Mad About Mary

By STACY SCHIFF

Published: January 30, 2007
The New York Times

Once upon a time, asking about someone’s children was like talking about the weather. Then again, once upon a time talking about the weather was also like talking about the weather — not a portal into the political or the apocalyptic. But that’s another story. The point is that children made for the kind of paltry social currency you could exchange with your in-flight neighbor, back when the only other option might have been: “As you’re carrying that knife and wearing full camouflage, is it safe to conclude that the vegetarian meal is mine?” Then came children as designer accessories and politically charged pawns, appendages and admissions statistics.

Suddenly, we are on treacherous ground. For starters, Angelina Jolie and Madonna can’t even agree on where babies come from. I thrill as quickly as the next People subscriber to a good catfight, but do we really need Angelina — who appears to have taken No Child Left Behind as her personal mantra — trashing celebrities for “jumping on the adoption bandwagon?”

As her swearing-in made clear, even Nancy Pelosi feels the need to accessorize, not something I would have thought a woman with a gavel would ever need to do. Yes, by comparison the back of the House looked like a bouncer convention. But the dais looked like a Sunday school class. Which raises a parenthetical question: Do female politicians have to kiss babies? For that matter — this question is for someone other than Senator Boxer or Secretary Rice — do they need to have babies?

There are now officially only two people left in America who don’t want to talk about their kids. When Jim Webb bowed out of that White House receiving line, President Bush tracked him down and asked after his son. Senator Webb is a former Navy secretary; he knows his protocol. He is also one of only a few members of the U.S. Senate with children serving in the military. “I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Mr. Webb replied. “That’s not what I asked you,” Mr. Bush snapped. Mr. Webb didn’t really mean to answer, either. Evidently, he meant to slug the president.

Last week Wolf Blitzer asked Dick Cheney about his pregnant lesbian daughter. The vice president looked as if his arm had made contact with that meat grinder. Mr. Blitzer was, he growled, seriously out of line.

Neither Senator Webb nor Vice President Cheney wins points for his social graces. But what Letitia Baldrige said of the Webb encounter — “It was an uncivil reply to an uncivil remark” — does not apply equally to the vice president. Mr. Cheney has openly promoted an anti-gay agenda. His own base has called his daughter’s pregnancy unconscionable. Family values have been his calling card. And our Prohibitionist vice president can’t summon the courage to address the gin mill in the basement?

Mr. Webb was rude on principle; Mr. Cheney rude out of hypocrisy. One man took a stand. The other scurried away.

What the vice president’s nonresponse did deliver was a very cogent message: the rules apply to you, but not to us. It’s our privacy, your patriotism; our delusion, your sacrifice; our tax cuts, your kids. After all, as Mr. Cheney so tellingly said of his Republican critics, “I’m the vice president, and they’re not.” The part for which some of us have no stomach is the sense of entitlement.

An annoying thing about children is that they nudge you toward the high road and the long view. They demand pesky things like open-mindedness, self-denial, accountability, leadership and occasionally even integrity — qualities that appear to have packed up and gone home with Hans Blix. Once upon a time, you might have termed them family values.

So as to spare Mr. Cheney any further misadventures in this minefield, I did a little research for him. Several years ago, Ms. Baldrige foresaw his predicament. “A lesbian’s parents may be the victims of probing, mean questions from their friends,” she wrote. “Hopefully, they will answer unequivocally that they stand by their child and accept her decision.”

As for gay and lesbian couples, they are families, too, in Ms. Baldrige’s book. They are also increasingly common, “so people who feel shy and uptight with them are just going to have to get over it.” Alternatively, they are welcome to talk about the weather.

Stacy Schiff is the author, most recently, of “A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America.” She is a guest columnist.