Lisa Belkin Nails Palin Talk

Last Thursday I watched the VP debate with hundreds of Bay Area Women at Flexperience and MommyTrackd's Annual New Formulas for Success event. The Palin saga played out in front of 500 working women and a few supportive men. Check out ABC's coverge of the event (and yours truly) here.

The highlight of the evening was Lisa Belkin, “Life’s Work” columnist for the New York Times and host of “Life’s Work with Lisa Belkin” on XM Satellite Radio. I personally related to Lisa's story of how she moved in and out of the workforce "quitting" the NYT several times to be with her kids. We both had baby boys in 1991, back in the pre-internet days when cell phones were just coming on the seen, and flexible work was taboo. I always felt a familiarity with her writing, maybe the reason was we were in the similar place with our kids.

This weekend, when I read her latest article Palin Talk in the New York Times magazine, I felt that same connection. She nailed why Sarah Palin has everyone from the Left to the Right talking. Read on:

Lisa Belkin, NYT

Nearly five years ago, my husband was offered a prestigious, challenging plum of a job in another country. At the time, my father was dying, and my older son, suffering from debilitating migraines, was struggling in school. Sometimes parents decide that what is tempting, even perfect, for them is just not right for their family. My husband turned down the job.

I didn’t talk much about the decision at the time. I felt guilty that my husband had to give up something he would have loved in part because I couldn’t handle it, and I carried a vague shame that other families could have toughed this out but that ours was too fragile. It’s hard to talk about what you are not proud of. None of this fit with my view of who I thought I should be — an unflappable, charge-ahead type, able to roll with whatever life delivered.

I’ve been thinking again about that choice since Sarah Palin, whose teenage daughter is pregnant and whose 5-month-old son has an as-yet-undetermined set of medical needs, decided to run for national office.

Looking back at the early response to Palin, I am struck by how many of the sentences that were written, spoken and shouted by people, began with “I.” As in: “I have a special-needs baby, and I wouldn’t dream of running for the hardest job in the world while he is an infant.” Or “I have a special-needs baby, and Palin’s my hero for showing you can raise a child and work.” Or “I would never drag my pregnant teen through the national spotlight.” Or “I wouldn’t judge her as a parent because her daughter is pregnant, the same way I wouldn’t have wanted to be judged.” Read more.