What a mom can teach the President

I watched the President deliver his State of the Union address last night. I was watching in particular to see if he would mention the consumer protection bill, and he did, although he called it finance reform. He did send a direct message to Senator Dodd, the Chair of that committee. The message being, do not back down to the bankers. I liked that. Having that bill passed with an independent agency overseeing banks will help me feel much better about the future that my daughter will inherit. And that is important to me. Very important. So it was worth it to stay up to watch, even though I was exhausted, like most moms.

Anyway, as I was listening, I heard the President lose focus. Suddenly he was for this and then he was for that and then he was looking for applause from one side of the room, then another. What was he doing? He was not focusing on the essentials.

What do I mean by the essentials? This is where moms can teach President Obama a thing or two.

As a mom, we have many different things that we think need to be done. But if we take our eyes off of the main ones, the essentials, all hell breaks lose.

Let me give you an example. Laundry. Now, I hate laundry. And sometimes I let it pile up and up. And then my family is screaming and chaos reigns. I hear shrieks of "I have no clean underwear, I have no clean shirts". And then I am scrambling to get laundry caught up. Except you never really do get caught up. You have to do a little at a time all of the time. But it is essential for a smooth running home to have clean clothes. We need them everyday just as we need air to breath. We really cannot function without them.

Now, I have probably lost you here. She is nuts. What does laundry have to do with the President? Or with running our country.

So let me tell you.

There are about 3 essential things we moms need to provide to really keep a happy, well functioning home. Beside loads of love, we need food, clean clothes, and a full tank of gas.

Without these essentials, nothing else really matters. Oh, I could have a spotless house, beautiful floral arrangements, the latest fashions. But it really doesn't matter if everyone is hungry, naked and stranded.

And so, President Obama, understand that you have not provided your "family", the American public, with the essentials. We are hungry, we are naked and we are going nowhere.

We were hungry for change. We are still waiting for that home-cooked meal, now aren't we. We feel naked, because the banks took all of our clothes and covered themselves and wouldn't even give us a corner of the blanket to keep warm. And our energy is gone. We feel like we cannot get anywhere because we are just driving on empty. We were fed one empty promise after another and our engines just won't go anymore.

So, please give us what we need. The essentials. Get us jobs. Stop the banks from destroying us and taking our money. And take us somewhere, anywhere. We feel stuck and we are getting restless.

So, you see. A mom really does have some good advice. So maybe you might consider listening to our sage wisdom and not the advice of all the intellectual talking heads you have surrounded yourself with.

I would write more, but I have got to get to that laundry.