweat stains or blood spatter patterns for that matter, on that darling suit.

Then I turned smartly on my heel, tossed the board over my shoulder and left the bedroom. "All done!" I sang, and we laughed and headed, arm in arm, for the front door.

But just as we opened it, an annoying and pushy neighbor burst in and wanted to chat. We didn't like her and also we were twitchy because I hadn't closed the bedroom doors. We tried to hustle her out but she shrieked, "I want to say 'hello' to your father."

She elbowed past us and headed for the bedroom. Then we heard her scream. For the second time that morning I huffed, I shrugged, I tossed back my long shiny black hair and rolled my eyes, then went clicking across the foyer and picked up another board just before I got to the bedroom.

The neighbor's back was to me and she was incoherent. I raised the board and brought it down on the back of her head. Thwack! She was a lot smaller than Pops and her skull must have been thinner too because it only took the one blow. She didn't make nearly the mess dad had.

Then I turned smartly, tossed that board over my shoulder and clicked across the foyer as my sisters and mom joked, "What took you so long," and off we went...

So that's my dream and it's left me with more questions than answers and wondering what it could possibly mean. As strange as it was, it must reveal something about the inner workings of my psyche. Here's what I'd discuss with Freud if I was on his couch:

1. Should I color my hair black and get extensions? I looked so good, maybe my subconscious is telling me I need a radical change. And what about highlights? Subtle shades of purple or blue, maybe. They complement black nicely.

2. Maybe instead of sweats and jeans, I should start running around in designer suits and peep toes on a regular basis. Who knows what adventures await a woman who's dressed for them?

3. And speaking of shoes, maybe I should give heels another chance. I was so impressed with how confidently I clicked and clacked around in those peep toes, I may rethink really high heels. Time for a trip to DSW!!!

4. Did someone say trip? I dreamed my family was from India. The dream must mean I should visit my ancestral home and also probably take an extended tour across Asia.

5. I need sisters! I have one but she doesn't count because we don't speak. She's dead to me. But so what? You can get anything on Craigslist these days. Why not sisters? I'm going to place an ad for some.

6. Finally, I never knew how much I liked chandeliers. Thanks to my dream, I discovered I'd be much happier with a chandelier in my life and I'm commissioning a big one to be built and installed in my own smaller entryway.

Who knew a few minutes of shut-eye could be cheaper and more fun than hours spent with a therapist? I feel like I know myself so much better now and I can hardly wait to hit the sack tonight so I can find out more about me.

Sweet dreams everybody!

Being Danny Tanner

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:04:55 -0400

It's not easy being a mother. Being a good one is even harder. There's no manual, no course, no degree. So I've done what every aspiring good mom should do. I've acquired my mothering skills over the years by imitating the TV and movie moms I most admire: Ma Fratelli from Goonies. Beverly Sutphin from Serial Mom. Married With Children's Peggy Bundy. Lois Griffin, matriarch of Family Guy. She's a cartoon, sure, but she's been no less instructive to me than the others.

These ladies set the bar pretty low but if you ask my four kids, I know they'd agree I've managed to slither under it.

There's one TV mom though who's head and shoulders above those others, one who represents the Everest of motherhood for me. A TV mom whose momliness I can't duplicate, only pine after.

Technically he's not even a mother.

He's Danny Tanner from ABC's Full House, that saccharine sitcom about the San Francisco talk show host and widower who lived with his brother-in-law, his BF and his three young daughters (four if you count Michelle twice since she was played by those scrawny Olsen twins).

I always insisted I watched Full House only because my daughter loved it. But secretly I ate up everything about that sickeningly wholesome nonnuclear family and their whacky exploits. Oh to be just a shadow of the man/woman, mom/dad, nurturer/caretaker that was Danny Tanner!

As a parent he had it all. Patience. Understanding. Wisdom. And a gentle sense of humor around his girls that became only slightly more rowdy when he was in the presence of the other two household residents, Uncle Jesse and Best Pal Joey.

