What’s up? -- Steve Smith

The day before Mother’s Day, I wrote about showing my wife, Cay, signs

of love, affection and playfulness because I want both of my kids to see

behavior in a marriage that works.

Among the activities I promoted was pinching. I also advocated opening

the car door for mom and telling kids when she is not around just what a

great mother she is.

A woman reader called the Daily Pilot readers hotline and complained

that pinching is never a sign of love or respect for women, that women

have other important roles besides motherhood and that my column wasn’t a

good one for women.

The letter is important both for the specific issues it raises but

also as indicator of just how narrowly focused we have become. Failing to

see the bigger picture is not just this reader’s problem; it’s now part

of the fabric of our society.

We have become so locked into promoting the one item in our lives that

we are convinced will make the world a perfect place that there is no

room in our thinking for any degree of tolerance on the issue.

In this reader’s case, my pinching, regardless of where I pinch, how

much I pinch, whether Cay also pinches me or even whether pinching has

shown to have a positive effect on our kids, is irrelevant.

She doesn’t like pinching, so all pinching must be bad. She also

believes that being a mother is the end of the line for women.

I have news for her. Our home is not a street in Rome, nor is it a

crowded Tokyo subway, both places where men pinch total strangers for

purposes other than genuine affection.

The Costa Mesa City Council has had political problems because of

narrow thinking.

Councilman Chris Steel, for example, is so determined to rid the city

of its valuable job center that he was willing to trade funding for

Huscroft House, an important addition to the city’s heritage, in order to

get his wish.

It appears that it was not possible for him to see that these two

issues are oil and water and that his offer was not an effort to

negotiate; it was a game, with important city issues as pawns on a

chessboard.

In Newport Beach, narrow thinking has locked city leaders into

focusing on the airport debate while the beaches are being neglected.

Yes, I know they would protest that they are working on the problem of

water pollution, but in their most honest moments they should admit that

for the next few years their resources are being committed first to

getting an El Toro airport off the ground.

And what is so bad about raising a daughter to be a mother?

Unlike former President Bill Clinton, who claimed that being a mother

was “the most important job in the world” and then went on to disgrace

his own daughter’s mother, I believe that sentiment, and I stand by my

comments that women are better at raising kids than men. Not always, but

almost all the time.

Motherhood is noble. Motherhood is the most important job in the

country and perhaps the hardest, partly because women such as this reader

continue to place so little value on it.

Being a mother never has to limit a woman’s horizons. It also seems to

me that the nation had far fewer problems with teen pregnancy and drug

abuse when more moms stayed home.

To this reader, I am probably a sexist. But I am less concerned about

her impression of me than I am about raising good children.

So, with thousands of women I have spoken to and worked with over the

last four years supporting me, I will continue to urge women to stay home

with their kids as much as possible.

I will continue to urge both men and women to start making better

choices for marriage partners so that fewer children feel the devastating

effects of divorce, which still strikes about half of America’s

marriages.

On Thursday night, our family had one of the world’s great pizzas at

Nick’s on Harbor Boulevard in Costa Mesa. On the way back to the car

after dinner, my son, Roy, asked me for the car keys.

“Why do you want the keys?” I asked.

“I want to open the car door for mom the way you do,” he said.

I was so happy, I could have pinched myself.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. Readers

may leave a message for him on the Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.