Brzezinski, I'm a fan of yours. Today, however, you reflected the difference between the people in the media (so often wrongly accused of being liberal). This shines the spotlight on the difference between the no-so-liberal media and the majority of women. There is little doubt that you benefited from your background in many ways and that only one of these ways was your fine education. (Wonder what interest you and Romney paid on your school loans.) No doubt you and Ms. Romney have little worry about paying for and supporting childcare. When the the lady said Ms. Romney "never worked a day in her life" she had a different definition of "work." Work is going to work (for one example) and working EVERY GD DAY working for a "B" of a boss and taking it all because YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. Big difference: Most working women do not have the luxury of a day off let alone the LUXURY of being home with children.

Hope you can give some thought to the advantages that most people in the media are born with (not Oprah, I guess) and those who struggle with what we at the lower end call survival.

Mika, Mika -- you just redefined the word "work" to be everything and nothing. Thus making your statements pointless and stupid.

Think about it -- If Ann Romney is raising 5 kids, that's working. Yes! Sure thing! Cleaning up the kids' bedrooms - that's "work" too. And going to see them in the school play, teaching them to read, applauding their refrigerator art? That's "work" too. Wow, EVERYTHING IS WORK! Yes, anything that involves any labor is work! Choosing to stay home and spend your multi multi multi millionaire hubby's money on a couple of Caddies here and there -- that's SO MUCH WORK!

Your choice to define anything a woman does as "working" expands the definition of working well beyond what Hillary Rosen was talking about, to include any labor, of any type, at any time, to any end. This elastically-expanded definition now includes everything, and that means nothing. A prostitute on the street is WORKING. (Hey wow, she should speak for all American women, right??) A disabled elderly gay Native American woman on Social Security who occupies herself with petting her cat, or channel surfing on TV ... or posting comments to the Morning Joe blog ... IS WORKING. (She could be Mitt Romney's sole advisor on all things woman!) A PhD candidate lucky enough to be studying the scholarly field she loves ... IS WORKING. (She could speak for all women - including you, right?)

EVERYONE IS WORKING! DOH. Do you recognize the fallacy now? By deliberately misreading Hillary Rosen's statement, by exploiting the ambiguity in the polysemic word "work," you've willfully, and completely, failed to engage with the real issues. is Ann Romney's choice to stay home with the kids the same as choosing to raise kids AND work a paid job? Does "choice" have the same valence as "having to get a job"? Is parenting identical to work at, say, a factory?

No. And No, and No.

To intentionally mistake the meaning - to ignore the full statement in context - in order to launch into a strawman attack directed at an entirely different point - is STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. You and Joe both know better than that. What happened to surfacing and discussing the REAL issues, by looking at the full context and content of a statement? What you did is over-simplify to the point that you're little better than Dan Senor, disingenuously stating that he's not officially speaking for Romney, then speaking for Romney.

Now, to address the real issue -- and the real, FULL, comment -- let's first read all of it, instead of setting up the first sentence only as a strawman. Strawman arguments are a waste of time, except for making you & Joe look petty and biased, and making this viewer wonder why I'm watching you.

The comment:

""Guess what?" Rosen said. "His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing."

Rosen continued, "There's something much more fundamental about Mitt Romney. He seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women, and I think that comes across, and I think that that's going to hurt him over the long term. He just doesn't really see us as equal.""

(And as I'll note, Romney also fails by doing this because he just doesn't really see women as being at all different from each other. News flash: women are not all alike!)

Even Redstate acknowledges the truth of the full comment: "For what it’s worth, in context Hilary was talking about the workforce and recession and I don’t think she meant to insult stay at home moms or Mrs. Romney. On Twitter, Hilary explained she was taking issue with Mitt Romney using Ann Romney as his expert on women and Ann Romney did not work both a full time job and raise the five boys concurrently."

Exactly. Ann Romney has worked hard at doing what only 1% of 1% of 1% of American women do - choose to stay at home, or at any one of several homes, and raise kids on a multi-multi-millionaire's wealth.

Almost no other American women get so lucky as to have this choice. Ann Romney has no clue what choices most other American women face, nor does Mitt appear to have a clue as to why his wife is as totally, totally, unrepresentative of US women as ... well, as he is unrepresentative of the U.S. at large.