I'm not much like him.

Even comedian Bob Saget, who played Danny, isn't exactly like his alter ego. I was shocked and disappointed when I learned that in his stand-up routine, Bob Saget supposedly has one of the filthiest mouths in the business.

It's hard being Danny Tanner. This was what I told myself recently when I had a golden opportunity to be him and failed. Miserably.

In January I bought a Mac laptop, a delightful toy that set me back about $1,300. I waved off the salesperson's recommendation of an extended warranty saying something like, "Don't need it, I'm careful!"

"Will kids be using it?" he asked.

I thought for a moment. "No! Absolutely no kids will ever touch this thing ever." I'd told him I had kids. He looked at me for a long second.

"Ever. EVER! EVEREVEREVEREVEREVER!!!"

Unlike Danny I also frequently go back on my word.

Easter weekend my daughter Dianna and her little friend were hanging out and coloring eggs when I left the house to walk my dogs. When I came back 20 minutes later she was hunched over my new laptop sobbing, while her friend sat next to her and looked uncomfortable.

"What's wrong, honey," I cried, pleased at my Danny Tanner-like concern. I said it the same way he'd have if he saw D.J. or Stephanie in distress.

I assumed she'd been on one of the sad websites she visits sometimes like deadmoms.com. which features stories about kids who told their moms they hated them, then immediately afterward, Mom drops dead and the kid has to live with terrible crushing guilt for the rest of his or her life. I like these sites; they should be required viewing for all children.

I put my arms around her but she wouldn't say anything. She just cried harder. Her friend looked even more uncomfortable. I patted her head and murmured soothing things.

Finally her brother, who was playing a video game, got tired of the commotion and yelled, "The little douche spilled a bottle of water on your laptop. Now it won't work." Danny didn't have sons but if he had, they wouldn't have called Stephanie or D.J. or Michelle a "little douche." But then again, a camera was always on the Tanners.

Maybe that was the key to being Danny Tanner, someone filming my family for an audience. I'd be more aware of things if someone was filming me. Maybe it was the situation. Laptop destruction was never the subject of a Full House episode. I don't think laptops were even widely in existence during FH's reign. If they had been, maybe I'd have been better prepared to pull a Danny Tanner.

Instead I pulled a Bob Saget. With a little Andrew Dice Clay and Chris Rock thrown in for variety.

Except without the humor.

Daughter ran upstairs with her friend on her heels. I was mortified. What would Danny do if one of his three little douches had wrecked his less than three months new laptop? He wouldn't have used the appalling language I did. While bellowing at the top of his lungs.

And he wouldn't have irrationally cursed and blamed his dead wife Pam for the whole mess. The way I irrationally cursed and blamed my dead husband. I was extra mad because if he hadn't died, he'd have gotten me a hefty discount on the laptop in the first place since he'd worked for a computer retailer.

Later, after I calmed down a bit, I reflected. Why fight it? I'd never be Danny Tanner. Even Danny would tell me that. Gently and earnestly. He'd say, "Margaret, don't try to be me. You can only be you. Embrace your inner mom and let her blossom."

Okey dokey, Danny. Who am I to argue with my idol?

Staying Home With The Kids Is Not A Career

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:04:20 -0400

Years ago when I was a stay-at-home mother I had the luxury of turning off Nickelodeon in the afternoon and watching the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah often made the remark, "Motherhood is the most difficult job on the planet." Or something to that effect.

The audience seemed to agree, judging by the many knitted brows and serious expressions as the camera panned them and they nodded gravely.

I'd always think the same thing: "Golly Oprah, how would you know? You're not a mother. For you, keeping off the weight seems to be the hardest job on the planet." Anyway, even if Oprah had had children, she also had the means to employ the most reliable, highest quality au pair-ed care on the planet. Not to mention she had the support of both Stedman and Gayle.

How many mothers have both a Stedman and a Gayle in their lives?

I love Oprah but that remark always irked me. And not just because Oprah's not a mother.

