Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 09:35:32 -0500 From: Wayne Glowka Subject: Re: Nominations for Words of the Year >Oh, I've never received a very clear definition of a "soccer mom." Is she >Republican, Democrat? Democratic Centrist? Liberal Republican? All of the >above? > >Jim Crotty (aka Monk) >How to Talk American >Monkmag[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]aol.com >www.monk.com Here is a well developed opinion of what "soccer mom" might mean: 1997 6 Mar Dolores Curran The Georgia Bulletin 5/1-3 She Finds 'Soccer Mom' Definitions Hogwash [Title]/I was emotionally geared up to write a stinging column belittling what I perceived to be a derogatory term, "soccer mom," when truth did me in. I was surprised to discover that it was coined years ago by a Denver woman running for city council. When asked for her credentials, she proudly replied, "soccer mom," and a sound byte was born./ . . . . All yuppies are not selfish, all white males are not angry, and all soccer moms do not live for and through their children./I know. I was a soccer mom, only back then we were called little league moms, a phrase often used condescendingly. I drove kids to practice and attended some of their games, but I did not put aside my life for their sports activities, which appears to be one of the interpretations of soccer mom./Another demeaning definition is that of the at-home mother who is anything but at home because she's driving her 1.8 children to ballet, orthodontist and success. The implication is that she is so frenzied that she will vote for anyone who acknowledges her existence./A third definition depicts the soccer mom in the tired stereotype of the little woman who naively feels that she can change the world by voting for a candidate who is attractive, charismatic and seems to care about home and hearth over more significant world issues./All these definitions are hogwash. Soccer mom is simply a convenient label put on the women's vote./. . . .The joke has become reality. Those little old women in tennis shoes had little girls who became soccer moms. Wayne Glowka