Oh, Fuck Ann Romney:
Let's get this out of the way first: Nothing said following this paragraph is meant in any way to denigrate the suffering that Ann Romney has endured first as a victim of multiple sclerosis since 1998 and then as a breast cancer survivor, first diagnosed in 2008. If you know anyone with MS or have it yourself, you know that simply existing can be a pain-filled hell, no matter how much money you have. And, as an MS website notes, ironically now, "Ann's health has become a full-time job for her." So are we clear about that? All respect on dealing with the diseases. Now, that said...

Fuck her. And fuck everyone, from the Obama administration to Fox "news" numbskulls, who piled on what Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Hilary Rosen said on Wednesday night. Rosen didn't say a goddamned thing that was wrong when she offered that Ann Romney "has actually never worked a day in her life."

Ann Romney has lived a privileged, pampered life and she has done nothing that anyone would associate with a "job," and that includes her stay-at-home mothering, readily assisted by nannies and servants. She has a degree in French from Harvard and her major activity is dressage (which, apparently, is some fancy horse thing involving riding crops and jodhpurs and jaunty hats). Rosen was addressing Mitt Romney's remark that he listens to Ann on economic issues affecting women. Mitt Romney getting advice on the economy from his wife is like him getting foreign policy advice from Seamus, the roof-riding family dog. (Although, if you think about it, "Shit yourself until someone hoses you off" isn't bad advice for a nation.)

Are we really doing this again? Are we really having some worthless fucking debate over how hard it is to be a stay-at-home parent? President Obama said, "There's no tougher job than being a mom." Really? Ask a coal miner. Ask a sweatshop worker. It's fucking stupid. Are we just back to Hillary Clinton and the motherfucking cookies? Oh, wait, Michelle Malkin's quoting that 1992 remark, so the Rude Pundit supposes that we are.

The Rude Pundit's sick of bowing down at the altar of the homemaker. Sure, sure, it's hard work raising children. Ask the people who run day care centers and preschools. It's hard work whether you work a full-time job or not. But let's be honest here: Choosing to be a stay-at-home parent (and that includes the increasing number of dads that do it) for the last generation or so is a bourgeois indulgence that's primarily available to the financially privileged. Even those who "sacrifice" to stay home with the kids get to do so only because they have an amount of security that's simply not available to the vast majority of Americans (and let's leave out the long-term unemployed who have decided, "Well, fuck it. May as well stay home"). It's a choice that's available only to a select minority of the people of this country that does so little to actually help parents.

In fact, in the history of post-industrialized America, the June Cleaver/Carol Brady stay-at-home mom is one of those sucker dreams that most families could never achieve. Women worked. Just not the women you ever saw in pop culture. Most working class couples had two incomes because that's how the fuck you survived. Shit, the Rude Pundit knows at least two stay-at-home moms whose husbands lost their great jobs and then got shitty new jobs, so the stay-at-home status had to end as they got shitty jobs to make ends meet and have something like health insurance. His own mother worked full-time, but she was at every event and cooked every night. This whole bullshit "debate" debases her efforts to make our lives easier by working a job. She was, in this way, a great deal like Hilary Rosen, a working parent herself.

But, you know, sure, raising kids is work, a lot of work, constant work. That's something we can't deny. Still, it's work that parents chose to do by having children, so, you know, don't fucking complain. And when someone says it's not a job, suck it up. It's not a fucking job. It's a privilege, one that millions of parents would love to be able to have but can't because they don't have the means of Ann Romney.

Update: The Rude Pundit would be remiss if he didn't clarify one thing. Some parents stay home with the kids because of the ludicrous price of childcare. If it costs more to have the kids in day care than one makes, then what's the point? He was referring to this when he said that our government doesn't help out parents. Remember the debate in the 1970s and 80s over government-run day care? Yeah, now, we can all go fuck ourselves with that socialist indoctrination program. It shall not even be mentioned.