Now, why is Ann Romney's tweeted response disingenuous and foolish? Why was Hillary Rosen correct, and you and Joe wrong in your response?

It illustrates both how massively out of touch she is with ordinary American women's lives and circumstances, and how unfortunate it is that Mitt Romney thinks all he needs to know about women is to ask his wife.

Romney does his wife a huge disservice by taking her as his direct line to "what all women want", and she does herself and him a disservice by playing along with this foolish insulated-rich-man's game. It's like asking Marie Antoinette how to deal with the horrible economic circumstances facing all the women who weren't lucky enough to marry a multi multi multi millionaire. I suppose the reply would have been "Let them buy Cadillacs!"

Ann Romney in no way lives like the vast majority of American women. Most women work for a paycheck. Many don't have a husband - let alone a rich, rich, rich, rich, rich one - to give them the CHOICE to stay at home, to choose to have kids, to choose to raise them - and to have all the household help they want (and houses too) to carry out that choice. An increasing number of women don't have children.

What does Ann Romney know about struggling to get the hours to get the pay to fix the car to get yourself to a job interview, ferry the kids to school, drive the aged parents to their doctors' appointments? Has she lived anything like the life most American women lead? NO. Has she studied the sociology, done advanced research on the women Mitt claims she speaks for? NO.

Ann Romney is 1% of the 1% of the 1%. Women in America are millions of different people, living lives that are breathtakingly different from hers.

Sure she works hard at being a rich woman raising kids and coping with MS. Guess what - My married sister here in Idaho also raises kids and copes with MS. But - SHE WORKS FOR A PAYCHECK TOO -- sometimes 80 hrs a week. Because unlike Ann Romney, my sister and her husband aren't rolling in money and houses and hired help. My sister has to not only raise the kids and clean the house and cook the meals but also deal with picky clients who call meetings at crazy times. She has to drive the kids around, and that's not in a couple of Caddies. Does she work? Yes. She works, and works, and works! And - she darn well knows the difference - and it's a BIG one -- between "working" for a paycheck, and working as a mom around the house, and for that matter, working at her marriage!

Please don't be silly or stupid by willfully misinterpreting the meaning of Rosen's comments in order to stir up a false new 'culture war' (which is exactly what the "working-as-a-mom" meme was coined to pursue in the first place). American women - the 99.99% who aren't living in luxury like Ann Romney, whose marriage and Mormon faith have insulated her from the reality of most of our lives - know, know all too well, the difference between "working" in a paid job and working as a mom, or a sister, or a college student, or even a blogger. All of these are work! And if you define everything women do as work, you have - as the philosophers phrase it - "voided" the term. You make it meaningless by applying it to everything. When everything is work, nothing can be defined. You end up pretending like Mitt and Ann that choosing to be a fabulously wealthy mom at home in your mansion of choice makes you representative of - or somehow better than - the millions of American women who must go to a workplace each day to earn their daily bread.

Ann Romney no more represents my sister - or me - or most American women and the circumstances they face - than Marie Antoinette represented the French in the 1770s, most of whom faced the terrible hardships of their collapsed economy while the 1% of the 1% partied on with their elite wealth in their aristocratic chateaus.

"Let them eat cake!" Let them buy Cadillacs! But don't let's pretend that Ann Romney knows anything about what the average American woman thinks. Let's instead get back to the real political problem -- why does Mitt Romney think his wife is typical of American women?

This is tokenism at its worst. Would I assume my black Manhattan-born co-worker knows what black Americans think? Or that my lone Jewish neighbor can tell me how all Jews feel about the economy? Rubbish. You and Joe would never be so foolish as to take one friend of any race, religion or nationality as speaking for all the millions of others in that class. Why are you taking Ann Romney as being in any way typical of - or knowledgeable on - women? You guys are too good for this, and too smart for this.

And if this is how the GOP is going to continue to wage culture-wars, instead of thoughtful politics, I'll continue to be unable -- as for years now -- to vote for the candidate of the party I've been registered in for 30 years. Mitt's so out-of-touch it hurts, and alas, he now officially represents the totally out-of-touch Republican party too. I'd laugh if it wasn't so very, very, very sad.

