First Rule of this argument: Let’s assume everyone has had a kid, knows someone who’s has a kid, or has at least one parent who’s had a kid. Okay? Nobody has cornered the market on parenting.
A picture of Michelle Wu with her beautiful sleeping baby in in front of her on her desk at a council hearing was tweeted out today.
Very cute and yes I question the photo-op/using-baby-as-prop-for-political-gain (do you know how many kids have been raised in city hall and kept out of the chamber for meetings?).
I got jumped on when I questioned this in a twitter reply.
But let’s use this to discuss the bigger issue.
I am sorry to tell my fellow feminists but there is a difference between the male and female and this is where we see it. Michelle is a mother. Michael Flaherty is a father. He leaves the house and I bet doesn’t obsess about his kids that day. Will they make the dentist appointment, will they make it to the bus on time, do they have money for the field trip, are they dressed warm enough.
Yes the dad thought about it and yes he cares but in reality, he doesn’t care once he leaves the house. Until the mother calls and texts every half hour and reminds him.
Now I also bet that Councilor Flaherty or other recent male city councilors who had kids during their tenure went to work soon after the birth and really didn’t worry too much about who was watching the baby. Wife/mother-in-law/daycare. Who cares? The kid’s safe and by safe I mean the mother is happy where the kid is. That is all that matters to most dads. What does mom say? Peace and quiet my friends, peace and quiet. Think of that come Father’s Day
Not so with the mother of a child. That’s why we see young mothers struggle with work. Their minds are on the baby. Like Michelle’s.
So if us feminists would admit that when it comes to mothering no one can do it like a mother and no one knows what it is like to worry like a mother.
I believe that. And if feminists will accept it then I see no reason why Michelle shouldn’t worry and act like a mother. Let all mothers do what they have to do. Men will respect it. They had mothers.
But really if we saw Michael Flaherty in a hearing with a baby we would lose respect for him. And rightfully so.
But if us feminists want to keep insisting that mothers and dads are exactly alike then I say, ‘screw you, the kid doesn’t belong there. Shows total disrespect to the council and the people appearing before it. The subject matter and the tax payers deserve her full attention.’
Of course I am right on this, right?
BTW I’m glad I didn’t have business important to me in front of the council today. I’d be trying to make a point to a city councillor with her infant child on her desk and she’s babysitting.
What the father of the child? Aren’t we equal here? Why doesn’t he bring the kid to work?
Oh, he is not the mother. So there is a difference?
Hmmmm.just waht are the femists saying? We are all equal until it doesn’benfit the woman?
walt says
No, you’re being blatantly sexist as usual. Any caretaker should be able to take a kid to work if they need to and it isn’t disruptive. And no, your patriarchal shock doesn’t count as disruption.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Would u like your lawyer showing up to court with his infant while he’s tryi g to keep you out of jail.
How abouyt a congressman with an infant in the House Chamber during the budget debate?
What dopes the boss say?
That’s an insane statement. Empolyers should work with employees and help them so they can work. But on our dime you are not babysitting you’re brand new infant during council hearings. It’s a distraction and rude.
And Michelle tweeting that her colleagues don’t mind is very disingenuous. Like someone would complain?
Michelle Wu POZAH!!
seamusromney says
Congress allows its members to act like buffoons and shut down the government. The legislature lets its members get their brother a job in probation. I’d rather the Council be as un-like those institutions as possible.
Christopher says
…that for all the advances women have made in the professional field equality will not be perfect until men take on their share of the domestic work, which to be clear does happen in some families. Sometimes you do what you have to do and I’m reluctant to judge Councilor Wu on this count. I have to say though, the biggest LOL factor of this diary was EBIII’s repeated use of the words “us feminists”.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
here’s my point down to brass tacks.
the two chambers of the state legislature do not allow members to do this in the chambers while in session.
the two chambers of our federal legislature do not allow members to do this in the chambers while in session.
Courts do not allow judges to do this in the courtroom while court is in session.
The Boston City Council should treat its institution with the respect it deserves.
This is not a parenting issue.
HR's Kevin says
you have made it really clear that you could care less if you piss other people off and are far from a paragon of respectful behavior. You have absolutely no standing to be lecturing anyone on decorum.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
I act accordingly. This is a blog and I am a jerk. If thisn was a wedding I would not act like a jerk. If Im was a judge or a senator or a congresswoman or a state rep or a city council I would act accordingly, show respect for the institution and never bring have infant child on my desk during a council session.
