Cheerleader Moms and the Chickenhawks

By: Linda Ford

So, you're beating the war drums again. You say you want the mothers of America to respond by handing over our sons and our daughters so that you can take them into harm's way. And whose blood will you shed?

The soccer moms who went through 5 years of invitro after selecting which egg would be implanted, who nursed those embryos into barely viable babies who survive in spite of peanut allergies and attention deficit disorders, what my mother called "misbehaving" but what their mothers call disability, these mothers won't let their children walk down the stairs without a helmet. They won't be Iraqi targets, you can count on that. These mothers who would make a federal case out it if anyone dared to discipline their child, these mothers who dressed their children in Baby Versachi and sent them to Miss Minchin's Finishing School, these mothers are not going to simply drop their children off in their SUV's at the recruitment office with cheery kisses goodbye. Any day now, we'll start hearing from the NIMBF's (Not In My Boy's Future).

And who will you turn to for support then? Will you ask the children of single working mothers in this country to fight your war? The ones whose mothers were turned away at the polls? The disenfranchised. The poor. The minority. The ones whose families need them most. Send them to fight your wars? Them that you ignored, marginalized, or ripped off as they were struggling to survive in this country?

How can you even ask these mothers to give up their sons to fight your battles? How do you dare? Where were you when that child was sick and his mother too poor to go to a doctor? Where were you when that child was hungry? How dare you ask this of them. You are the beggar today.