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Spitzer’s Skeletons Came out of the Closet

March 11, 2008

Ahh kittens…one of my favorite scandals erupted unexpectedly yesterday to brighten an otherwise dull Monday afternoon. By now, we’ve all heard about it, the good old Governor of New York couldn’t seem to keep his pants zipped up during a quick trip to DC last month and had to ship down some call girl from NY to keep him occupied for a few hours. Ahh……the joys of a political sex scandal involving a rising star in the Democratic party, sprinkled with the fun of knowing this particular politician has steadfastly fought against prostitution rings in the recent past……nothing adds whip cream to the top of a delicious political sex scandal more than double standards and hypocrisy, of course! I can still hear Wall Street and business tycoons laughing over their gin and tonics and cigars.

But see, it’s not really the guilty husband that intrigues me the most about this story or even how sanctimonious Spitzer was as the AG. We’ve talked about this before on KT. It seems that we’ll never know why the ego stretches so large that politicians believe they are above the law and most importantly, forget that they actually can’t ever get away with their indiscretions. But, history has a way of repeating itself and this scandal is as old as time. No matter how brilliant the aides are that surround these politicians, they haven’t yet been able to convince them that their skeletons will always come out of the closet. And we should all be thankful for it because it sure is fun to watch.

But like I was saying, it’s not the man that fascinates me in all of this, it’s the role of the betrayed and humiliated wife that I just can’t move past. The image of the wife standing there next to her husband during the initial press conference, with that scorned look on her face, and then holding his hand as they exit center stage and dodge the most painful questions.

Why….why…why…I keep asking myself. Why do these wives stand there? Anyone thinking of our gal Hil on 60 Minutes, with such confidence that her husband did NOT have an affair with Gennifer Flowers…years before Monica showed up in the Oval Office in her blue dress? Or gay Governor McGreevey’s wife. I think she resurfaced onto the Today Show this morning but we were busy watching Little Bill. Or Vitter’s wife…or Larry Craig’s wife….and now Spitzer’s wife…and all the other wives before my time….and that will come down the road in the future.

Why do they stand there, we all wonder?

Now, from a PR perspective, I understand why the wife is standing there but even that confuses me at my core. The horn-dog political husband needs his wife standing there in that first press conference to show the world that his family believes in him, so we should too. I get that.

But what does that do for the wife? Why does the wife give a shit that her husband’s career is going down the toilet and fast? Why does she want to be publicly associated with this sinking ship any more than she already is? Hell, we’re all talking about how he not only cheated on her with a hooker but went so far as to transport that woman from NY to DC to get it on with her….and if you’re transporting hookers, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that wasn’t the first time he got his toes wet…so to speak…..

Also – living in DC – I’m a little offended. What’s wrong with our hookers here? What – they not as hot as the ones in NY? Come on guys……no need to transport them over state lines.

So, back to the wife, why should she care about her husband’s career in that moment? Why should she stand there, stone faced, hanging on like cold grim death, to the idea that her husband’s career will actually survive?

Well, being a mother, I can only assume one thing – she’s standing there for her kids. She’s standing there because she believes, in that rock bottom moment of her life, after all the crap she’s put up with over the years to support her husband and help his career, that her children need to see their parents as a unified front in order to minimize the disgrace, humiliation and confusion they are surely feeling.

That is the only theory I can come up with as to why the wives all stand there. Not a person in this world can convince me that any one of those wives wants to be there. And hopefully she is giving her husband a verbal beating before and immediately leaving center stage, though it won’t do any good. But as mothers, in that moment, I’m sure the only thing they can think of to do is what they think will help their children in the long run.

And so I can’t judge them, I can’t throw them under the bus just like I want to throw their husband under the bus, because if I believed that I needed to do that to help my daughter, then I would stand there too. For her. And only for her. And if some reporter asked me why I was standing there, all I would say was “to support my children.”

So instead of judging these wives, I ask you this – do you think that standing there in support of the husband actually does help the children more in the long run? Surely children have been all ages when these kinds of scandals have hit these horny, pathetic, lying, cheating excuses for husbands and fathers. So some kids can understand the scandal immediately while others might need more explanation and then will look back in time at those pictures.

