Most modern day women seem to think so. Most of us become indignant when our ability to do both is questioned. After Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain appointed Alaska’s governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, many questioned her judgment in accepting because she is the mother of five children. Courier-Journal’s writer Betty Baye in her September 4, 2008 column refers to her decision as “radical”.

“Never mind Palin's political qualifications. It's her parenting qualifications that I question,” she concludes .

A 74-year-old New York Times reader asserts in a letter to the editor that Palin cannot “do it all.” This reader’s confidence in her assertion comes from the fact that she’s a mother of five including a child with special needs.

I bristled at the criticism, because I felt they were gender based. No one inquired whether Democratic presidential candidate Senator Obama could successfully parent his two young girls and lead the free world. But then I allowed myself to think of this issue without the bias of wanting to see a woman hold high office. I thought about my own life as a new mother, wife and career woman. I concluded that this is a reasonable question to ask of Palin. Any woman who has a full time job and a family knows how tough of a balancing act it can be to master both.

I think women like the idea of having it all because it’s empowering. We do not like being confined to one role and why should we? After all women have been doing it all for years. There are many examples of women who’ve had successful careers and raised families. Senator Hillary Clinton, Mrs. Michelle Obama, and First Lady Laura Bush come to mind. Many of our mothers have been working before we were born.

With that said, I must admit that there is a high price to pay for having it all. Women with families can excel in any career, but I think it’s important they assume these roles with the awareness that there will undoubtedly be sacrifices. I’ve had to make many (mainly less sleep and less time with my husband) in order to work full time, take care of my family and pursue my writing career. I am sacrificing these things not because they aren’t important, but because something had to give. There are reports that Palin returned to work three days after giving birth to her fifth child, who has Down syndrome.

I think we can end up feeling disappointed and unfulfilled when we completely buy into the notion that because we’re women we’re supposed to be able to do it all and have it all. I feel it’s a romanticized notion that very seldom reveals its flip side –the harsh realities of the sacrifices that come along with it.

“After 400 years of being treated as second class citizens, one Black president isn’t going to make that much of a difference.” Daniel Thomas, college instructor.

The sad and shocking video has disturbed viewers around the country.  This crime occurred on June 19 of this year, but just started receiving attention after the ACLU brought a lawsuit against the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.   This video came to light only days before The Los Angeles Times published video on their website of a Hispanic woman dying on the waiting room floor of the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital.  The unbelievable footage shows 45-year-old Edith Elizabeth Rodriguez writhing in pain as hospital staff workers walked by and a house keeper mopped around her.   Rodriguez's husband made a desperate call to 911, but was told they could not help since the woman was already at a hospital.   Ms. Rodriguez died over a year ago.  The video was not released prior, because the Los Angeles county officials claimed it was confidential.   The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation reports that employees who left Ms. Green to die had been fired or suspended.  This is not the first time Kings County has been involved in a scandal because of neglect of patients.   King-Harbor had a long history of sub standard care and Ms. Rodriguez's death was the last straw.  King-Harbor closed its doors last year. 

No body deserves to leave this world the way Ms. Green and Ms. Rodriguez did.  The indifference by those who let them die is unbelievable, disgusting and saddening all at once.    How can people who pledged to protect life let patients die in a place where they'd entrusted their health and their lives?  Are these people so jaded that human life no longer means anything to them?  These uncaring  hospital employees need to re-evaluate the reason they chose the medical profession.  These people would be better off working on  loading docks where  they'd be entrusted with boxes and not human lives.   I do not understand the lack of empathy.  It's simple really.  Treat others the way you'd like like them to treat you or your loved ones.  

Tommy Taylor, a health specialist at the Louisville Metro Health Department, attributes the rise in teenage cases of STDs to the backlash from a "puritanical" mentality which makes it difficult to talk to teens about sexuality. Vivian Cowherd who is the mother of two teenage girls and one teenage boy does not subscribe to that mentality. She says she has no qualms talking to her kids about sex no matter how squeamish it makes them.

"You can't candy coat this stuff,"

she says referring to premature sexual relationships and the consequences. She'll take out a science book and show her kids what it looks like if that what it takes to get through to them. She believes it's important to strike a balance when relating to teens.

“I don’t want to be your friend, but at the same time I don’t want you to think I’m the enemy,” she tells her children. “If your kids are afraid of you they clam up you’re not going to know anything.”