Claudia - as a man, I can no way claim to understand the issues that women face today, but I had to comment because your response was one of the best written I have seen. It is thoughtful, logical, and touching when you speak of your sister. I was raised by women, and brought up to respect them greatly. Because I have had success in the business world, I have been given an opportunity to pay back my mother and older sister by buying them a house to live in. No, I am not anywhere near the 1%, but I have been very smart about how I deal with money, and have remained single into my mid forties. I hope and pray that there are many other men like myself who will stand up and support women in this war waged by the GOP.

I never really liked Morning Joe anyway.

Ann Romney surely worked hard if not harder than most women. With five sons and how many houses ? Supervising the kitchen staff in the morning, making shopping lists for the help, watching the boys leave in the morning and waving to the limo as it drove away, interviewing the nurses and nannies, hiring and firing the maids, planning the weekend parties ..... well a mothers work is never done ! It must have been a great strain when the boys had to leave for boarding school.

The point for me is not whether Ann Romney has ever worked outside the home. The point is that Mitt Romney claims to care about women and understand our concerns, yet he seems to start every sentence with 'My wife Ann tells me' or "I hear from my wife Ann that...' If he wants to be believable in his claims then he needs to get out there and talk to more than just his wife Ann. And secondly, while his wife seems like an intelligent woman who has worked hard to raise five sons, I doubt she has a clue what regular women face when trying to figure out how to pay the bills, how to make ends meet, etc. A woman who has a car elevator in her house just cannot relate to women who have mouths that they don't know how to feed, to women who have to put their dreams aside because they need to pay their bills, to women who walk down their neighborhood streets always looking over their shoulders because they can't afford to live somewhere safer, etc. If Romney wants women to believe that he gets us, then he nees to expand the circle of women that he talks to, and especially widen it to also include women who have not had the luxury of the wealth that has wife has had. It just doesn't seem believable that he understands the concerns of any women who are not millionaires.

If Hilary Rosen is "not even connected to the Obama campaign," then why has she visited the Obama White House 35 times?

As expected, everyone has come to the defense of women (including Ann Romney) who stay home to watch their children. Now I need to know: Did Ann Romney actually take care of her own kids, or was that chore assigned to one or more nannies, thus negating her claims of sacrifice?

It is quite obvious that the hardest working, most knowledgable and righteous women are the ones that have commented on this story. Congratulations, you have certainly confirmed what I believe to be true.

My point is that Ann Romney doesn't seem to understand that there are many American women who want to stay at home and raise but are not fortunate enough to have the choice. They raise 5 kids, and work 1-2 jobs to feed, clothe, educate and give them a safe home, and keep the home cleaned and meals cooked without paid help. Now which is harder? Working Moms do the same thing 'stay at home moms do; along with all the rest. If Ann Romney had said, " I chose to stay at home and it is hard work, but I was fortunate, and I know there are women out there trying to do both at the same time, and I sympathize" , then I might think more positive about her. But her statement just made her look just like her husband. Does not have a clue about middle-class and poor struggles and suffering and paying more taxes, people deciding on taking away what healthcare we have; now wanting to dig into Social Security; programs that give some assistance---and keep helping the rrich and 'themselves', the people who none of their decisions will ever touch. If Romney is told his family member needs another heart surgery he says how many and when; there are people who are told that their little girl needs the same surgery and they have to start grieving and thinking about funeral arrangements!! But with a Republican as President this id where we are heading. Research it people; the corporations and milllionaires have made more money like Republicans wanted, but they have hired FEWER!!!!! Wake up Reublic Americans! Because you will get burned too!!

I'm A stay at home dad!! My profession is wedding videography, therefore I work weekends and it is seasonal. My wife works full time as a bank manager. My 2 boys are 3yrs old and 8 months old. Staying home raising kids is hard work, very hard work... Always cleaning, changing diapers, cooking constantly and putting all my "things to do" aside. Then when the wife gets home she is pretty beat so I have to still watch the boys. I know what ms.Rosen meant, but raising a family is just as hard or harder that an other profession.

