de uxoribus

NYTimes' Judith Warner is a columnist for the New York times who writes about the issues of mothers. In her most recent column, she talks about a woman who was charged with crimes for having left some children, the oldest of which were 12, at a shopping mall. In another, she talks about how mothers are the subject of unsolicited criticism about their parenting by strangers.

Her theory is that mothers and professional women are under attack by the population in the US. I have noted that in the anecdotes she reports, it is usually women who are the aggressors. In the shopping mall story, the police were called after children 8, 7 and 3 years were left at a perfume counter while the 12 year olds were trying on clothing. I am imagining that the attendant at the perfume counter is the one who called the police, and I would even go out on a limb and guess that the perfume salesperson was a woman.

Warner suspects that the aggression against mothers is part of backlash against improved rights for women in the US. It is important to note that in earlier times it was a good and reasonable thing to do to allow children, even very young children, to go into public by themselves and to run errands for their parents. Now this is not so. It is a great scandal to leave a child alone, and I think that the scandal mongers are conservative women and insurance underwriters. They are the great criars of kidnapping and accidental injury.

I am saying all of this because as a gentleman and the ambassador of men, I would like to make sure that I am not getting caught up in Warners indictments. I am blaming women and insurance underwriters.