Meghan McCain shares first photos of baby Liberty Sage in return to ‘The View’: ‘Motherhood is insane’
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Like Other Republicans, Meghan McCain Only Cares About Fixing A Problem Once She’s Experienced It
On Monday, conservative commentator Meghan McCain rejoined her The View colleagues after giving beginning to her daughter, Liberty, in September, 2020. In her post-birth debut, the daughter of late Senator John McCain gave viewers a candid perception into her postpartum expertise: “When I gave birth I actually had postnatal preeclampsia, and I was in the hospital for a week after on a magnesium drip and it really, really kicked my butt. And I was planning on coming back on the show for the election in six weeks after I gave birth and I was physically unable to.” The conservative commentator went on to say that her husband and mother-in-law had to assist her bathe and eat, calling your complete expertise “deeply humbling.”
“The whole time I was thinking what a privilege it is to have this kind of maternity leave,” she exclaimed.
McCain then mentioned that in the aftermath of her expertise, she grew indignant. “As I thought about it, the more angry I got that there weren’t women in the rest of America that had the same kind of luxury that I had working here at The View.” McCain, who is married to Ben Domenech, co-founder and writer of The Federalist (a website that has printed such items as “How Paid Family Leave Restricts Parents’ Choices”) mentioned she additionally grew much more indignant with the Republican Party that she continues to subscribe to, although the present chief of the social gathering has regularly attacked her now-deceased father.
“Conservatives, in particular, given that we’re the party of ‘family values’ and that everything about our ideology sort of stems from the nucleus of the family, that we are leaving women in this country without the capacity and ability — unless you have an employer that allows you to — to take care of your child and to heal physically, which is something that needs to happen,” she mentioned.
She then regurgitated statistics which have long-been recognized to anybody who has ever paid consideration to the plight of pregnant folks in this nation. The United States is the one developed nation in the nation that doesn’t mandate paid household depart. The absence of paid household depart truly performs into the rising maternal mortality and toddler mortality disaster, particularly for Black ladies who’re 3 times extra seemingly to die from pregnancy-related problems than white ladies (one thing McCain didn’t deal with).
McCain additionally briefly touched on the restricted quantity of time ladies have with their newborns postpartum — one in 4 mothers return to work simply two weeks after giving beginning, a statistic that was printed in 2015 that appeared to be “new information” for the previous Senator’s daughter.
“There’s a lot of dangers that happen and I just can’t believe that we, as Americans, still have this kind of crisis,” McCain concluded.
In response to McCain’s “ah-ha” second, her The View-host Whoopi Goldberg mentioned, “That’s funny, we have been fighting for this for years: begging, screaming. And people keep saying, ‘We can’t afford it, we can’t do this.’ As far back as I can remember, people have said: ‘You know, women have babies, and you punish us.’”
And maybe what Goldberg touched on is a symptom of a bigger challenge. Is McCain’s private postpartum expertise worthy of empathy? Of course. Is her sudden enlightenment as to the plights of pregnant and postpartum folks worthy of reward? No. Instead, it’s indicative of a long-standing Republican custom: an issue isn’t an issue except it impacts me, personally. And a systemic resolution isn’t mandatory except it’s going to assist me, personally.
We don’t have to look far again into the nation’s historical past to see a myriad of examples of this exact same self-centered mindset in motion. Take former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), who urged Americans to put on a masks to forestall the unfold of COVID-19 solely after he contracted and was hospitalized for the virus himself. Or Nancy Reagan, who grew to become an advocate for stem cell analysis solely after her husband developed Alzheimer’s in 1999. And Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), who reversed his stance on marriage equality after his son instructed him he was homosexual.
McCain is no totally different, now, in suggesting that paid household depart is immediately vital. Whether it’s the Republicans who now take challenge with the outgoing president’s bully ways — those that they’re immediately on the receiving finish of — or conservative commentators like McCain who’ve lengthy ignored the cries of pregnant ladies, moms, and households — particularly Black and brown ladies and their households — the custom of the Republican social gathering carries on into 2021 and sure past, except we resist the urge to congratulate somebody like McCain for doing the naked minimal.
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