The Kitchen Table Phenomenon

The other night, I was watching the Biden-Palin debates and noticed that both candidates were trying to connect with the plight of the American people via their kitchen tables. Palin mentioned (again) that she could connect because she was a small town hockey mom, suggesting that in many ways she is just like a lot of women in Middle America raising their families. Joe Biden mentioned the kitchen table as well. He mentioned the tragedy in his life, and his time as a single father.

I don’t recall exactly when politicians first started talking about the kitchen table, but it has been a long time. It’s been suggested that families figure out their bills and their budgets at the kitchen table. They discuss what they believe in, what they value, how to deal with the world as it is and what should be done to make it better. The kitchen table has become nothing less than the essence of what a family represents – and it comes in a lot of different shapes and sizes.

The kitchen table of my youth was long, and perhaps a bit rickety. The kind of table you sometimes need to prop with a book to keep it stable. I was the youngest of nine with an absentee father and a single mother who worked long hours in order to provide just the basics.  Our table had a removable leaf that went in and out of the table as my siblings moved out on their own – and sometimes back in with children of their own in toe.

My table today is smaller. I am also a single parent, and my children’s father is absent – but I have two kids, not nine. I work to support them. I have needed help at times, sometimes from the system, sometimes from family.  For six years we rented space in my mother’s house, and my children now sixteen and nearly eighteen still visit her often - whether I come along or not.

Aside from being a mother, my kitchen table doesn’t look a lot like Sarah Palin’s.  I’m  no “hockey mom,” nor do I aspire to be one. I place more emphasis on the value of the arts , education and factoring in the things that feed the soul – not just the bottom line.

I want them to find a path where they can be comfortable and where they can make some sort of contribution to the comfort of others. I want them to value the environment as a whole, and to respect the opinions and lifestyles of others – even when they cannot understand. Perspective is important. Don’t just walk a mile in someone else’s moccasins—wear out as many pairs as you can.

I want them to see the air and the land not as something that is “ours for the taking” but as something we share with others and protect in case future generations need it too. I try and teach them to remember those less fortunate.  Almost anyone has a potential of finding themselves down on their luck. There are millions who would like nothing more than to pull themselves up by their bootstraps – if only they had a pair of boots. But at the same time if someone gets a free pair of boots, they ought to be held accountable for using them responsibly.  I would hope they defend those who can’t always defend themselves; children, elderly, the physically and mentally disabled, and animals.

There are a lot of things to consider in this election, and I would hope that people seek out information from as many angles as they can and make the decision they believe is best for our country.  For me, the kitchen table factor is a big one – although I have considered others as well. When I look at the lives of the candidates—not just their political experience—the kitchen tables that Barack Obama and  Joe Biden have sat at during their lives look a lot more like the ones I have sat at, or can envision myself or my family sitting at in the future.  I can’t say the same for McCain and Palin.



Gretchen Lee Bourquin in the author of No Sensible People.