"So, how is the maternal political?" Shari MacDonald Strong, editor, The Maternal is Political has the answers!

The election is right around the corner. Women everywhere are thinking about the issues that will impact their decision on election day. I had the privilege of asking Shari MacDonald Strong, editor of The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change, what she thought. What are the issues that mothers take to the polls, what are the most important issues for families, and which issues should we focus on when we vote, and why? Read below for Shari's response.

Keep in mind, this post is one of two posts. We'll post the second half later this week, tune in!!


As the editor of the anthology about motherhood and politics, The Maternal Is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Politics, I’m often asked, “So, how is the maternal political?” I usually pause when confronted with this question – not because I don’t have strong opinions on the subject, but because I’m dumbfounded that this is a question we still ask in our society. How is motherhood political? It seems more reasonable to ask, How is it not? Because, of course, every act of mothering has a political dimension: from how we spend our time to how we spend our dollars, from what we teach our children to what they teach us. The opposite is also true: every political act impacts every single mother, because each shapes the world in which our children live.

After decades of being largely ignored, political motherhood is currently getting a tremendous amount of press in the U.S., because Republican V.P. candidate Governor Sarah Palin is getting a lot of press. Whether she’s disembarking from her plane in St. Louis for her debate with Joe Biden, with baby Trig in her arms, or promising to be a “friend in Washington” to those with special needs children, she wears the mantle of motherhood. Gone are the days when the acknowledgment of maternal figures in our political landscape was simply a token nod to “soccer moms” or “security moms.” Today, we have the “hockey mom” who the G.O.P. would like us mothers to think of as our peer, our voice. Motherhood has arrived on the political stage!

But for me and for other mothers I know, getting a mom into office, while desirable, was never the point. I had hoped that having a mom on the main ticket (months ago, I presumed this would be Hillary Clinton) would bring mothers’ interests into clear focus in this election. But despite all the recent attention given to a small town mom from Wasilla, this hardly seems the case. The candidates speak in generalities about health care reform and education, but the moms I know are looking for specific, impassioned answers about what a McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden administration will do for our children. So as we move into the final weeks of the election, I’m listening for details, and watching carefully to see what the candidates have to say about the issues at the top of my list.

• Iraq/Afghanistan: Just once I would like to see a candidate acknowledge in an emotional and unapologetic way that the people dying in the War on Terror – including U.S. soldiers and Iraqi and Afghan civilians -- are somebody’s children. While I understand the need for national security, I also want to see the candidates express sincere regret at the ongoing loss of life and a strong commitment to bringing our troops home, timetable or not. No more cavalier, We have to do what we have to do. No more shrugging the shoulders at the necessity of “collateral damage.” I want to see a sober understanding of what the loss of each life has meant to that person’s family members, both in the U.S. and overseas, and a determination to bring this war to an end.

• The Economy: In the last year, I watched my best friend’s marriage come to an end, in no small part because of the effect the economy had on her relationship with her husband, whose co-owned mortgage brokerage crumbled as the real estate market faltered; another family I know had to abandon their efforts to adopt a teenager girl from Russia, because the real estate market slowed so badly, the husband’s earnings as a realtor couldn’t be stretched to accommodate an adoption. My husband and I eye our own mortgage nervously. Families everywhere are struggling to survive and to live responsibly and honorably in the face of economic crisis. Both candidates say they’re committed to fixing the economy. I want to know: How? I’m not an economics expert, but I’m also no dummy. I want more details.


To Be Continued!! Check in later this week for the rest of the issues that Shari and mothers and women accross the country, are taking to the polls!