I don’t care aboput the hours at work. Just during sessions.
HR's Kevin says
Sorry Ernie, but you don’t win any points at all for being an a-hole over this issue. It isn’t really any of your business to care about whether there are babies in City Council sessions that you don’t attend. If the councilors are ok with it and the baby is not causing any problems, why be such a cry baby about it? I can think of 1000 things that are more worthy of complaining about, and so can you.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
who says her colleagues were fine with it. They better not complain. Only a stupid pol would complain. Doesn’t make it right my friend.
The city council should respect itself before it complains that no one else does
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Disrespectful to her colleagues, the people who were appearing before the council that day, and the institution.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
disrespect her colleagues and the institution and say “screw it. i don’t have a sitter for a few minutes to go and ask my question so i will disrespect the council and my colleagues and bring my infant to the chamber so I may ask this most important question.
OR
a colleague would have been happy to say. “I have a question from Councillor Wu who can’t be here right now.”
That is how it is done in legislative bodies.
RESPECT THE INSTITUTION!!!!
Christopher says
She is a Councilor and is responsible to show up to Council session. If she didn’t she risks getting criticized for not being able to be both mother and Councilor, a criticism BTW not generally leveled at fathers. As for other bodies, they are still overwhelmingly male and often even the female members are old enough that their own kids are already grown. Therefore, the standards and precedent of those bodies is not a complete picture.
HR's Kevin says
The problem is that your consistent disrespectful behavior here removes any weight from any pronouncements you may attempt to make on that topic. You simply have zero credibility.
Furthermore, calling her out on twitter under a fake name is pure cowardice on your part. If you are going to do that, be a man and use your real name.
Bob Neer says
And I’d vote against anyone who wasn’t fine with it.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
no councillor would complain, they’re politicians and have to work together. Only an idiot city councillor would complain.
Secnd, and most importanatly, It’s called for respect for the institution, the members, and most importantly the people (citizens, tax payers) appearing before her in the hearings.
This is different than having nthe kid at work all day. The time in council hearings should not be disrespected.
Pretend David had a kid and daycare problems. The kid goes to work with him all day,. However, duringn the day David has a bried appearance on NECN. Can he bring the kid to the stidio? Sure. Can he bring the kid on during the interview? Absolutely not.
The city council deserves at least the same respect as does a local tv station.
HR's Kevin says
You keep repeating the same argument over and over and over again. No one is buying it.
You simply cannot lecture people on respect while showing disrespect yourself and expect anyone to pay attention.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
.
SomervilleTom says
Seriously, editors, do ANY of the BMG rules apply to EBIII (emphasis mine)?
“Squids like you” is not funny, not insightful, and ought to be scrubbed.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
squid
SomervilleTom says
Unless you are a persona run by one of the editors, you don’t own the place.
I’ll “engage” whomever I choose whenever I choose, thank you very much.
HR's Kevin says
Let Ernie’s lame comments remain so that others can see what he is really like, not an edited and cleaned up version.
HR's Kevin says
And if you don’t want comments on your posts, then why do post?
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
thanks bro
Christopher says
I missed the memo that one entailed the other, but I’ll keep that in mind in our future exchanges:(
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
.
thebaker says
In my mind the question comes down to can they effectively perform their job while babysitting? What if the kid is crying the whole session … can others perform their job?
I guess I don’t see the harm this one time. The baby seemed to act respectful and managed to keep his voice down, some babies are not so respectful. But if we are making a general rule I’d have to say no. Then again I think anyone who texts while driving is distracting too. Just my take anyway.
kirth says
Instead of a sitter, its parents let it throw tantrums on BMG. Properly-trained parents would never do that.
Christopher says
That has the be the comment of the thread!
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
r u saying there is no place inappropriate forr the child as long as he’s not a distraction?
This isn’t a parenting issue. it’s about the appripriate place and time. If the news anchor didn’t have daycare would the infant be on the ews desk during the broadcast?
People before the council deserve the same respect.
Not a parenting issue.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
thanks
thebaker says
No I didn’t mean to come accross that way.
