BY KAREN WEBB
A while back they were going after Michelle Obama for supposedly forcing children to eat better food at school. Sarah Palin even made cookies. Don’t you force her child to eat fruit.
Rep. Michele Bachmann and Palin each have five children and because they did OK and could stay home when their children were young, any and every woman should be able to do that.
Palin has a challenged 2-year-old who is either dragged all over the U.S. or he is left home and Mom is off telling people not to allow Michelle Obama to limit their children’s access to sweets or even suggest they try an apple instead of Twinkies.
Apparently Michelle Obama said that breast-feeding is better for infants and there is some kind of new point in the health care bill that allows women who work and use a breast pump to either take it out of their medical savings account or use some sort of a tax deduction and the rightwing has gone bonkers.
Bachmann is saying they are creating a “nanny state” using any kind of tax credit or even paying for a breast pump because she breast fed five children without the help of the government. Rightwing women are pitching fits because they are doing what is best and staying home with their children and they want someone to pay them to stay at home with their children.
I only had one and she was breastfed almost exclusively for 10 months and I am not even close to wealthy, but I had what my baby and I needed. I did pump a couple of times and take it from me it is not comfortable. I was able to stay home, but I was not demanding that everyone else had to.
Palin says that Michelle Obama was just saying it because milk is so high, like Michelle Obama has anything to do with the high price of milk. Someone needs to tell Sarah that most babies who are not breastfed take formula. If the choice is to buy breast pumps for working poor women or buying baby formula for them, then I vote for the breast pumps. They babies will be less prone to sickness and a breast pump is less expensive than formula.
They think that Michelle Obama and the “nanny state” are making decisions for women. Right – and the rightwing doesn’t make decisions for women? I wish them no harm, but if I never see or hear of Palin or Bachmann again in my life I will rejoice without ceasing.
People keep telling me I need to be nicer, but there is a limit. Some idiot legislator in Georgia wants to call women who have been raped or abused “accusers” instead of victims. If her house is broken into or if she is killed she is a victim. They think rape is forcible or not forcible and they think incest ends at 18. A crazy woman in Missouri wants to bring back child labor.
Enough is enough!
– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
