If the Republican Party Represents Family, Then How Come Their Two Leaders Are Childless?
Who were the undisputed champs of the Conservative Political Action Conference? Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh - two unmarried people without any children. Can they really represent the Republican Party - especially one that promotes itself as the pro-family party - without this experience?
I don't think so.
For Coulter and Limbaugh, it's very easy to be selfish - and clueless - on how a family has to stretch budgets like salt water taffy to afford soccer cleats, school binders and extra boxes of Mac N' Cheese. It's much easier to support one person vs. a family.
The spinster and spin master are not as concerned about spending federal money into improving local schools since they aren't seeing first hand how a math program doesn't add up.
Nor will they ever viscerally know the anguish - as described in President Obama's recent speech - of "the college acceptance letter your child had to give back."
Without nursing a sick child at night or living with disease machines as my friend Lara jokes about our kids, how can they really know why health insurance is so essential? Nor will they know the stress of leaving your child at home and scrambling to find babysitters when you have to leave town to make a speech or work late to keep your job.
As anyone who has children experiences, kids force your heart and mind to become more elastic. When you become a parent, you turn into a pragmatist. Kids test you - as well as your positions. You learn from each other.
Coulter and Limbaugh don't have to make allowances for other people's beliefs, behaviors or feelings and can surround themselves with sycophants and people who echo their positions. Not when you're a parent. You learn diplomacy at the dinner table when your teenager is touting his newest position on recycling iceberg lettuce, your fifth grader is wondering why you don't use solar panels and your eighth grader considers Reagan and Teddy Roosevelt heroes.
Through your kids, a whole new universe of people arrives in your kitchen. Your kids' friends - and as a result their friends' parents - become a part of your life as you organize play dates together and are forced to spend endless hours on sports fields side by side. I am now friends with people I would never have chosen but because we share our kids in common, I have found common ground and appreciate positions different from mine.
Rush Limbaugh has been married three times - and divorced. Ann Coulter has never been married. Yet they are now considered the voices of the Republican Party. In fact, Limbaugh has turned into a rigid headmaster who gleefully raps the knuckles of any dissenting Congressman or Senator who doesn't march to his views. Wanting the President to fail at such a perilous time are the words of someone who doesn't have as much of a stake in the future which comes when you have children.
While no one argues that Coulter is treacherously articulate, she herself learned that her inexperience as a parent backfired even with her own party when she went after the 9/11 widows. As the author of "Don't Let Death Ruin Your Life," I know that no amount of money makes up for losing a child - or husband.
Clearly there are many people who haven't had children or never married who become loving supportive aunts and uncles and are sensitive to issues impacting families. But it still is not the same experience as being a parent.
My husband is a moderate Republican and someone who voted for Sen. John McCain while I voted for Barack Obama. Our three children challenge our positions at dinner and we must reply not with insults but with reasoned arguments. I have agreed that Obama's economic policy is too much waste along with gloom and doom while Gary acknowledges that expanding innovation in energy policies is the future. We have learned to agree to disagree and still love each other. By having different views around the dinner table, and having to be tolerant of each other day in and day out, the winner is the most informed and inventive, not the one spewing souped-up sound bites.
America is a family with problems and we have to pull together - both Republicans and Democrats - for the greater good. The leaders of the parties need to be those who understand both compromise and compassion and those are not traits that can be applied to the childless Limbaugh or Coulter.
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I see that others have taken offense where none was intended, but I think you made a very salient point about Coulter and Limbaugh's limitations.
I married and had children late. I was called selfish and shallow by my right-wing brother when I was single.
While I don't like either of them, this is sort of unfair. Limbaugh is currently not married, but has been, maybe he doesn't have kids because he or his wife is physically unable, I don't know, nor do I care, that is something personal.
I know Coulter, had been engaged, but not sure why she never married, but that is her choice, maybe she never found someone she loves enough to marry. Again it is none of your business or mine.
Which wife? Limbaugh has had 3.
GingerM, are you saying Joe the Biden isn't hetero?
Isn't this just a bit of a low blow? The fact that these two people haven't met the loves of their lives hardly disqualifies them from having an opinion on the issues.
Bashing these people on this kind of issue is very petty of you. Although what should we expect from an author that has been divorced? You, Ms. Brooke, couldn't keep your marriage together. Can we really trust your opinion on politics? (See, personal attacks are not so nice, are they?)
thank god these two wh a c k os do not have kids.
What these two particular people lack cannot be alleviated by having children. Nor should it be.
Empathy, decency, compassion, morals, ethics are not traits gained through parenthood.
The problem with the Republican party is not Ann Coulter nor Rush Limbaugh - its the fact that they listen to them. And their narrow-minded base - some of which, surely do have children.
So how does that work? I do not agree that having children is the only way to become a better person. And thats what you seem to be saying - with allowance for the "kind aunt".
To be a better person, to never stop growing, you have to use your mind. Be constantly curious. Thats what makes people human.
You couldn't have said this any better. The best story I've read on Huffington Post in months. Well done and when does your book come out? I know you have to be working on one with this passion.
Is it fortunate that these two have not chosen to have children. At least their ideologies are not being passed down biologically.
You hit this spot on, what a bunch of hypocrital oafs they are as a breed, to the last one.
Coulter and Limbaugh have created for themselves lives in which they do not have to care for, or about, ANYONE but themselves, and then they surrounded themselves with people who are paid to only think about them.
And this is the "voice" of Right-wingn*t America.
Bring it on :)
I don't know what to say about the overwhelming trend toward hypocrisy in the GOP, but I have personal experience with poverty, and it is very challenging.
