A Mommy Story

I’ve been watching the financial nosedive of the past few weeks with complete exasperation. Banks are failing one after another due to nothing more than greed and mismanagement, while those who were responsible walk away with multi-million dollar severance packages. I shook my head when Congress dismissed a $700 billion bailout package as being too expensive, then less than a week later passed another bailout package that was nearly identical except that it also included more money for pet projects and unrelated issues.

Now I see that AIG thanked the American public for their $80 billion bailout by sending some executives on a $440,000 spa retreat, paying for pedicures, massages, and all sorts of luxury. And Congress responded by giving them another $37.8 billion yesterday. Ya know, so they don’t run out of margaritas.

Ever wonder what happened to your country?

I think moms of America need to revolt and take over the country. Storm Washington and form a mom brute squad inside the Capital building, forcing lawmakers to listen to us. Just think of what we could accomplish.

When Republicans and Democrats are too involved in partisan bickering to get anything done, we moms can make them sit down together and play nice. We can keep our children from killing each other, so we can certainly make these guys respect each other. If someone tries to tack on a ridiculous pet project that has nothing to do with a bill designed to help the economy, we’ll send them to their office, and tell them to not come out until they can tell us what they’ve done wrong.

Moms can speak directly to the failed bank CEOs, chastizing them for thinking of themselves only and not others. We trusted them to behave with the money they’ve been given, and they betrayed our trust with greed, which requires punishment. Any mom will tell you that you can’t let a child get away with something once, or they’ll keep doing it again and again. We’d take away all of their bonuses, and we’d work out a plan with the banks, making sure any money we lend them is paid back to us in full, possibly with interest.

To investors, the mom squad would grab them by the shoulders and tell them to chill the hell out, reminding them that nothing good ever comes from acting rashly. We’d remind them that it’s OK to be scared, but it’s not OK for that fear to cloud everything they do and say. Moms would hand out cookies, tell them all to take a deep breath, and then make them sleep on it before deciding to sell off everything from fear.

When it comes to AIG, who has proven to be a truly unruly child and is clearly unable to make responsible choices with what it has been given, we moms would have to get tough. We would put them in time-out, freezing any financial hand-outs to them, demanding they work out a plan to pay back the money they blew on their executive spa retreat, and refusing to give them any further help until they prove they can make good choices.

And finally, moms would address the American public to tell them the unpopular truth our leaders won’t say: we’re all going to have to cut back, make some sacrifices, and live within our means. Many of us already are cutting back out of necessity, but others will need to do so to keep from ending up in poverty. Mom always said to not spend more than you earn, and this is the time to put that advice to use.

We moms don’t want to do this. We don’t like being mean mommies. We’d rather be spending time with our families instead of worrying about finances. But when our government and our financial system behave like unruly children, forcing our families to suffer from high food prices, foreclosures, heating costs that may be too much for many families to afford this winter, and a lack of credit for the responsible individuals and small businesses who desperately need it, we moms can only endure so much before we are fed up and feel the need to do something. Maybe it isn’t as extreme as storming the capital, but we can still choose to write our representatives in Washington, vote for who we think will make the best changes, and protect our families by guarding our finances.

Remember Congress, this really does hurt us more than it hurts you.