White House Girls

About a month ago, I observed at dinner at my parents' that there hadn't been many presidential sons in the White House in my lifetime, but lots of presidential daughters: Tricia and Julie Nixon (whose father resigned three months after I was born), Susan Ford (whose three older brothers were adults by the time their father assumed office), Amy Carter (whose three older brothers were also mostly absent during their father's presidency), Chelsea Clinton, Barbara and Jenna Bush, and soon Malia and Sasha Obama.

Even the also-rans tend to have daughters: John Kerry's daughters Alexandra and Vanessa were two of his closest advisers, and John McCain's daughter Meghan campaigned with him constantly. (Both of them have stepsons, and McCain also has two sons with wife Cindy.)

My mom got out the encyclopedias, and we paged through history to see how far back the trend stretched. Not very far, as it turned out. The preponderance of daughters is a recent event.

My lifetime, as it happens, also overlaps most of the mainstream feminist/womanist movement.

I proposed a theory based on the finding that male legislators with daughters are more favorably disposed to support women's issues, especially reproductive rights: My thought was that male presidential candidates with daughters are more empathetic toward women generally—that they learn to listen more closely and relate to girls and women better than male presidential candidates without daughters—and that seeing them interact with their daughters communicates something to female voters, in no small part because the relative dearth of women in politics provides little opportunity to female voters to see male presidential candidates interacting with female peers.

Maybe daughters, so went my theory, are giving male presidential candidates the baseline understanding of women and women's issues required of any candidate in modern era of feminism.

It's a theory, I like to think, that's complimentary to both fathers and daughters, without being hostile to mothers and sons. And it doesn't rely on tired stereotypes about the sexes.

I'm going to guess you will not be surprised to hear that when Time's Belinda Luscombe noticed the same quirk of presidential families, her theory was slightly different.

I have a theory, born of careful historical analysis and solipsism: It's impossible to be elected to the White House if you have young sons, because that would mean you have to campaign with them.

Campaigning and raising sons are mutually exclusive. Campaigning requires lots of travel, enormous amounts of time in the public eye and months and months of sitting down quietly listening to the same guy talking while wearing your good clothes. It's like 11 straight months of being in church when you're the preacher's kid — with long car rides in between. It's torture on adults, let alone children. But it's worse for boys. Try this experiment: next month ask your son to be on his best behavior in front of other people, from now until November 2009. See how far you get.

"Boys are generally more competitive, risk-taking and defiant, which makes them less manageable," says Meg Meeker M.D., author of Boys Should be Boys and Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. And the 24/7 scrutiny of the modern campaign makes every small risky and defiant act a public affair.

...Young girls, on the other hand, can be an asset to a candidate's image. "There's definitely something in the father daughter-relationship that makes being in the public eye much easier," says Meeks. "Girls want to please their mothers and particularly their fathers. Their dads can take their daughters places and do things with them and the girls won't act out."

Of course. Of course it just comes down to "boys are animals; girls are servants." Doesn't it always?

And because that just wasn't offensive enough, Luscombe ends the piece suggesting that the Obamas ought to try for a son while they're in the White House.

And the Obamas are still a young couple. With ready access to government-sponsored childcare. No pressure of course, but would it be too much to ask to give the ol' dice another roll? Maybe you can't campaign with a son, but it sure sounds like fun to try and govern with one.

Sure, because Malia and Sasha are chopped liver—and because Michelle Obama's got nothing better to do than submit her body to the project of producing a boy, since "In some countries, being son-less would be considered a weakness, especially in a leader." Yeah, those countries are called monarchies.

And Time continues its slide into total fucking irrelevance...

[H/T to Renee.]