Midwest Memo
Royal bone to pick
by Alan Shultz

The Queen of talk has finally found her King. The new road show is billed as Oprah and Obama. But there's one big problem The King in waiting has a wife. So the Queen has to marry her fellow off to all of us.

I've got no issue with celebrity endorsements in politics. Oprah Winfrey has earned a platform to speak from on just about any subject. If her fans want to listen, well then fine.

However, when it comes to Oprah explaining away Barack Obama's apparent lack of experience in the political arena, the Queen of talk has crossed the line. In fact, she's got a lot of gall.

As reported in Lynn Sweet's column in the Chicago Sun Times on Monday, Winfrey "framed a new argument" concerning the experience issue in her speech in Manchester, New Hampshire. According to Sweet, Winfrey appealed to the parents in the crowd.

"You can't be fooled by this experience question," she said, "and time - because you know it is not the amount of time that you spend with your children, it's the quality of that time, it's what you do with that time."

Memo to Miss Winfrey: stick with what you know. What does child raising have to do with Barack Obama's political experience, or lack of same?

I reckon most parents will agree that the quality time argument is a fabricated illusion. I thought we had all agreed that quality time was the equivalent of silly talk. With children, it's all about time. That's why it's such a shame and such a challenge that today most families find both parents must work. In single parent homes there isn't even an option.

Children don't wait for quality time to share their fears or their secrets. Children don't form their beliefs, gather their examples, shape their values in allotments of time deemed quality by their parents. For kids, time is time. For kids, you're there or not. For kids, they've got your attention, your ear, or your lap, or they don't.

To the dismay of her parents, one of my friends has embraced as her faith the religion practiced by her nanny. It seems that nanny and child spent a lot of time together - quality and otherwise.

I park my car in a lot shared by a daycare center. Each day I watch hurried mothers and children, some happy, some not, part for the day. Often there is a sense of rush, a disorganized dash in those partings. Jobs and kids - it's hard to balance, hard to find time.

Winfrey did neither Obama nor children any favor in mixing their unrelated challenges. Quality time is a nasty myth, an excuse or rationalization for tough choices and conflicting demands. This subject seems to be something on which Winfrey appears to have no experience.

Of all arguments to draw upon to down play the need for experience, hers seems to be more than a stretch.

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Banned in Gross Pointe

Years ago I wrote about my Aunt Mary Jane and how she banned the word "bored" from all children in her ear shot. She just wouldn't allow the word in her home. I used it once and remember the lecture I got in return.

Mary Jane would have liked Sister Kathy Avery of Gross Pointe Park, Mich., who has banned "stupid" and "boring" from St. Clare of Montefalco Catholic School.

Sister Kathy caused a few raised eyebrows and earned some newspaper headlines for a recent after mass talk she had with the 5th through 8th graders. On that occasion she explained the zero tolerance policy on swear words. And just so there would be no misunderstanding, Sister Kathy read aloud a list of the banned words to her young, hushed audience.