I’ve mentioned before how fortunate I am that my mother-in-law takes care of my baby while I work. Even when I’m working from home, my daughter is picked up by her grandmother and spends most of the day with her. I am of course grateful, and feel secure in knowing my baby’s being cared for by someone who loves her. But I still feel pangs of guilt that I don’t get to spend nearly enough time as I’d like with her. And I don’t know if those will ever go away.

Knowing that most parents feel like they should be spending more time with their kids, it’s about time we stopped judging each other. Comments such as “why have kids if you’re not going to take care of them” or something similar aren’t only harsh, they’re untrue. For some parents, going out and earning a living is taking care of their kids. And others are just doing the best they can.

San Jose Mercury News: Palin story fuels “mommy wars.”

Wall Street Journal: Does Sarah Palin have the ultimate juggle?

And here are a couple that focus not on Palin’s juggle but her gender:

New York Times: “Life of her Party,” a column by Maureen Dowd

SF Gate: Scrutiny of Palin poses risks for GOP and Dems

And here’s one about both:

Slate: Questions for a Superhuman Mom

Putting aside that as a liberal I don’t agree with most of Palin’s politics and think she doesn’t have the experience for the job, I regret that her ability to become vice president — and possibly president — is being questioned because she is a mom with many kids and seems to lead a hectic enough life. (What with the hunting and the ice-fishing and all.) I mean, she does have a husband. Three of her kids look to be grown, or at least mostly self-sufficient.

I’m not sure I’ve heard or seen anyone question whether Obama can devote enough time to the presidency because he has a couple of kids. Personally I think it’s because most people assume Michelle will take care of the home front like any good, patriotic woman should. According to this Wall Street Journal article, many liberals are wondering how Palin will make time for her kids while auditioning for the veep job, and conservatives are saying of course women can do it all, c’mon!

Funny how roles can become reversed just like that, especially when there’s a working woman issue involved. Add that to the mix that is the most important U.S. presidential race of the modern era, and there’s bound to be plenty of heated discussion.

Alexandra cited the difference between her life and her mother’s – “I work. And when I go to work, I think work is a break from my family” – Pelosi smiled at the notion that family life isn’t work. “She doesn’t remember how much work it was,” she said of raising such a large family.

Sort of ironic that Pelosi’s daughter would utter something like that. I wonder if it was just an offhanded remark, and whether Pelosi’s “smile” was genuine. Five kids? That’s what I call work. And to reach such political heights after her first career as a stay-at-home mom? Sounds like even more work.

Now, I understand that she got into journalism, one of the toughest, most male-dominated industries there is, a few decades ago. So yes, she had obstacles to overcome. But that doesn’t diminish the efforts of women today who are struggling to advance in their careers. Don’t blame them for the continued hardships they face as they try to shatter the glass ceiling. Not to mention the increasing pressure — never mind the source, because in my opinion it comes from everywhere — for today’s women to have it all. Many of us are balancing careers and kids and husbands, managing households and myriad obligations.

In fact, check out this post from the Juggle about a working mother who feels so compelled to check her work e-mail that she brings her BlackBerry to the playground. She lets her work infringe on time with her son, but admits that she doesn’t usually let her family’s needs interrupt her work. Many of us may judge or disagree with what we perceive as her warped priorities, but I can understand her need to stay on top of things at work. That’s not complacent. That’s not taking things for granted.

So it got me thinking. What kind of advice is there online about coping with a move when you have a baby? Here’s a sampling of what I found:

Moving with Baby: Tells me to be calm so my baby stays calm. Om.

Move and Relocate with a Baby: Tells me to keep baby happy. Hmm, sounds familiar.

Moving with Baby in Tow: Tells me to enlist the help of family and friends. And to take care of myself, so the baby will be OK, too. And this I love, and must do: One of the subheads says “Accept the chaos.”

I’m not in the exact same boat. We’re moving into a house, but we didn’t have to sell one. We don’t have to move out of state. Neither one of us is switching jobs. (And I don’t work for the Wall Street Journal, although it would be nice.) But we do have work to do on the house before we move in. Lots of big and little things to take care of. And we both have full-time jobs, a couple of freelancing gigs plus of course the full-time job that is our baby. So my husband and I are both plenty tired and irritable and stressed out about the sheer amount of what we have to accomplish and the sheer amount of money we’re spending. I hope pretty soon I’m writing a blog post titled “We Managed to Move into our Home and Keep our Marriage Intact.”

I could be horrified and judgmental and say stuff like “How could they?” But I won’t. I can’t even pretend to know what their lives are like. Although I come from a big family, it’s unfathomable to me how I could manage a household of five kids when having one is such a huge deal, and extremely chaotic. And I certainly can’t imagine what “going on holiday” would be like with all those people. Still, I hope those parents don’t get too much grief; they’re probably overjoyed their child is safe but overwhelmed by all the negative publicity their mistake has brought.

Despite all the doom and gloom of the economy and how some women are “having to stay home” with their kids, it’s nothing compared to what many single moms must go through. Many of them have no choice — they have to toil away, underpaid and overworked, without the ability to opt out. They have to survive.

This reminds me of a passage in “Mommy Wars,” a book I read a couple of months ago and talked about in a blog post.

Of course, most black women did it all because they had to. Black men, if they were hired, did not earn the kind of money that white men did, and black women were compelled to enter the workforce to help support their families.

Bottom line: Some women can’t afford to fret about working vs. opting out. They have mouths to feed and rent to pay. When realities are that harsh, there’s no room for analysis.

It’s interesting, from reading the comments on the bottom of the aforementioned article, how mean people can be. Some people commented about how mommy bloggers are stupid and have no lives and who cares what they have to say about their “stupid kids”, etc. But it makes me wonder why someone who thinks mothers who blog are stupid and have no lives would read an entire article about blogging moms, then take the time to comment about it. At least mothers who blog write about things they care about, as opposed to those who write about things they say they don’t care about.