DADvocate

I admire my mother in many ways, more as a wife to my father than as a mother. Her loyalty and support for my father has gone far beyond the ordinary call of duty. But I wish I could simply talk to her without liberal political points coming up. Surely, she is aware that little she could say would impact my political opinions.

Calling her on last Sunday evening we had a pleasant conversation for 30-45 minutes. We discussed my father who has been having medical problems, my siblings, my children, etc. At one point she mentioned that my sister and her husband had gone to see Charlie Daniels in concert. She related how, apparently, early in the concert Mr. Daniels made a reference to a song that was patriotic or supportive of the efforts in Iraq. My mother related that the crowd did not react and it ended up that Mr. Daniels didn't play the song. In reading the newspaper article I find no reference to this and all of this is my mother's understanding according to what she thinks my sister told her. But I found it curious that the highlight of the concert for my liberal mother, and maybe for my liberal sister, was the song not played.

(DISCLAIMER FIRST: While this sister is a liberal Democrat, I find her to be open minded and quite accepting of opposing opinions. She is one liberal with whom I actually enjoy discussing politics because we can actually explore issues. I highly respect her as a mother. She is generally as sympathetic to the cause of men and that of women. PLUS, she simply forwarded this to me in an email that she had received from someone else. Some parts of the email not quoted here were quite cute.)

One of my other sisters emailed me this story:

THE MOMMY TEST I was out walking with my 4 year old daughter. She picked up something off the ground and started to put it in her mouth. I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that. "Why?" my daughter asked.

"Because it's been laying outside, you don't know where it's been, it's dirty and probably has germs" I replied.

At this point, my daughter looked at me with total admiration and asked, "Wow! How do you know all this stuff?"

"Uh," ...I was thinking quickly,"All moms know this stuff. It's on the Mommy Test. You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mommy." We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, but she was evidently pondering this new information.

"OH...I get it!" she beamed, "So if you don't pass the test you have to be the daddy" "Exactly" I replied back with a big smile on my face and joy in my heart. When you're finished laughing, send this to a Mom.

Why is it so frequent that the "uplifting" of women involves the putting down of men? Is this what we want to teach our children?

The irony of this attitude is that is perpetuates attitudes that feminists supposedly don't want perpetuated. Women are judged in comparison to men. The standard for women is based upon men.