A person, an old friend (male), said to me just a few months ago:

You haven’t had to work for 8 years.

I stared in disbelief. I thought we were over that. Well at least I thought the people I aligned myself with thought differently. Funny thing is…I don’t think society really thinks much differently. I mean really.

I get no worker’s comp when my elbow goes out. I still have to work and just "deal with" the pain.

Cracked ribs? What are you whining about?!! Get that dinner on the table! Change that diaper. Dry those tears.

The biggest sock in the stomach is not only am I valued less in society, but out in the work force putting mother or home engineer or social design expert or tough-ass mama doesn’t hold an ounce of value when competing against that guy who’s been knocking down ceilings without ever dropping out. The final kick in the stomach is that I’ll get no social security for these years when it’s my turn to collect a check.

I sat down to read the Rolling Stone 40th anniversary issue. Where We’re Going - that was the central question asked to 25 people out there and in the know.

Guess how many women were interviewed?

Half?

Ten?

Eight?

Four?

The answer is three: Meryl Streep, Jane Goodall and Lisa Randall one of the world’s leading physicists. These are good women; great women. The interviews with the men were insightful and revealing also: Al Gore, Bono, Craig Venter, Tom Hanks, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton to name a few.

But 3 out of 25. Doing the math makes it depressing for a magazine "hooked" in to youth and new ideas. We can’t do better than 12%? I just don’t get the deep resistance to ask the expertise of mothers. Meryl Streep said in the interview:

Next to climate, the changing status of women in the last hundred years is the most destabilizing thing that’s happened on Earth. It’s precipitated so many seismic changes and reactions in cultures. I think you can lay all the fundamentalism that’s been rearing its ugly head in the world at the feet of that change. It’s better for Western women. But that idea - that women have rights - hasn’t permeated much of the world, even today. The forces that don’t want to consider it are going down hard.

Bearing children makes us vulnerable. I looked around at gym class today as my son clapped to the horseshoe song. Every little one there has this dedicated, struggling human making sure he/she can walk and talk and feed themselves and hopefully enhance society rather than work to destroy. Then, I looked at the mothers. Someone had to make sure they were cared for; and the security guard; and the banker; and the guy who will probably honk at me in traffic. Without it, we’d die. And it doesn’t take the world’s greatest physicist to tell us that without love and nurturing children will not thrive. The inhabitants of this planet stay alive because of a bright, dedicated, clever, experienced group of people who sacrifice money, career, time, basic human rights, sanity, and any hope of wearing unstained clothes.

I have a good feeling about this Internet thing. Look at all the bright people putting their voice out there. Together it will be impossible to drown out our voices.