It's Time for Women... and My Mom's a Shining Example

Though I am, as a rule, a-political by choice (that doesn't mean I'm wishy-washy) - that is, I claim no membership in either of the major or minor parties and don't call myself an "Independent," which seems to be the label of choice for those who don't quite want to commit (much like the term 'agnostic,' which, to me, is total wishy-washy-ness)... I was excited for the first time in this presidential race by McCain's VP pick today: Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

I've always thought it would be a great idea to elect a housewife to run this country because most housewives are so skilled at multitasking and brilliant at taking charge of many difficult situations all at once while always landing on their feet... and the fact that women are able to use both sides of their brain... well, I think we're long overdue in America for a woman president.

Pro-choice/anti-abortion notwithstanding (we'll never agree on that which should not be a political issue in the first place), I like Gov. Palin because she's the epitome of America's dreamgirl! She's strong, fought her way up the ladder to become Mayor, then Governor, gave birth five times and still has a waistline! And a neck!! She's 44 and gorgeous, outspoken, successful and articulate. She reminds me of my mother.

I argue with my mother all the time and, hearing the frustration in her voice, always remind her that I learned to be driven, articulate and outspoken from her... and that's not to say, "Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hang onto..." She didn't teach me to be a bitch; she taught me to fight to survive in a man's world and not to make excuses for my own failures but, rather, to accept self-responsibility above all else!

However, our recent disagreement had to do with a statement she made about Blacks in America (she knows I HATE rash generalizations!) - that Black people have been treated like sh-- for a long time - to which I replied something like, 'That may be... but I don't think any Black person with dignity wants to wallow in self pity and just crawl up in a shack and become a dependent of the State.'

I reminded her that she herself was treated like sh-- many a time and that all odds had been against her from the very start having sprung from worse than humble origins - a shack in Tennessee with a mother who'd given birth to 10 kids and died at 42 from exhaustion; a father who was mentally ill and shot himself in front of her... to having been left in the [mis-]care of orphanages and foster homes - a lost girl in America.

Yet, through it all - having seven kids, raising most of us (with almost no help at all from our fathers), being a wildly successful woman who owned two employment agencies in Chicago in the '60s and '70s, gorgeous, ambitious and driven - she made it ALL ON HER OWN. Never once do I remember my mother even hinting at the thought of going on welfare (she just ran out and got another job), or applying for food stamps or any other government assistance. And my mother never did drugs, smoked, or drank her problems away. She suffered in silence and kept on going. She taught me the most valuable lesson in life - that you're only as weak as you convince yourself you are.

She just chuckled and agreed: 'That's true, but not many people have it in them to go through all that and survive.' After having left the corporate world in the late '70s, she embarked on a spiritual journey that led her to study all aspects of the spiritual world - philosophy, religions of the Far East, yoga, meditation - and is now one of the greatest mediums and teachers of meditation the world has ever known. She's got an enviable library, having read hundreds of books; she's a great artist, gardener and grandmother of... well... we lost count... Now each of the flowers in her garden become paintings and in those paintings are her children and grandchildren and the colors from the prism are new and those she has expanded upon beyond anything words could ever describe.

She's my hero. www.elizabethbaron.com