 

Nancy Waters, a family therapist at the Old Louisville Counseling Center, advises parents to think of the sex talk as just another one of those challenges that must be met  in order for a child to grow up healthily.  It must be done in order for a young person to mature into a sexually responsible adult.  Waters compares talking to teens about sex to potty training a toddler.  It is difficult, but is a necessary part of socializing a child.  No parent would skip the potty training process despite its challenges.  Why fast forward through such an important phase of a teenager's life?

If you think that not talking about sexuality will protect your child from being sexually active at too young an age, please think again! cautions Waters.  It may not be the correct information, but your teenager already knows alot about sex, she added. 

I have no answers for either of those questions.  However, I  know that when an incident dominates the mass media the way the Spitzer scandal has it would be a shame not to learn something from it.   The former governor's actions clearly bring up questions of legality which may be or may not be dealt with in a court of law.   The issues of morality are the ones rich in lessons to be learned.   I cannot answer wether or not the act of  hiring a prostitute to satisfy sexual desires is immoral, but I believe that doing so at the cost of one's family is.   By running for govenor of New York, Mr. Spitzer placed his family in a very visible and vulnerable position in the world.  One would think his subsequent actions would be to protect them, yet he acted selfishly and recklessly causing them pain and public humiliation.     

Though it was painful to watch and made many women's blood boil, we all need to stop flagellating Mrs. Silda Wall Spitzer for standing next to her husband as he came forward.    We are outraged she appeared at his side because it looked like she was supporting him after he acted despicably.  This scandal should have reinforced the knowledge that people act in ways that are not always in sync with what they believe.  Mrs. Spitzer could have made that decision for any number of reasons including out of a sense of duty as New York's first lady.   On a  Dr. Phil show appearance, Bishop T.D. Jakes speculated that Mrs. Spitzer's may have stood next to her husband for public relation purposes. 

“He has people handling him (Governor Spitzer) who are saying, ‘We don’t want you to be seen out there without your wife, ’”  said the Bishop.

All marriages are complicated, but they may be more so when the couples are as high profile as Governor and Mrs. Spitzer.  Women in these marriages have to make sacrifices in their personal lives for the benefit of  thier public lives.  She may have stood beside him to honor her marriage vows and  support him through a difficult time.   Bishop Jakes made a good point when he said.

her decision to stay or to go is not based on one single incident, but the totality of her experience with him.

Whatever her reason  to stand next to him, Mrs. Spitzer acted with integrity and respect, qualities the governor does not seem to possess.

Finally, this scandal has revealed that the oldest profession in the world may be one of the highest paid profession in the world.  Who knew women could make the mind blowing sum of $4,000 an hour selling thier bodies.  This is a worrisome bit of information to process in a society where respect for women's bodies and morality seem to be on the decline.  I worry about the message this sends to young girls who are coming of age in a materialistic society.  The 22-year old prostitute and aspiring singer at the heart of this scandal has already become a sort of media darling.  Since the news broke, five million people ( with nothing else to do) have viewed her myspace.com page and downloaded her music.  Penthouse and Hustler magazines are competing to hire her.  Other women are coming forward to proudly proclaim  they sell their bodies to the highest bidders.  I worry that the thought processes of young girls trying to become famous will be, "well if that's all it takes..." 

Video displays of teenage girls drinking alcohol abound on websites such as youtube.com.    According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, teenage girls  are drinking and using drugs more than boys in their same age group.    The ONDCP reports that in 2004 more girls than boys started using alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana.   One and a half million girls started using alcohol; 730,000 started smoking and 675,000 started using marijuana. 

These alarming numbers suggest that young girls are in a sense trying to escape their reality by drugging themselves.  This federal report went on to say that teenage girls are vulnerable to substance abuse because of various factors including depression, risky sexual behavior  and excessive concern about weight gain and appearance.   

Nancy Waters, a therapist at the Old Louisville Counseling Center believes our society exerts children to act like adults before they are ready. 

This is especially true for girls who are encouraged to look like adult models and actresses in dress, makeup and movement, says Waters. 

Girls want to feel accepted and popular.  As alcohol is portrayed in the media as glamorous, it is inviting for teen girls to use alcohol as a means of increasing their sense of popularity. 

Family openness in talking about drinking alcohol is important in letting teen girls know that they have worth and value in being themselves. 