What message does it send the children in that moment and in the future? Does it tell their kids that you stand by the people you love when they need you the most, no matter how much it hurts? That you can’t just cut and run when the going gets tough? Or does it tell them that even after you were just walked all over like a doormat, and stomped on a few times, and there was probably dog shit on the bottom of the shoe that was stepping all over you, even after all that, you still stand up there in support? Because you really are a doormat?

I honestly don’t know.

What do you think?

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Husbands, Motherhood, Politics

Maternity Leave, continued.

February 7, 2008

Kittens –

As promised, I am researching where the presidential candidates stand on issues that might be important to KT readers – with a special focus on federal maternity leave policies. I am only looking into McCain, Obama and Clinton for this particular entry – refuse to waste my time on Romney or Huckabee.

That said, along the way of researching the ways these candidates have addressed issues like maternity leave, I stumbled upon stories about European countries and their maternity leave policies. Hell, even our neighbor to the north, has an incredible policy as compared to ours.

So, while you are waiting at the edge of your seat for my Campaign 08 overview, I’ll give you something to feel depressed about.

As if it’s not bad enough that we’re not all living in Europe, here’s my effort at making you feel worse.

Take, for example, this story I found on maternity leave in Norway. Norwegian women are entitled to 12 months off with 80% pay or 10 months off with full pay.

And before you go spewing your coffee all over your keyboard in a fit of rage, allow moi to just make it worse and rub it in – fathers are encouraged to take as much time off as possible as well – and are required to take the first four weeks off. Apparently they believe in parental equality over there and somewhere along the way, someone got the memo that forcing fathers to stay home and learn how to take care of their own children, puts working women at an advantage because their spouse is then equally as participatory.

Wow. How shocking.

And further evidence that we are screwed here in the US – five out of 6 Norwegian mothers work.

You heard me. Five out of Six. And finally – to finish it off – they have state-sponsored daycare facilities in Norway.

So the next time we hear yet another story in the news and read a review of yet another book about why educated, professional women are “off-ramping” and staying home – perhaps we could stop a minute and realize the answer isn’t that difficult. It’s called lack of support from employers and our federal government.

And before I go and get all Michael Moore – one sided on you – it is important to realize that the Norwegian government and employers can afford such a generous plan because the taxes in Norway are sky high. That’s the catch. We have to be willing to pay substantially higher taxes to reap the benefits of such a system. But again, the flip side to high taxes is that when the sweet little babies grow up and want to go to college, instead of having to fork over $100k a year, university is free there. So what do you prefer? Pay now or pay later, kittens.

The woman featured in this piece on Norway ends with a quote on equality between men and women that should give you something to chew on because this, frankly, never occurred to me because if women in American can’t even get paid time off to have a baby, then we’re light years away from addressing equality between men and women in the workplace when balancing families:

“The system will not be completely fair to women until parental leave must be shared 50-50 between mother and father, by law. Only then will women be completely equal in the work market, and perhaps then we will choose to have even more children.”

If you’d like to read the article and start looking into moving costs to Norway, here it is kittens:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4786160.stm

And if you’d like to get paid 10,000 euros to have a baby, then you should move to Poland:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4768644.stm

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Husbands, Motherhood, Politics, Work

The Feminine Mistake

January 16, 2008

A friend recently loaned me the controversial book “The Feminine Mistake.” I’m only a few pages into it, so it’s far too early for me to really comment on the book, specifically. That said, what’s to stop me from commenting on the overall premise?

I’m sure you all know by now that basically the author’s argument is that if women step out of the workforce to stay home full-time with their children, they are basically putting themselves in a vulnerable position. By earning no income on her own, the idea is that the woman is then putting herself in a corner should her marriage fall apart. She has then relied too heavily on her husband, financially, and she is at risk to not find the same kind of work and pay again if she needs to re-enter the workforce, and what about the care of her children? How will she be able to continue supporting them as they are used to being taken care of?

Again – without having read the book yet – on the surface it seems that the premise is a very harsh, dark cold one. Afterall, when we head down the alter to meet our groom and become husband and wife – surely no one’s thinking about what to do when the whole thing falls apart.

And when we get pregnant and deliver our first child into this world, surely no one is thinking about what we’ll do if the whole thing falls apart.

Same with when we quit our jobs to stay home full-time to tend to our children.

Bottom line is – everything we do, in terms of big, real decisions, in my view, is a leap of faith. You can’t get any assurances in this world – you have to just view it as the glass half full and move on.

