Aaah, crud.

Ladies and gents, this just sucks rocks.

Yeah, it's a quintessential, hell-on-wheels, proverbial terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. But read it a little more closely, people.

Right now I'm pissed at the Women's Lib-bers. Right now it would be nice to to know exactly what my role in life should be, where my time and energy should be focused. I think I know the answer, but the part of me that values my independence rails against this knowledge. I have always worked. I cannot imagine not working.

But is it really possible to be a mother and an employee? Especially in the line of work I currently love?

Dammit, this should never have been the result of women fighting for equal rights. What happened was that women fought against discrimination on most any and all levels of life in this country...but there was a massive elephant staring those fighting broads in the face and they chose to avoid its gaze. Let's call that pachyderm "Child Care".

I have addressed the value of what parents do before this, sure. I have even talked of how this city in which I live is gonna end up with a good half of a potential workforce staying at home because the day care centers are waaay below pre-8-29 numbers (and if you won't take my word for it, take hers. I mean it, now). My nightmare PPD might have resulted in part from the shock of having to shoulder largely by myself this job of raising a child that I was mostly unprepared for. The extended family that could have helped buffer my condition has seriously decayed and devolved in the face of the Almighty Job (not the Biblical one, people), and there is next to nothing that has been put in place to balance that out.

Unless we get organized.

A number of parents are already doing it. If it were maybe identified as a Parents' Movement rather than a Mother's Movement, perhaps the feds - indeed, ALL levels of government - would sit up some and take notice. If parents were able to muster up the money to have that kind of clout, so much the better. Instead, we are all being run ragged by the cost of living. "What money????" would be the first question out of parents' lips.

Parents' time and money are being poured into a consumer culture that demands more of us every day - and takes it all away from our kids. From our sanity. From our health and overall well-being.

Until this can be effectively combatted, good, hardworking parents like C. Roux will be psychically torn in two.

We all know that a house divided cannot stand.

Anyone stop to think about a parent divided? It brings down more than just one life. It can bring down entire potential worlds - by limiting the well-being of the children in the equation.

That makes me weep for our future...