Mr. Ledger's death has brought into focus a silent health crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overdose fatalities have steadily and dramatically increased since 1999. The CDC reports that drug overdoses account for 95 percent of all unintentional poisoning deaths which have increased from 12,186 in 1999 to 20,950 in 2004.

These numbers are troubling, but hardly surprising when you take into account we live in a fix it with a pill society. There are probably more advertisements for prescription medication on television than there are for fast food. What is even more troubling is a report from the Office of National Drug Control Policy that prescription drugs are the second most abused drugs in the country among kids 12 to 17; 9.8 percent of Kentucky kids this age abuse prescription medication.  Pain relivers such as OxyContin and Vicodin are the most abused prescription medications among kids 12 to 17.  The use of OxyContin by eight graders increased 100 percent between 2000 and 2006.   

These drugs are relatively easy to come by; most kids don't need to look any further than their parents' medicine cabinet. Some even report getting them from friends for free. The accessibility of these drugs [52 percent of teens say prescription medications are available "every where"] and teenagers' beliefs about them is alarming.

ONDCP report goes on to state that teens believe these drugs provide a medically safe high.

• Four out of 10 teens agree that prescription medicines are much safer to use than illegal drugs, even if a doctor does not prescribe them.

• One-third of teens (31 percent or 7.3 million) believe there’s “nothing wrong” with using prescription medicines without a prescription once in a while. 

• Nearly three out of 10 teens (29 percent or 6.8 million) believe prescription pain relievers—even if not prescribed by a doctor—are not addictive.

The federal government is taking action to curb this disturbing trend among teens by launching a multimillion dollar advertising campaign to educate parents about teen prescription drug abuse.    The first television advertisement will air during this year's Super Bowl.

The news of the Nickelodeon starlet's pregnancy had the media buzzing and everybody talking.  People seemed shocked, but in reality Spears' situation only puts a famous face on an all too common problem in the United States.

  According to the website www.pregnantteenhelp.org, the US has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and births in the industrialized western world.   Even though teen births have dropped by almost a third since the 1990s, every year 750,000 girls will become pregnant in the US.  That is a huge number when you take into consideration the repercussions of  teen pregnancy. 

According to Pregnantteenhelp.org  two-thirds of teenage girls who have a baby do not complete high school.  The result: A higher risk of living in poverty for these young  girls and their children.  The economic impact of teenage pregnancy as the systemic cause of low graduations rates among young girls and the increase in poverty among women and children touches every family. 

With that said,  it is important to state that great strides have been made thanks to teenage pregnancy prevention education.  Since 1990, the number of African American teenage girls who have gotten pregnant has plunged by 40 percent.  Since that same time period the number of Hispanic teenage girls who have gotten pregnant has fallen by 19 percent and  by 34 percent for White teenage  girls. 

These numbers will keep falling if we keep talking to our teenagers.  The popular belief seems to be that most teens are having sex and just will not listen to reason.  Not so, says Mary Pat Payne, coordinator of the Abstinence Education Initiative here in Louisville, KY.  Payne, who educates teens at local middle and high schools about making responsible sexual as well as overall life choices,  says that kids want adults to talk to them.     Payne says the response has been,

 overwhelmingly positive, they [teens] are hungry for the truth.

Payne's  outreach program teaches teens  that it is possible to to wait until they are married to have sex.  

" We challenge  them to look at what they want to accomplish for their lives...what their dreams are for the future and how is it that they are setting themselves up for that," 

She says to put it in focus like that helps a lot. 

According to Gary L. Rose, M.D., president and chief executive officer of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health

 "Twenty percent of teens under 18 get pregnant within six months of starting on the pill, and 20 percent of teens under 18 get pregnant over a period of one year using condoms.  In addition, the lower the age of sexual debut the greater the increase in lifetime partners, and consequently the greater the risk for sexually transmitted infections."

With this in mind, let us  not use Jamie Lynn's misfortune just to satisfy our voyeuristic tendencies.  Let us seize the opportunity to start a dialogue with our children; they will listen.  Mary Pat Payne says that after talking to teens in the schools,

"Many of them indicate that they are stronger in their convictions or that they are willing to change their behavior because of what they've learned."   

When asked to describe people she’d consider sex offenders, Kim Sanders replied “creepy guys.”  Jennifer Carroll and Tessa Stephens both said “middle age white men.”

How about 50-year-old woman who looks like the older lady you may run into at any grocery store in this city?

