palin's choice

When I was making the rounds of radio stations promoting "The Mommy Brain," I used to get calls, quite a few of them from Utah, asking, "So do you get smarter the more kids you have?"

That was a tough one.

And frankly, I doubt it.

There's a limit, isn't there, to what one person can do, the responsibilities she can take on without dropping a ball? I'm talking, of course, about Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin, the presumptive Republican vice-prez. nominee.

To be absolutely clear, I whole-heartedly support a woman's right to choose whether to become a mother. Whatever benefits accrue to a mother from having children depend enormously on whether she's on board in the first place about the life-changing commitment, and whether she has even the minimum means to support her child without intolerable stress. It is stressful enough to be a parent in the best of times. Not to mention the stress for an unwanted child.

That aside, Sarah Palin's predicament brings up the knotty question about just how much a working mother can handle before sacrificing her children's best interests.
I'm surprised that I haven't seen any coverage to date about just how she does it. Is her husband caring for the five kids, including the infant? Does she have a grandma ready and able, like Michelle Obama? Sure, these questions wouldn't be asked of a man. But let's get real. It is the woman who gets pregnant, breastfeeds (if possible) and most often notices the runny nose, untied shoe, the sadness after school. You can out-source these jobs, but there's a price. And so much more if a child has any handicap, such as Palin's 4-month-old infant's Downs' syndrome.


"A learning disabled child is a career-killer," an editor recently told me. I've been thinking a lot about her comment in the days since the Palin announcement. It implies that a mother who has the resources to do so will sacrifice professional ambitions, because, to be blunt, the buck stops here. This isn't Palin's choice. And it throws light on a difficult and fascinating question unanswered so far in both feminist and anti-abortion debates. Does being "pro-life" stop at birth? Or is it a life-long commitment?

p.s., here's something funthat just came in over the transom....