Just saying if I was in charge and this complaint landed on my desk, knowing what I know of the situation I would say
1.) for this 1 time it’s OK. The child was well behaved and as far as I know it was just the first time it had happened … maybe the sitter called in sick who knows.
2.) But going forward we can’t make a habbit out of this. We have a job to do, and the citizens who we serve deserve our complete attention. That’s all
rcmauro says
The baby has already had to listen to those boring City Council meetings for months.
marthews says
I’m the father and primary caregiver for three children. Part of that deal is that when they’re sick and can’t be in school or daycare, and I have a meeting, then that child is going to come along, come what may.
I’ve been in meetings with a baby in a pouch round my neck, with a toddler crawling around under the table, with kids nestled in a corner with a DVD player. Everyone who knows me knows that this is the deal, and it’s going to happen sometimes. Babysitters aren’t perfectly available; daycare isn’t always open or affordable,; school lets out in the mid-afternoon; sometimes it just doesn’t work out.
Employers (and I have been an employer for most of my career) can expect parents to make reasonable efforts, in situations where it would be disruptive for kids to be present, to find childcare to cover it. But they also have a broader moral obligation to treat their employees as human beings, with lives, families, and challenges, not merely as human resource inputs into a production equation.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
So Mart, what if your boss needed you to be at a very important meeting with some very important business to do for your company. Perhaps it was a city council meeting and you were testify before the council. Or with a banker who will provide the badly neede loan for your company.
Do you suppose it would be alright for your boss to tell you leave the kid at home or don’t come to work that day., period.
BTW? you bring your sick kids to work with you when school won’t take them. You’re a great employee. Screw your co-workers you’re special. You are the ‘primary care giver”. Well ecuuuuze me! Stop the world. You have a kid so you can walk all over you bosses and co-workers because you are special.
Everyone is special.
marthews says
But if, as the boss, I had to sort out who would attend such a Very Important Meeting, AND my employee told me that he hadn’t been able to arrange childcare, AND for some reason this was a Very Important Meeting that ONLY that employee and not, say, me, HAD to attend (you see how narrow your hypothetical is? But whatever, let’s run with it, stupid as it appears to be), THEN, with the fate of the company riding on it and all, I’d step in and offer to look after the kid myself while that meeting happened.
Generally speaking, if my kids are sick, I do stay home with them, to prevent cross-infection. On rare occasions, though – and this is why I’m talking about the need for flexibility and humanity on all sides here – there are meetings that have to happen in that period despite that.
marthews says
The notion that fathers are somehow intrinsically less concerned about who is taking care of their child than mothers, is sexist and disrespectful to fathers. Primary caregivers, whether the father or the mother, take on the primary role of making sure that the child is being taken care of, and secondary caregivers legitimately let them take the lead on that responsibility; but who is who depends on what couples have sorted out between themselves. Five minutes’ thought would show that there’s no evidence, for example, that gay parents systematically care less about who their children are with than lesbian parents do.
SomervilleTom says
I get that your prejudice is part of your schtick. Perhaps some find it cute.
It revolts me, and makes it harder for me to support your other sometimes pithy and accurate contributions. Too bad there’s so much noise with your “signal”.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Sorry about ernie’s life long observations anout parenting.
Anyway, time for kids and parents to toughen up. Too many pussies being raised out there. That seems to be the undisputed fact agrred upon among people working and teaching at colleges .
marthews says
I’d be surprised if she agreed that the problem was “too many pussies.”
It’s strength, not weakness, to treat human beings like people rather than inputs. It takes maturity and sophistication to manage well, keep people happy, and keep everything humming along. It’s strength, not weakness, to see beyond the limiting definitions of appropriate gender roles, and play instead to your strengths as individuals within a family. If that’s being a pussy by your definition, then miaow, dammit.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
over involvement in children. That is what colleges are experiencing. That’s a fact my friend.
Many people like me have a technical term for the type of adult that comes out of these families. PUSSIES> They run from their shadow. They are usually the ones to cry bullying because they don’t know how to argue for themselves. Not fight. Argue. Inteleligent use of words to defend ypur position and/or put someone in their place.
I see more and more young pussies everyday who can’t tie their shoes without help from mommy or the college mommy and daddy are paying for.