So how do I take that philosophy on life and apply it against the “Feminine Mistake” premise, which is to very cautiously and conservatively, constantly plan for the worst in life and have yourself covered?

I don’t really have an answer to that. The truth is, while I think that the big decisions we make are leaps of faith and we can’t really plan for what happens when the whole thing falls apart, I think it’s naive to not consider that as an option.

We have no guarantees. We don’t know what our life is going to be in 15 years, we don’t know how we will change, how our husbands will change. How do you know that further down the road, you won’t suddenly become obsessed with skateboarding as your hobby and start spending too much time with teens at the skate park?

Sure, it might seem ludicrous right now – but it happens.

Just like affairs happen, illness happens, stress from life happens and wears on a marriage. Wears it out.

So no, you don’t think about that when you’re bounding down the aisle in a white gown, but the truth is – with the divorce rate what it is in this country, it is naive to not consider the hard horrible outcomes when making this choice.

You might be wondering why I’m bringing this up now when this book is not new. Basically a conversation I had with a friend last week over baby happy hour has been percolating in my mind since Friday and you know my rule of thumb, if I’ve thought about it for more than 2-3 days, it’s blog material.

My friend said that the discussion of the book during her book club meeting really turned contentious. There were younger moms in the room and many of them were almost offended at her suggestion that you’re naive to think that divorce and the dissolution of your marriage isn’t a possibility and so you should protect yourself with work.

Those aren’t words any of us ever want to hear but I just don’t think it’s that wrong to consider when making the decisions we make.

Even so, I still view the cup as half full.

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Husbands, Motherhood, Work

The Cougar

January 9, 2008

I have been remiss in blogging about the Cougar. The whole idea of the Cougar has been something that’s intrigued me for months now. I’ll be honest, I love the term. It’s much sexier and hipper than being a “Sugar Daddy.” A cougar is fast, stealth, not easy to catch, well-built, can pounce on a second. I mean – come on. Being called a Cougar is pretty sweet, in my mind.

I know some of you might disagree but there you go, I said it, I love the Cougar. I want to be a Cougar, except the part where I married a man who is older than me.

But there are some questions lingering out there around Cougars.

The first – at what age are you a Cougar? My co-worker, he loves the Cougars of the world but being a man in his 30s, he does not believe I am old enough to be a Cougar. A puma? Perhaps. But I’m not old enough to be a Cougar, according to him.

I’m ok with Puma.

But what about the man in his 20s? Would he consider a woman in her 30s, a Cougar, I wondered.

I just got my answer.

I just had a working lunch with my co-worker and a man in his 20s. Towards the end of the lunch, he commented that he’s dating a Cougar. He’s 25 and she’s 36. The entire dynamic of the lunch changed at that point. It was like we all had three beers under our belt and just rolled up our sleeves and dove into the pros and cons of the Cougar.

I’ll admit, until this younger guy admitted to dating and loving Cougars, I wasn’t overly impressed. But then, his reasons for preferring Cougars really got me. He went on to explain that women in their 20s are still trying to find themselves, they are still rife with insecurities and they complain about their bosses. Apparently this guy’s brother said “Dude, your girlfriend will never complain about the boss because she is the boss.”

I loved that.

So basically, he loves a more confident, self-assured, successful business woman. He loves the Cougar and claims he can never go back to women his own age.

Which then brought up the other issue that I’ve wondered about the Cougar-younger man relationship. That pesky biological clock.

So, knowing this man all of 45 minutes, I felt we had enough history together for me to inquire about this particular challenge.

I said, “It just seems to me, that at the end of the day, that the relationship between a man in his 20s dating a woman in her mid-late 30s might not be able to withstand time if the woman wants to get married and have kids.”

My fellow lunch mate was open to this and just said he doesn’t know where he stands with kids, given his age, but the Cougar said she doesn’t want them. I mean, who’s really thinking about having babies at 25? Certainly I wasn’t.

I still have my suspicions that at the end of the day, a relationship with that great of an age difference can really withstand time, in particular with the woman being more than 10 years older, but we all know Demi has made it work. It’s just the kids issue. If the woman wants children, her own biological children, I just don’t know how it can work out. Call me cynical.

But setting that aside, I am all for Cougars. Love the term, love how much people want to talk about it. Love it.

Cougar it up, kittens.

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Husbands, Motherhood