I myself never bothered to apply for any four year colleges, because I knew we couldn't afford it. I applied for scholarships because I was encouraged to do so by high school teachers and a counselor. When the scholarship came, I had to scramble to find a college that would take a late application. Sometimes I had to sleep in an old car or at sympathetic friends' apartments. I soaked up education like a sponge soaks up water. To me it was like a lifesaver to a drowning person.
We always had enough to eat at home, but it wasn't always very nice to eat. We always had clothes to wear, but it would have been nice to wear things less than hundreds of times, and then pass them down, and then pass them down again.
Oh well, I was lucky. We had two parents at home, even if our Dad did have PTSD and alcoholism to go along with his medals.
One thing my upbringing helped me to appreciate, and that is the difference between honesty and hypocrisy, and between compassion and scorn. That is a large part of the reason why I can't stand today's Republican politicians. Yechhhh.
Well speaking as a woman who doesnt have children I did appreciate your saying there are people sensitive to these needs. then the you said but its not the same as having a child. ouch and double ouch. let me remind you there are people out there that abuse their children , neglet them emotionally, dont feed them properly, they feed them cupcakes and hohos for snacks and give them soda pop.
It has been these people whom i have spent 100's of hours as a vol. so please I do understand their childrens health and because they wernt bringing healthy parenting skills this motherless woman got in there to help them out. why? because their parents failed them and i helped them, with clothes, toys, school money, all sorts of things. Your comment was as senstive as Sarah palin saying , my job is like a community organizer except you have actual responsibilties.
I agree. Compassion, empathy, understanding and common sense aren't limited to married people with children. Some of us childfree people work with children in schools or other places, spend time with families who are relatives or just are engaged in thinking about the world and it's many, many problems. I didn't need to personally have children to understand why health care is important. Mostly what one needs is an ability to really listen and put yourself in someone else's shoes. By the way, I don't have health care myself at the moment and neither do my brother or sister. And the heart wrenching stories of others that I've listened to and read really make me grieve. I think the statement that "it's not the same as being a parent" implies a moral and emotional superiority that I don't see in all parents, either. I've worked as a teacher and you see all kinds of situations as you mention. And of course most Republicans who want to deny families services are parents themselves, so being a parent in and of itself doesn't guarantee anything and doesn't really say a whole lot about a person's character. Kids may provide avenues of growth and opening up your heart for many, but it isn't the only way to acomplish this and it doesn't guarantee this-that needs to be understood by this author.
exactly!!!!
It is easy to idealise what you do not have, without any concern for the reality of life compared to an ideological fantasy.
Nice piece. Smart observation.
See John Farr's Profile
I think you make an an excellent and astute observation.
but you can't blame coulter and limbaugh.
who would want to marry them?
They could marry each other. Wait. Never mind. They're too in love with themselves to ever marry someone else. Since the Republicans like to pass laws declaring who can marry and who can't, maybe they should pass a law allowing a person to marry themself.
In his "defense", Limbaugh has a string of failed marriages behind him.
If you would want to marry a bombastic blob, or a harpy like coat rack... these two would be perfect!!
no no double no...I am offended by this piece...a WOMAN..cal
First of all, there is a difference between childless and childfree. Does this author know for a fact that Rush and Anne never wanted children, or does she assume (as many with children do) that anyone without children was denied something?
Second, I have a wonderful husband and two fantastic dogs...ple
Additionally, to refer to Anne Coulter as a spinster because she has never been married or had children is incredibly perjorative. Do you really believe that anyone who chooses a life other than yours is "missing something?" What has happend in your life to make you so arrogant?
Finally, to suggest that one needs to have children to be pragmatic, realistic, or cognizent of the world and it's pressures is ridiculous. To suggest that one must have children to care about education and health insurance is laughable. You seem to expect everyone else to have an understanding of your life choices and the pressures it includes, but have no tolerance for others and their life choices. Please don't teach your children these outdated and, frankly, discriminatory ideals.
I think that you might be missing the point.
These two are people who believe your life is worthless and full of indiscriminate sexual abandon if you are single.
Feminism argues that you should be an independent-minded woman who is not required to live behind a male role model in order to earn respect from society.
Do you see the hypocrisy their words represent?
They - not the author - are the ones who are filled with hypocrisy and are judgmental.
You have two loud voices for the right saying you're either a floosie or a lesbian if you choose to be single - yet, they themselves are single.
You are ABSOLUTELY right about the hypocrisy of Ann and Rush. Absolutely right. But I think I am also right about what I am reading into the author's tone. Trust me, as someone who chooses a childfree life, you get attitudes like this ALL the time from people with children.
And...whil
THANK YOU, Bethab! Well said. I can't believe Jill B. refers to unmarried women as spinsters! Incredible. Clearly she feels that any other path for a woman than the one she's chosen is invalid. It seems to her one must be a wife and mother to be capable of empathy and common sense. wow.
First of all, she said "Clearly there are many people who haven't had children or never married who become loving supportive aunts and uncles and are sensitive to issues impacting families. But it still is not the same experience as being a parent." She knows that people without children can still feel compassion for and care about children's needs. It's what she said! However, it really isn't the same experience as having children. I think that your anger is a little bit misplaced. She wasn't putting anyone down except Rush and Ann. Her above statement included people like you who care, but still haven't experienced being a parent.
Second of all, her calling Ann Coulter a spinster isn't the dig that you make it out to be. According to the dictionary, she is almost the entire definition all by herself:
spin·ster
1: a woman whose occupation is to spin
2: a: archaic : an unmarried woman of gentle family b: an unmarried woman and especially one past the common age for marrying
3: a woman who seems unlikely to marry
Ann's whole job is to "spin"! She gets paid quite well for it. She's definitely unmarried and past the common marrying age. She also seems unlikely to marry. In other words, she's a spinster. Besides, the whole point of her calling Ann a spinster and Rush the spin master was to emphasize #1 under the definition.
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