HR's Kevin says
Are you actually complaining that people don’t know how to stand up to your own bullying? Really?
And what kind of “pussy” calls out someone publicly on twitter using a fake name?
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
and I don’t have the Boston Globe or somother big time publication with lawyers and money to protect me. Guess that makes me a pussy.
Do you reaaly thin k I care if you or the other gilie men on here know who I am? Like what the fuck could you do about it? Call me a jerk? WoW!
HR's Kevin says
We all know what a jerk you are, and you wear that appellation proudly.
What makes it worse is your utter cowardice. I don’t care if people use pseudonyms here. But when you call named people out publicly while using a fake name, you show your true colors. You are too afraid to bully people using your real name and now you go around calling everyone who disagrees with a you a “pussy” or a “girlie man”.
This is exactly the kind of language I would expect to hear from a frightened grade-school bully who knows he has lost an argument and knows nothing better to do than to hurl insults and others that could just as well be applied to himself.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
for what they want. Struggle for what they want. Suffer slings and arrows as they get there. And have fun and make friends along the way.
It is not to keep them safe and sound and free of the evils of the world because that’s the nice way.
Toughen up with you please. The thinking like this is what will destroy this county.
Our parents and garndparents struggled alot. And we are stronger for it. let the kids today struggle to achieve. That’s how it works.
Ain’t a goddamn summer camp.
SomervilleTom says
A great many of us, including yours truly, have “life long observations about parenting”. At 62 and with five (grown) children of my own, I’ll say that your “lifelong observations about parenting” are sexist garbage that makes an already challenging problem worse.
I join marthews in doubting that “too many pussies” is the or even a problem. Jeesh, your sexism makes even John Silber blush from his grave — and that’s an accomplishment.
Christopher says
…and if so that’s the scariest concept I’ve encountered on BMG in a long time!
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
of course on BMG. The blog read by many pussies with testaicles. Helicopter parents. Appearance counts more than anything.
Frauds
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
Helicopter parents have created a generation of pussies. Big problem at colleges. Openly talked about.
BTW I just never have been around woman recieving constantr calls and texts from husband reminding her about things she has to do re: kids.
Howver, I have been with fathersd who get text and called all day long from mom reminding themabout kid errand she doesn;t want him toi forget.
But you can go ahead a feel good about yourself Tom. Deny reality.
Glad your femine side kicked in when rqising kids.
Many a man doesn’t have the chemical make-up you do. They’re stck acting like men.
Unless of course the mother is a nutjob. We all know those stories. Then the father has no choicer and jumps into the roll. Does it all.
I’ve seen it.
But day to day shit. In general the mother knows whats going on and the relevance. Dad knows that mom knows so it’s fine.
Sorry, i grew up in reality, not a poltically correct cocoon pretending the world is the the way you wish it.
marthews says
http://wpmedia.news.nationalpost.com/2012/06/orvillecopter-flying-cat-04.jpg?w=940
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
in a comment on another thread you say u see the difference between your daughters and son. Okay,
But then you say there is no difference between a father and mother.
Huh?
So these people who act different in other ways according to you will act exactly the same when one goes through labor and spits the baby out and the other, who has shown previous signs of being different than mother?
Glad you were not my teacher tom.
SomervilleTom says
I didn’t say there was no difference between genders. I said I’m revolted by your prejudice.
I’m glad I was not your teacher as well.
eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says
what are my prejudices? I don’t see any. I treat everyone equally. But people themselve do not act the same as everyone else. So we must consider that too. Like a mother v. a plumber.
Tom, would it be appropriate for Judge O’Toole to have an infant child on the bench during the Marathon trial. I mean he could have days he is stuck?
What’s the ruling from the politically corrent on this Tommy Boy?
SomervilleTom says
You’re trolling now, and I’m walking away from this boorish exchange.
kirth says
He’s trolling NOW? The fakernie statements not devoted to trolling are a tiny minority. His delight in getting you to respond to his chain-yanking is a tipoff, don’t you think?
HR's Kevin says
That wouldn’t be allowed and the editors would ban such a person, right?
😉
Christopher says
…was it?
jotaemei says
You have an egg account, and none of your tweets are funny there. 🙁
kirth says
Let us not summon him from his well-deserved retirement.
jotaemei says