On Parenting, Sarah Palin and Dads

You can't contribute to a parenting column like On Parenting and *not* talk about Sarah Palin, so Stacey Garfinkle and I teed up the subject today. I took the position that no discussion of whether her parenting responsibilites will intefere with her ability to do her job was appropriate:

I'm scared because it makes the dangerous assumption that a parent cannot remain fully engaged in both family and professional life. I believe you can find work-life balance no matter what your responsibilities may be. That balance may not look like "equally shared parenting." It may not look like my life, or yours, but there is no doubt in my mind that you can be an effective parent and a go-to-work parent.

But the element that I didn't explore is the curious case of Palin's husband, who would -- it seems almost entirely likely -- end up doing the stay-at-home dad thing if his wife ends up in the Naval Observatory. There is next to no discussion of what his life would look like in Washington, five children in tow. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe no one cares. I still think it's weird that no one is talking about it.