My point is that Ann Romney doesn't seem to understand that there are many American women who want to stay at home and raise but are not fortunate enough to have the choice. They raise 5 kids, and work 1-2 jobs to feed, clothe, educate and give them a safe home, and keep the home cleaned and meals cooked without paid help. Now which is harder? Working Moms do the same thing 'stay at home moms do; along with all the rest, as well as support and help their partner/spouse at home. If Ann Romney had said, " I chose to stay at home and it is hard work, but I was fortunate, and I know there are women out there trying to do both at the same time, and I sympathize" , then I might think more positive about her. But her statement just made her look just like her husband. Does not have a clue about middle-class and poor struggles and suffering and paying more taxes, people deciding on taking away what healthcare we have; now wanting to dig into Social Security; cutting the programs that give some assistance---and keep helping the rich and 'themselves', the people who none of their decisions will ever touch t, to have 'more'. If Romney is told his family member needs another heart surgery he says how many and when; there are people who are told that their little girl needs the same surgery and they have to start grieving and thinking about funeral arrangements!! But with a Republican as President this is where we are heading. Research it people; the corporations and milllionaires have made more money just like Republicans wanted, but, they have hired FEWER!!!!! Wake up Republic Americans! Because you will get burned too!!

This discussion is disturbing to me from the viewpoint of downgrading a family who has been financially successful. Isn't it better to take advice from people who have been successful at achieving the American Dream of economic security. Wouldn't they be in a better position to help more people to achieve the American dream? To say they can't relate to people who live paycheck to paycheck is a good thing, because what we really need is the advice of someone who has found a way to be financially independent and is willing to lead more people into economic security. This discussion seems to be less about women's role in society and more about downgrading someone who has been financially successful.

Mika, Joe,

The discussion of working women has yet to explore the idea that a mother, employed or not, is "on call", 24 hours a day. Often the 4am call of the sick child is for "mommy." The confidence building question of the anxious adolescent is "Mommy, are you coming to my first recital?" The repairing of the teenager's broken heart is completed by the mother who says "Don't worry, I promise you, you will heal and love again." The stubborn husband who is knocked down by the flu may be found saying "Honey, can you get me some aspirin?" I often wonder if all mothers (at the same time) working or not, decided to go fishing or hunting, drinking with their buddies,or simply just watch the game, would the world stop spinning on it's axis.

Even if the Romney's lifestyle is what it is, I am far more able to relate to that than the Obamas. Nobody paid my way through college, let alone Harvard. Nobody ever gave me a 300% raise ($100K to $300K) because my community organizer husband became a Senator. I agree with a lot of what you say, but I can't take that last step, Romney's earned it, Obama's were given it.

You cannot compare "working" in the home with "working" in the workplace. Chinese and Russian are both languages, both are difficult and challenging, but knowing one language doesn't mean you know the other language. One language is not "better" than the other. Raising children and the challenges/opportunities involved cannot be compared to the challenges/opportunities of having your daily activities tied to your paycheck. They are two totally different experiences. One is not better or easier, they are different, period.

However, it is fair to have a discussion about the different perspective you may have based on your work environment choice and the issues that drive that choice.

Listen carefully voters -- Mitt Romney is declaring to all who are listening that his perspective on women's issues comes primarily from his wife. Fact 1 -- Ann Romney, by all reports, has never worked outside the home for a paycheck. Fact 2 -- Ann Romney, by all reports, has been and is a great mom and a supportive wife. Fact 1 and Fact 2 are totally independent of one another. Hilary Rosen was not denigrating Fact 2 by making an observation about Fact 1.

Some women have children, some women do not. Some women have to work, some choose to work, some work when they could (or should) be at home. But if you have never walked in someone's shoes, you don't know their struggles. Everyone has challenges and struggles in their life, working or not, mother or not.

As an intelligent woman who chose to be a stay at home mom--without any negative financial implications for that decision, who has had to endure personal health struggles, Ann Romney can have empathy for the woman who has to work outside the home, but she cannot KNOW the financial or emotional struggles that woman endures on a daily basis. Ann Romney's empathy is limited by her lack of knowledge of being in that environment.

As "R from DC" said, the issue is that Romney needs to expand the circle of women whom he talks to if he himself wants to have empathy for all types of working women.

It is absolutely unfair to those of us who chose not to be a mom and chose to be in the paycheck-earning work environment to intimate that being a stay at home mom makes you an all-knowing observer of the struggles of all women.

Along the lines of the discussion, this morning, Peggy Noonan asked Joe and Mika why women skewed towards the Democratic Party and no one seemed to have an answer. It was surprising that Ms. Noonan was at a loss, given her adeptness as a prolific speechwriter and speaker.

There are, most likely, a myriad of reasons why women skew towards the Democratic Party. As a life-long Democrat, I would like to offer one suggestion (only my unscientific spin)...

