Dear Caitlin Flanagan: where are you coming from?

I have to admit: I do not watch talk shows (except the Daily Show) so really do not know why an interviewer would assume that you are a Republican. And, frankly, I would not be interested in your book - a collection of essays about family life called: To Hell with all that: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife."

But in your recent TIME essay http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1189224,00.html you say the following:

I am a 44-year-old woman who grew up in Berkeley who has never once voted for a Republican, or crossed a picket line, or failed to send in a small check when the Doctors Without Borders envelope showed up. I believe that we should not have invaded Iraq, that we should have signed the Kyoto treaty, that the Starr Report was, in part, the result of a vast right-wing conspiracy. I believe that poverty is our most pressing issue and that we should be pouring money and energy into its eradication. I believe that allowing migrant women and children to die of thirst in American deserts is a moral transgression that will stain us forever.

(snip)

Here's why they (Barbara Ehrenreich, the writers at Salon and much of the Upper West Side of Manhattan - QE) are after me: I have made a lifestyle choice that they can't stand, and I'm not cowering in the closet because of it. I'm out, and I'm proud. I am a happy member of an exceedingly "traditional" family. I'm in charge of the house and the kids, my husband is in charge of the finances and the car maintenance, and we all go to church every Sunday.

(snip)

It's a small but very vocal minority, the Democratic pundits, who abhor what I represent because it doesn't fit the stereotypical image of the modern woman who has escaped from domestic prison.

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Dear Caitlin Flanagan: The Democratic party opened its doors to Catholic and to Jews, to Blacks and to homosexuals men and women because the Republican party rejected them. This does not mean that it rejected "traditional" families. After all, most of the representatives in Congress, not to mention states legislative bodies, are still white men, heterosexuals (some several times over).

No, the Democratic party stands for freedom of choice. Not only of reproductive rights, but of lifestyles, of association, of political and religious beliefs, of access to a variety of books and TV shows.

Yet, as parents often tell their first born: you are the older, we need to give more attention to your brother or sister. As teachers often tell the smartest student: you go ahead, I need to pay more attention to the weaker one.

Traditional families are doing fine. Thank you. But women and minority and gay people could lose all their freedom with a stroke of a pen, if it comes from the ones who now control government and who think that their god is talking to them and telling them that there is only one way to be an American.

The Democratic party has never "dumped" the "union dues-paying, churchgoing, beer-drinking family man," nor did it dump on stay at home moms. Remember the "soccer moms" that voted in droves for Clinton? Most, if not all, of them were part of a traditional family. There is nothing wrong with a traditional family. I suspect that most of us - men and women - at some point in our lives wished to just stay at home do things at our own pace while our other half was slaving away bringing home the bread.

Sure, there will always be people who feel contempt toward a housewife or a househusband. So what? People feel contempt toward many people for their own reasons. The feminist movement was - do I really need to remind you? - about a freedom from traditional role playing that stifled some, but not all. It was about a woman's right to choose how she wants to live, but for that a freedom from unwanted pregnancy and equal access to education and to good paying jobs had to be achieved first.

Last, good for you that you enjoy being in charge of the house while hubby goes out to work. I cannot help being reminded of another woman, some decades ago, who had a wrote a similiar POV and recently found herself abandoned, at an old age with no skills to support herself and had a public "I was wrong" at the NYT. (Cannot recall her name now). And, of course, there are the thousands of women whose husbands all of a sudden lost their good paying jobs, who became disabled, or collapsed with a fatal heart attack. And the ones, like that other woman, whose husbands decided to look for a younger model.

So dear Caitlin, be prepared. Life is now nice and comfy. But things change. I hope that you do develop some skills that can support you later in life. One never knows.

Sincerely,

question everything

My brother and his family fit the traditional family mold-mom, dad, kids, church. And they are strong and lifetime Democrats-why? Simple. Because they know the GOP is interested only in messing with the little guy. I haven't heard him gripe about Dems at all-he's glad he has a Dem Governor and Dem Senators in Illinois-and as a veteran, feels he was far better treated under Clinton than now.

But we were raised by a single mom during the '50s, before "women's lib". To my mind, feminism will always mean equal pay for equal work. My mom didn't have this.

I don't give a damn about your personal life and as long as you don't support the bush** regime you're a good person to me. That bit about giving to Doctor's Without Borders helps too.

Quit feeling sorry for yourself.

Sincerely,

ACMAVM