c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS and author of”Turn Toward the Wind”.)

(UNDATED) Seems like just the other day, everyone was intrigued with the angry white male. He was the one toppling politicians and determining the future of America.

Now the spotlight has turned to women like me, the so-called”soccer moms,”who run from their workplaces like female Clark Kents, changing clothes and identities while racing to the carpool line, the soccer game, the grocery store, and the PTA meeting. We are moms who are pulled in several directions at once with little hope that things will calm down soon.

We are supposedly the ones who will”swing”this election and determine the future of America. The candidates are trying to woo us. What they fail to realize is that we are not all that interested.

We are not angry at politicians or frustrated with the government. We are not apathetic or cynical. We have come to the educated conclusion that government can only do so much for us.

Speaking for myself and the women with whom I share thoughts while waiting for practice to conclude, soccer to begin, and the car pool line to move, we soccer moms have determined that if life is going to be better for our families, we are going to have to take matters into our own hands.

We would love to believe that government could protect our children while they played in public parks so we wouldn’t have to shuttle them to supervised soccer. We wish they could walk home on crime-free streets from public schools where they received an excellent education. We’d be comforted if we knew that child care was available, safe and regulated.

But no matter what promises politicians make on these and other issues, we aren’t willing to entrust our children’s futures to either party.

And so while tax cuts would be nice, we budget without counting on them. And as important as a war on drugs is, we wage our own battles in our own schools and homes, with or without a national campaign.

We believe that values are important in government leaders, but we fight every day to keep our kids from imitating the values of sports figures or entertainers.

In a sense, we have progressed from being children of the 60s and 70s who distrusted the government to young adults of the 80s, who expected it to make our lives easier. Now, we are parents of the 90s, who realize that government leaders aren’t nearly as powerful as we once imagined.

Rather than expecting change to start at the top, we are willing to make it happen where we can. That might not be good news for politicians trying to grab our votes, but it may be very good news for our society.

So here’s a message from soccer moms to politicians: We have learned to take responsibility for our own lives, which makes us better citizens, but a less predictable”interest group.”We are realistic about the role government can play, so your promises don’t sway us as much as you hope. And we are more amused by your sudden interest in us than we are flattered.

After all, we deal with kids every day. We’ve heard it all before.

MJP END BOURKE