The Daly Report - October 15, 2004

An Open Letter to “Momma T”

Dear Ms. Heinz-Kerry:

At first, I thought you were nothing more than an interesting sidenote to the Kerry campaign. A bit of comic relief, if you will. Heaven knows, the country could use it after watching the painful machinations of your husband as he desperately tries to explain his ever-shifting positions on every policy issue imaginable.

It is time, however, for you to put down the gin-soaked raisins and smell the coffee. Let me say this as clearly as I know how: Motherhood IS a full time job. Despite you and your fellow feminists’ best efforts to belittle stay-at-home moms, we manage more in an hour than many folks do in an entire day.

And there are many of us who are stay at home moms who have managed to have careers while we are at home. That’s right, it may come as a shock to feminists, but it is no longer necessarily an “either-or” option. Technology allows for telecommuting and many careers now are not bound by the old-fashioned notion of physical presence in an office and a 9 to 5 mentality.

You made your money the old-fashioned way, Ms. Heinz-Kerry – you married it. And while there is nothing at all wrong with having money, there is a certain separation from the reality of people’s every day lives. Don’t worry, darling, it happens to most nouveau riche.

Clearly, for example, the reality of motherhood may not have ever hit you foursquare in the face. I can certainly imagine that having a fortune at your disposal allowed you to hire a battalion of nannies, night nurses, chefs and housekeepers to manage the little ones.

And that is your choice.

Just like it was Laura Bush’s choice to leave her career as a teacher and librarian to raise her children. Now I’m quite certain that being a teacher and librarian isn’t a glamorous career that one could brag about at Beacon Hill cocktail parties or the spa in Aspen, but outside of motherhood itself, I cannot imagine a more important choice of occupation than working to educate the children of this nation.

We are proud of Laura Bush as our First Lady because she brought back to the White House a true gentility, a quiet propriety that had been missing for many years. She put the “Lady” back in “First Lady.”

Where there is no doubt that you would provide endless amounts of material for many of us should your husband be elected and you take your road show to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there is already a generation of young women who have been brainwashed to the notion that their entire sense of value is tied to their career achievements.

So you’ll excuse me if I fervently pray that Laura Bush stays put.

In other words, Ms. Heinz-Kerry, and I think I speak for many stay at home moms, SHOVE IT.

Sincerely,

Kay Daly
Stay at home mom of two darling boys