I touch on quite a few topics on this blog. Probably too many. Niche blogs are really the way to go, if you want a devoted audience. But some issues I do focus on more than others. Parenting and election 08 are frequent blog topics. What’s the intersection?
I think this election has been a triumph for modern parenting with involved dads.
McCain is totally old school. He was an admitted bad parent, only around on the weekend, leaving all the day to day stuff to Cindy. He was also a rotten husband, leaving the first wife and not even noticing when Number Two was hooked on pills. He deficiencies as a dad and a husband have been oft talked about in this election and it was one more way that he was seen as old school by a younger generation.
Obama’s campaign touted his dad credentials. He read Harry Potter to his daughter. Even on the campaign trail, he talked to girls every night. Going home to see his dying grandmother may have been sneered at by the hard-hearted commenters at PJM, but everyone else loved it.
And no matter what you think of Palin’s politics, the fact that she has five kids and a hands-on husband was definitely a plus in her column.
Biden’s devotion to his kids after his wife’s death made me choke up once or twice.
The active dad model is one clear winner today.
Apt. 11d 
Crap. I’m so tired.
LikeLike
I’m a bit less willing to take politicians’ presentation of their family life at face value. Practically every politician is a big family man, up until the day his phone number turns up in a madam’s black book, he gets picked up by the vice squad in a public restroom, or his mistress holds a press conference.
LikeLike
I don’t think any one knows truly what kind of parent anyone else is, just like the only people who know if a marriage is happy are those in it.
There is a difference between public perception and a private life.
I don’t know if a good parent chooses to run for national office while their children are small (I’m talking both Obama and Palin). I see what regular people’s work schedules do to family life, I can’t imagine it on such a large scale. I think there are likely sacrifices that are mostly felt by the families of our leaders.
And being a bad leader doesn’t preclude you from being a good parent. I know a toe tapping politician here whose children are truly, truly devoted to him and think he is an excellent father.
And if McCain’s first wife and children hold no grudges (which they’ve said) then who am I to think this makes him a bad president? I think his ideology would make him a bad leader, not that he cheated on his wife. It’s not one of my measures.
I admit that I think Obama’s family is likable and I like the fact that he values them, but it’s not the reason I am voting for him.
LikeLike
I agree with others that private life is private life and should be left out of the public sphere. For example if Eliot Spitzer hadn’t made such a point of prosecuting for prostitution during his career I would have had little issue with his behavior. Note that I think Spitzer is a pig who deserves the personal backlash I’m sure he got from his behavior. But I think a pig can be a good legislator.
That said, I think it’s a Good Thing that men are being held to a new standard for parenting, and I’m glad to see it’s entered the vernacular.
LikeLike
My mom noticed that the “majority” of parents accompanying their little trick-or-treaters on Halloween were dads. And the fact that the Palins – the very religious, Republican Palins – are a “hands-on dad” family really says a lot about what is expected of dads these days. The McCain model is definitely old school – and IME is looked on with disfavor by men as well as women.
LikeLike
To me, Dads out on Halloween is like Dads who BBQ. It’s Man Work. It’s a special event that doesn’t predict who does the daily child care or puts dinner on the table seven nights a week.
That said, this year I was in a group of 4 moms walking around with the 8 year olds on Halloween while my husband hid at home with the lights out.
But on the third hand, yes, I do believe we have at least some generational change in the way men parent.
LikeLike
AmyP – “Practically every politician is a big family man, up until the day his phone number turns up in a madam’s black book,” – and LisaV are dead on, on the difficulty of knowing what goes on in these public families. That said, when it became clear that what John and Elizabeth Edwards had been trying to communicate about their swell marriage was smoke and mirrors, and when Eliot Spitzer was caught out with his popsie, it was the end of those two political careers. So we are very unforgiving of inauthenticity here, and if Obama had been caught out with, say, his pen pal Scarlett Johansson it would have put a huge dent in his popularity. Nobody really cared about the Clinton’s marriage – they haven’t been advertising it as swell.
LikeLike
I disagree a bit with Amy P and LisaV. There are politicians whose private behaviour is pretty transparent from their public persona. Youo don’t know with certainty, of course, but I could name a good number of politicians, (none of whom actually make a big deal of their private lives now I think of it) who I would be very, very surprised to discover were philanderers (or heavy drinkers, or whatever).
LikeLike
Whether or not these guys are actual good parents is one thing. What I found interesting was the rhetoric of being good parent. The Obama campaign spent a good amount of time talking about Obama’s involvement with his kids. Clearly, they felt that this was a key topic, a way of relating to other parents. I don’t recall any other recent election that pressed this issue over and over. It sets up a model of parenting that I think we all like.
LikeLike
“Nobody really cared about the Clinton’s marriage – they haven’t been advertising it as swell.”
I don’t think they’ve been doing that recently, but during the actual Clinton administration, I think there was an effort. Remember 2-for-one and that photo shoot of the two embracing on the beach? Or, we had the most wonderful idea while I was cutting up Bill’s grapefruit? It’s interesting that the Clintons haven’t been selling their marriage in the same way this election, even though it seems like WJC has been deeply invested in HRC’s presidential race this time around.
harry b,
Another side issue is that the “perfect family” routine is brutal on the family members who have to live it out. I don’t know personally about political families, but it’s a very well known phenomenon among pastors’ families.
LikeLike
Also, dave s., what about David Vitter? Or is it ok if you’re a Republican?
LikeLike
Doug, I think the bar for corruption/scandal is just higher in Louisiana.
LikeLike
“A Good Leader is A Good Parent”
No wonder Chinese leaders tell Chinese constantly how to live, how to walk, how to smoke, what to smoke, what to eat, what to believe, what to understand, what to listen to, and what you should become when, and if, you grow up…
LikeLike
Doug, David Vitter’s survival doesn’t do my thesis any good, and I had forgotten him. Livingston went down – for ‘mere’ adultery, as I remember, and Foley lost in a Reep district in Fla. Louisiana brings to mind the old Edwin Edwards line, ‘I can’t lose unless they catch me with a dead girl or a live boy’…
LikeLike