I haven’t spent much time watching Meet the Press since Tim Russert ‘s untimely death in 2008, but today I tuned in for the announced gender gap debate between Senator Kisrten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Rep. Bachmann (R-MN).  I was alerted that the mini debate would be televised by my activist phone company, Credo, which I want to mention, is one of the best companies that I am associated with – I watched MTP with apprehension.

With my Democratic stripes visible to all, I have to say that David Gregory, current moderator of MTP, is an extremely weak moderator. He allowed Bachmann to talk over Gillibrand’s responses not once but twice in the short segment she was allotted, and then he let Bachmann grumblings ultimately win out to spread her nasty Republican pap onto national airwaves. Why didn’t the control room cut her microphone – why let her bully Gregory and Gillibrand? What debate? I think that Gregory needs to grow a pair, but that is besides the point; he is a weak man who has no business leading a national news format program.

The Gender gap in the 2012s appears to be a gender chasm for the Republicans.

Ann Romney may have birthed her five sons, but my gut tells me that she did not go through hard labor consciously. My gut also tells me that she did not personally raise her 5 sons, that she had help fulfilling that role, that her therapeutic horses got her through motherhood. I do not believe she ever made cookies for a bake sale let alone attended a public school conference meeting, changed bed linens after one of her son’s nighttime accidents, stretched out the grocery budget with meatless Mondays, compared the price of brand name peanut butter to the store brand, gassed up one of her Cadillacs worried about the price of gas, or sweated over her atm card/bank account/wallet having enough money to cover her son’s amoxicillin prescription.

While it is true that Ann Romney is a biological mother, she was not a hands-on day-to-day in the trenches mother, she was not and will never be a working class mother. It is disingenuous to compare a privileged woman that chose to marry into wealth, bear 5 sons into that wealth, live a life separated from the wear and cares of her common sister-mothers, and take the microphone to espouse the day-to-day hardships of American mothers. Ann is not one of us; she does not represent us.

An American woman is lucky today to have the choice of whether she should stay home and raise children or pursue both motherhood and a career in this most inhospitable economic climate. Most women I know have no choice, they must work to support their families, some have delayed starting their families and are instead waiting for that perfect time when they can afford to get pregnant and become a stay-at-home mom. Other women find themselves working multiple jobs to stay afloat while their children are raised by grandparents or daycare services which eat away their paychecks. Some other mothers are new single moms on support/WIC assistance and receiving public funding to educate themselves for careers so that their children won’t be raised under the poverty line. I worked as I raised my children, and you know what? my choice was food stamps, state health insurance (yes, Romneycare), section-8 rent, day old bread and bruised fruit, or a nine-to-five job and motherhood which equated to a 5AM-to-11:30PM job.

The debate is not who is worth more in our society: stay-at-home mothers or working-mothers; it is equality, freedom of choice and not having your hard won rights as an American citizen stepped on and demeaned by a greedy, unresponsive, patriarchal congress that is threatened by the majority of the population: WOMEN. We women proved we had a voice in the 1960s and we can roar again in the millennium. Don’t try to divide us – Watch out Republicans – working moms and stay-at-home moms vote!