Women, for the most part, are emotional connectors. They readily embrace causes that serve the less fortunate, the needy, and the under-served. Their biases, I believe, tend to lean in the direction of service above self. They better understand the mosaic of the ethnic, cultural, and socioeconomic landscape that makes us who we are as a country. They are sensitive, caring, and less exclusionary than those on the right; just look at the ideological differences between the two parties. More women identify with the core values of the Democratic Party which, when you think about it, embraces and constructs its platform on the corporal works of mercy.

This comment by no way implies that our friends "across the aisle" are less caring and compassionate. I just believe that their hierarchy of needs is structured differently and it is that difference that pulls a larger segment of women to our side.

Now comes the mono-mono Peggy Noonan supporting women's right to stay home and raise their children. Interesting to know how this no-government, lower taxes for the wealthy "person" would react to those women who go into the welfare system in order to be a Mom. Please, please someone ask her in front of a camera.

Wonder how much time Romney's children spent with their Mom and how many servants she had to care for the children and her many homes and Cadillacs? Guess she never had to worry about bus or taxi fare to take a kid to the doctor, especially when her pay would be docked for the day?

Mica is totally out of touch with reality on this subject as well. She can't compare Ann Romney and her situation to real working women who may hold down several jobs to make ends meet. Ann Romney is in a league of her own, she's never had to struggle to put food on her kids table as she juggles her jobs & time with her kids. It's a ludicrous comparison. Being married to a millionaire is not hard on you mentally or financially. It makes my blood boil to see stupid women who may be in the positions I mentioned above and who may be rallying behind Ann Romney. They are missing the whole point of what Hilary Rosen was actually saying. It's about being financially stable to stay home, nothing to do with stay at home moms not working by looking after their kids. As a women my own gender at times really needs shaking as they latch on to brief talking points and lose all sense of reason. We're undermined enough as it is by Republicans don't let one comment cause you to lose your minds over something that was put in the right context a perfectly fair comment.

Dear Mika,

No law yet has closed the gender wage gap — not the 1963 Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, not Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, not the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, not the 1991 amendments to Title VII, not affirmative action (which has benefited mostly white women, the group most vocal about the wage gap - http://tinyurl.com/74cooen), not diversity, not the countless state and local laws and regulations, not the horde of overseers at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and not the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.... Nor will a "paycheck fairness" law work.

That's because pay-equity advocates continue to overlook the effects of female AND male behavior:

Despite the 40-year-old demand for women's equal pay, millions of wives still choose to have no pay at all. In fact, according to Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of "The Secrets of Happily Married Women," stay-at-home wives, including the childless who represent an estimated 10 percent, constitute a growing niche. "In the past few years,” he says in a CNN report at http://tinyurl.com/6reowj, “many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home.” (“Census Bureau data show that 5.6 million mothers stayed home with their children in 2005, about 1.2 million more than did so a decade earlier....” at http://tinyurl.com/qqkaka. If indeed more women are staying at home, perhaps it's because feminists and the media have told women for years that female workers are paid less than men in the same jobs — so why bother working if they're going to be penalized and humiliated for being a woman. Yet, if "greedy, profit-obsessed" employers could get away with paying women less than men for the same work, they would not hire a man – ever.)

As full-time mothers or homemakers, stay-at-home wives earn zero. How can they afford to do this while in many cases living in luxury? Because they're supported by their husband, an “employer” who pays them to stay at home.

Feminists, government, and the media ignore what this obviously implies: If millions of wives are able to accept no wages and live as well as their husbands, millions of other wives are able to:

-accept low wages
-refuse overtime and promotions
-choose jobs based on interest first, wages second — men tend to do the opposite
-take more unpaid days off
-avoid uncomfortable wage-bargaining (http://tinyurl.com/3a5nlay)
-work part-time instead of full-time (“According to a 2009 UK study for the Centre for Policy Studies, only 12 percent of the 4,690 women surveyed wanted to work full time”: http://bit.ly/ihc0tl See also an Australian report at http://tinyurl.com/862kzes)

All of which LOWER WOMEN'S AVERAGE AND MEDIAN PAY.

