Teddy Roosevelt said the following regarding motherhood in a speech in 1905:

No ordinary work done by a man is either as hard or as responsible as the work of a woman who is bringing up a family of small children; for upon her time and strength demands are made not only every hour of the day but often every hour of the night. She may have to get up night after night to take care of a sick child, and yet must by day continue to do all her household duties as well; and if the family means are scant she must usually enjoy even her rare holidays taking her whole brood of children with her. The birth pangs make all men the debtors of all women. Above all our sympathy and regard are due to the struggling wives among those whom Abraham Lincoln called the plain people, and whom he so loved and trusted; for the lives of these women are often led on the lonely heights of quiet, self-sacrificing heroism.

Quite a different take than would-be first lady Teresa Heinz Kerry: (Fox News story)

In an interview published Wednesday in USA Today, the newspaper asked the wife of Democratic candidate John Kerry if she would be different from Laura Bush as a first lady.

"Well, you know, I don't know Laura Bush. But she seems to be calm, and she has a sparkle in her eye, which is good," Heinz Kerry said. "But I don't know that she's ever had a real job — I mean, since she's been grown-up. So her experience and her validation comes from important things, but different things."

Campaigning for her husband in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Heinz Kerry said she forgot Mrs. Bush had a career.

"I had forgotten that Mrs. Bush had worked as a school teacher and librarian, and there couldn't be a more important job than teaching our children, I appreciate and honor Mrs. Bush's service to the country as First Lady, and am sincerely sorry I had not remembered her important work in the past," she said in a statement.

Important work? So I suppose that, to our "enlightened" would-be first lady, raising children isn't "important." Even in her "apology" she can't help but display her disdain for the stay-at-home mother.

Labels: politics