Motherhood is not a job. No more than being a wife or a daughter or a pet owner is a job.

I was a stay-at-home mom for ten years when my older two were little. There were some frustrating and difficult moments; that's always the case with young children. But on the difficulty scale, it sure doesn't compare with say, being a teacher. I couldn't handle that job.

Thanks to my husband's income, I was not only able to hang out most days with the other stay-at-home moms in the neighborhood, I could afford to do fun things with them and the kiddies - like going out to lunch, to the movies, to the mall, to the amusement park, to the local pool.

Sometimes my kids were gone for significant blocks of time, like when they were in preschool or at a play date. I had a lot of free time as a stay-at-home mom. The time when they're completely helpless and need mommy for absolutely everything is pretty short.

Another bonus was that at the end of the day, my husband came home from work. There was another set of eyes, ears and hands. Respite. Relief.

For ten years this was my life, until the husband died suddenly in 2000. He left me with three young kids and pregnant with a fourth. And in less than a year, I dove head-first into the single working mother pool. I've been there for the past 11 years. To say it was a shock to the system is an understatement.

Finding a job was hard enough after being out of the work force so long. I was lucky to become a low-paid drone at a big company that offered excellent benefits.

Working all day at a less than satisfying job then coming home to four kids and a messy house was hard. I was often tired and irritable. I snapped at them. I was impatient. And resentful that I had no time to myself anymore.

But I was also lucky. My parents stepped in and filled the gaps. They were there when the older two got home from school. They also could pick up a sick kid from school for me when doing so would have endangered my employment. They could come by in the middle of the night and stay with the other three if I had to rush to the ER with a kid having an asthma attack.

Then there was child care. They watched the younger two while I worked, and all four of them in the summer and on breaks. It would have been impossible for me to afford child care and also work.

I don't know how women do it who aren't wealthy and don't have outside support.

Hillary Rosen's remark about Ann Romney never working a day in her life brought back a flood of memories for me, none of them pleasant.

My kids are older now and life is smoother. But I remember when they were little, wishing they'd grow up faster so things would be easier for all of us.

There's something contradictory about a mother who wishes her kids would grow up faster instead of feeling, like the clever Carter's slogan, If only they'd stay little 'til their Carter's wore out.

I remember stomach-churning sleepless nights filled with worry, worry, worry. Worry about what would happen to my kids if something happened to me. Worry about my parents and the stress they were under. Worry about the whole single-mother stigma and how I might be inflicting long-term damage on them with my absence, my attitude, my less-than-nurturing mothering skills.

I know I'm not the only single mother who's lain awake at night, worrying.

Worry leads to guilt.

The guilt in fact was the worst of it and is long-term. It can settle on a mother like a second skin. Especially a single mother. When things go wrong in families with only a mother, there's only one person to blame. And it's not the kids.

I hope Hillary Rosen's remark about Ann Romney blows over. Ann is not the Romney running for office. I also hope no one is wearing such tight blinders they can't see what she meant by it.

Raising kids full time can be a gratifying, noble endeavour. It can also be exhausting. Especially if you have five boys as the Romneys do. But it's not exhausting in the same way that punching in for the daily 9-5 grind is for most working parents.

To call being a stay-at-home mother a "career choice" as Ann Romney did, isn't really accurate either.

It's not a college major. Most women don't quit their jobs to stay home with their kids because they feel it's a better "career choice." And if you're unlucky enough to wind up as I did, it can be a downright deadly career move.

For the vast majority of mothers who don't work outside the home, it's something they're able to do because their spouse makes enough money to make it possible. And why shouldn't they?

The kids are happier.

It's just not that hard. Unless you're Old Mother Hubbard, it's not that difficult to stay home and raise your kids.

And it's fun. The vast majority of the time, being with my kids was just plain fun. And everyone knows, when something's fun, it doesn't feel like work.

So unless Ann Romney really didn't enjoy being a mother you'd think she'd agree with Hillary Rosen. She's never worked a day in her life.