You’re lookin’ swell, Dolly

Judith Warner says about Palin (among other thoughtful things):

Just look at how quickly the reaction to Palin devolved into what The Times this week called the “Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition.” Much of the talk about Palin (like the emoting about Hillary Clinton before her) ultimately came down to this: is she like me or not like me? If she’s not like me, can I like her? And what kind of child care does she have?

My own question would rather be: what does she have to say about GETTING adequate maternity leave and childcare for all women who need it because they want to have children AND continue their careers? (See, that’s my sore point - I quit mine and will have to start another.) By which I mean, does she make it clear that society ought to realize it’s our shared social responsibility to raise children and support mothers giving birth and caring for babies, just as it is our shared social responsibility to provide schools in which children learn how to be productive citizens. Right now, legislation protecting working mothers and their jobs doesn’t make it possible to stay home for the duration of time that, for example, it’s strongly recommended my all medical professionals both in the U.S. and internationally that they breastfeed exclusively. According to my (admittedly non-representative but also not negligeable) sample, going back to work when your baby’s 3 months old and trying to pump enough milk to sustain said baby’s life is pretty much impossible. All my acquaintances who tried wound up weaning and switching to formula.

So… the laws of this land don’t even support the medically indicated time mothers should spend exclusively with their babies.

That’s the real problem, and not whether someone as rich as Palin can hire nannies to schlepp her baby with her to speaking engagements.