The images of sex offenders Sanders, Carroll and Stephens hold in their heads are perhaps the same for most people. Because women are nurturers, they are regarded as protectors. Molesting, raping or sexually assaulting is predatory behavior usually not associated with females.

We may also think of sex offenders as usually male,  because men are viewed as more aggressive and they do make up a larger percentage of the criminals in that category. According to the US Department of Justice, women commit only three to four  percent of all sex crimes.

The Kentucky State Police sex offender registry lists a total of 832 offenders for the city of Louisville from which only seven are female. [ Whether fewer women are offending or fewer victims are reporting is uncertain.] The victims in Louisville ranged in age from 17 to three while the perpetrators ranged in age from 50 to 28. The crimes, which landed these local women on the list, include rape, sex abuse, sodomy and use of a minor in a sexual performance.

We’ve recently become more aware of sex crimes committed by women because of the stories involving teachers and students. According to  Catherine Lewis, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Connecticut, these female sex offenders are known as  heterosexual nurturers.

"The woman's fantasy is that's she's nurturing," Lewis explained. "It's certainly not violent and the perpetrator usually believes they're not hurting the child in any way."

Mary Kay Letourneau is perhaps the poster child for heterosexual nurturers. The former Seattle, WA teacher was 34-years-old when she started a sexual affair with Vili Fualaau a 13-year-old student. Letourneau and Fualaau met when he was a second grade student in her classroom. Letourneau’s refusal to renounce her young lover garnered international attention and landed her in prison for seven years, but not before she had bore the young man’s two children. Letourneau’s and Fualaau’s infamous affair has since become the stuff made for TV movies. Time Magazine even listed the affair as one of its top 25 crimes of the century.

Kelsey Peterson, a 25-year-old  Nebraska teacher went as far as kidnapping her  13-year-old student lover  and fleeing  to Mexico.   

It's evident in the way some media outlets cover these crimes that female sex offenders are not the only ones who believe they are doing no wrong.   Debra LaFave, the 27-year-old Florida middle school teacher who was accused of having sex with her 14-year-old student, was described by Matt Lauer in a Dateline NBC special as "beautiful and blonde."   The New York Post used the words  "teaching temptress" and "stunning" when referring to LaFave in a recent article.   LaFave's crime has been further trivialized by absurdities like fan clubs and  funny t-shirts for sale on Ebay.   There is an obvious double standard in the way our culture views  female sex offenders.  A male sex offender would never be described as "stunning" or "handsome"  because the very nature of his crime renders him unattractive regardless of his physical attributes.

There seems to be a misconception that because most female sex crimes are not violent that victims are not as affected.   Not so states Lewis.  

"Often, young victims of these offenders do have difficulties, (including) depression, suicide attempts and drug use."

 

This teenage girl's grief stricken parents appeared on The Today Show on NBC  where they revealed hair raising details of a plot which led to their daughter's suicide.     The parents found out a few weeks after their daughter's death that the teenage boy who befriended her and later broke her heart never existed.  Members of a neighbor family had created a phony MySpace.com account with the sole purpose of taunting this girl. 

The use of the Internet, chat rooms  and instant messaging has become so much  a part of our culture that we tend to forget the dangers that are inherent in the use of such technology.  For most teens and young adults, corresponding over the Internet is probably second in  popularity only to talking on the cell phone.  The big difference is  there is no way of telling who teens are truly talking to online.   The Dr. Phil show recently chronicled the story of a 16- year- old girl who ran away to the Middle East to be with a 20-year-old man she met on MySpace.com.   All the corresponding and subsequent plot to run away happened in her mother's presence.   

Many parents tend to take a back seat role in monitoring their children's Internet use because they are not familiar with the technology.  This is not an excuse.  Exploring the Internet along with your children presents the perfect opportunity to start a dialogue about how to stay safe online.  According to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children 34 percent of kids ages 10 to 17 had revealed their real names, telephone numbers, home address or the name of their schools online.  Forty-five percent had posted their dates of birth or ages and 18 percent had posted pictures of themselves online.  Children cannot reason the way adults do,  so they cannot  foresee the consequences of such actions.

Parents,  let's stay involve.  Let's keep asking questions about the friends our children keep online.  Let's keep talking to them about the dangers of revealing too much and becoming too involved with cyber pals.  Let's take a trip down to the local public library and take an Internet class, so that we can meet out children where they are.