The Paris Project

Waste of a Stamp

Dr. Dobson sent me his 8-page newsletter imploring me to vote for McCain/Palin. I've been wondering all along how Dobson would spin Palin.

In my upbringing, the kingdom of sex and gender was ruled by King James Dobson and Queen Elisabeth Eliot. In that worldview, a woman like Palin is a "Bad Mother." Mothers are responsible for their children's choices, so a teen-age pregnancy is only partly the teenager's fault -- it is mostly her mother's fault. After all, Palin was working, not devoting her days to monitoring her teenager's behavior, so there you go -- teen-age pregnancy is the result of women in the workplace. And mothers of preschool children, disabled or not, should not work. Mothers can work part-time during school hours after their kids are in school. Their work can supplement the man's income, but should not disrupt their children's lives, their domestic work, or their husband's breadwinning supremacy. In this view, Palin has emasculated her husband, failed her children, distorted her femininity, and disobeyed her God.

So when Dobson writes, Sarah Palin is "a portrait of Christian motherhood and womanhood," my head is sent spinning. Did I misunderstand the last 30 years of family-focused propaganda that sailed into my home via direct mailings, magazines, and Christian bookstore books? I know I didn't.

Dobson assuages readers who are concerned about a mother of a special needs preschooler running for VP. He says, "I have never suggested that it is wrong for mothers to work outside the home...I have said, however, that if a mother is going to enter the workplace, she and her husband must first find a way to meet the needs of their children." The Palins are doing this, of course, so "the Palins need our prayers, not our disdain, at this critical moment in our nation's history."

Again, my head spins. First of all, it's pathetic how Christians including Dobson will twist even their Christian message for the sake of accumulating political power. But second of all, take a second look at what he says about Palin's mothering. I like it. If Christians in general, and Dobson specifically, had treated my grandmother, my mother, or me with the grace here extended to Palin, my own sense of femininity could have been blessed with grace instead of judgment I've learned to internalize and wield against myself. It's hurtful that Dobson would generate this much grace for her, for the sake of politics, when grace couldn't be found for so many other working moms, moms of pregnant teens, and men and women in egalitarian marriages, for the sake of religious purity.

But what the hell, let's take Dobson's advice to heart. Let's encourage conservative evangelical husbands and wives to work together to provide for their families. Let's encourage women to work and serve in society at the same time as they meets their children's needs. Let's pray for families instead of judging them.

But I'll focus on the family in my own way at the polls.