The Ties that Bind Us

It's so nice that parenthood can so quickly become a unifier of people with wide ranging beliefs, political ideas, religions, and cultures. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but in the process of getting sued last year I made a really good friend in one of my lawyers, Rachel. She is almost the complete antithesis of me; she's about 15 years older than I, she's a lawyer, she's Jewish, she's a divorced single mom, and she's super liberal. She hates Bush with a passion. She talks a mile a minute and she's hilarious. But she and I bonded instantly over Nathan's birth. I was due any day when I got served and had to quickly hire her firm, and she made sure I was as comfortable as I could be with our schedules for meetings and depositions, etc. I brought Nathan along to her office and she fell in love with him. We talked about breastfeeding and sleeping and poopy diapers in between discussions about how much my former company sucks and why they were making my life hell. We talked about how she took six years off from her career to raise her daughter, and now she works part-time, from 10-2 every day. I was amazed that she was able to do that in such a big successful law firm. I realized that she stayed up many late nights going through all the paperwork for our suit. She showed me that she shared similar values with me, that her daughter came first in her life.

Why is this surprising to me? Because in my experience when people on opposite sides of the political fence try to talk about their ideas, the conversation breaks down rather quickly. My husband keeps a blog devoted to politics, and he tries to comment on blogs kept by conservatives like him and liberals as well. He claims that he can't have an intelligent argument with liberals, because they always resort back to "Bush lied, kids died."

My sister, a political lobbyist for an ultra-conservative family values non-profit, showed me one of the hate mails she received that somewhat confirms my husband's point. Names have been removed to protect those involved. See below:

V:
Your recent quote in the Washington Post has me confused.

"Despite the rhetoric from some, embryonic stem cell research has brought no cures or treatments for anyone," said V, executive director of the F, a socially conservative group. "Taxpayers should not be forced to fund something that is not only ethically questionable, but has also failed to live up to the much-hyped promise."
Sounds to me like Bush IIs Triumvirate of Treason (Cheney, Rice & Rumsfield) talking about Iraq before the figment of WMD.

He's comparing embryonic stem cell research to the war in Iraq. What does one have to do with the other? Eh...anyway she gets tons of hate mail everyday. It's because she's in the press every day standing up for her causes. She opens herself up to it. I could never do her job. So it will be fun when my lawyer friend Rachel gets to meet my sister at Nate's birthday party next week. Hopefully my sister will see in Rachel exactly what I do.