Women are able to make these choices because they are supported — or anticipate being supported — by a husband who must earn more than if he'd chosen never to marry. (Still, even many men who shun marriage, unlike their female counterparts, feel their self worth is tied to their net worth.) This is how MEN help create the wage gap. If the roles were reversed so that men raised the children and women raised the income, men would average lower pay than women.

Afterword: The power in money is not in earning it (there is only responsibility, sweat, and stress in earning money). The power in money is in SPENDING it. And, Warren Farrell says in The Myth of Male Power at http://www.warrenfarrell.org/TheBook/index.html, "Women control consumer spending by a wide margin in virtually every consumer category." (Women's control over spending, adds Farrell, gives women control over TV programs.) "A recent research study revealed that the average woman spends eight years of her life shopping [spending] -- over 300 shopping trips per year. Men, only a fraction of that." -
http://www.terryoreilly.ca/blog/show/id/78

Excerpted from "Will the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act Help Women?" at http://malemattersusa.wordpress.com/2011/12/03/will-the-ledbetter-fair-pay-act-help-women/

"Nearly half of all American women think they are doing much better in their career than the man in their life, according to a new poll." http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/half_of_women_feel_more_successful_eao9N2neTpnJZLwFmEONgK#ixzz1rMad9gsF

By the way, the next Equal Occupational Fatality Day is in 2020. Year 2020 is how far into the future women must work to experience the same number of work-related deaths that men experienced in 2009 alone. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/equal-occupational-fatality-death-day.html

If Mitt Romney thinks he's going to win over women by a comment made by Hilary Rosen he's living in cloud cuckoo land. He's so out of touch that his wife has to tell him what's going on! Republicans are out of touch in general and want to take this country backward not forward. Mitt likes to talk about tree heights, how he loves lakes, eating cheesy grits and saying ya'll. Mitt tries hard to be funny but it's not working just as him thinking he knows what he's talking about isn't working. Out of touch and out the door in November.

It is really irritating to read the "smart" comments, oh she had nannies and help blah blah blah. They didn't start out rich, they worked for their money, isn't that amazing. THEY worked together as a couple to take care of themselves and their family. Somehow people are trying to make this a bad thing. Well let's talk about how many people are working for Michelle Obama, she has more than any other first lady. No one seems to think that's wrong and she has no clue about economy. Any woman that has raised her family, has a husband that has worked long hard hours is more aware of what is real and important then most of the pundits out there who have nothing better to do then make wise cracks.

Amendment to my previous comment on Mrs Romney. I meant to say she never had to work several jobs & juggle time with her kids as she had the luxury of being able to afford to stay home.

I am a son of a single mother who had no option to stay at home and raise kids or work....she had to so both.......and if the whole segment of Bill Maher was played it would have been clear that it is much different to be a stay at home Mom neting millions of dollars a year then to be a stay at home Mom who struggles to make ends meet and is forced to go out and work at jobs they hate since our capitalist country forces family to have two income these days. There are a lot of mothers who do not have that choice to work unless they want to be critized buy conservatives for being on wellfare which does not help no where near enough.

So, just to make sure I understand this correctly, Mrs. Romney stayed at home and raised her kids with no support such as nannies?...If not, at least she had that option. Bill Maher is absolutely right, most moms would much rather be at home with their kids instead of working at some job they are forced to or at least these moms would like to have that choice. It is impossible to compare Mrs.Romney with your typical mother who stays at home and raises their kids becuase most of them are not multi-millionaires who have a option to stay at home and raise their kids and if they do, they dont have access to maids or nannies.

Just want to add to the comments - I worked as a Registered Nurse while my children were growing up. They had a wonderful father who worked equally as hard. We both had to work to provide for our children - We sent two girls through"state" college,;neither had to take out student loans. My point being I and my co-workers did 12 hours shifts as a nurse, and then did everything "stay-at-home" moms do too. Homework, meals, laundry, school meetings, loving, caring, nurturing. I did not have a nanny or housekeeper. I was fortunate to have my mom as a backup, which a lot of women don't. Most of us do not have a "choice" to be stay a home moms. I am tired of this debate. I really doubt Ann Romney worked as hard as my friends and I did raising our children. Both of my daughters are college graduates who are productive, married, moral, "working moms" today - because, due to the economy - they also don't have a choice. Luckily I am now retired - and I am doing for my girls what my mom was able to do for me by providing childcare to my grandchildren. I realize most women are not that forturnate. Thank you Karen Vickers