A "real'' moment at the Convention

Like a lot of folks I watched Sarah Palin give her big speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday.
In the early part of her speech, Palin acknowledge the presence of her family, which consists of her parents, her husband, her five children and her soon-to-be son-in-law.
The controversy surrounding the pregnancy of her daughter, Bristol, had both of the heads of the two parties calling for the media to lay off the families of the candidates.
The media cannot help themselves, apparently.
So, predictably, after Palin acknowledged her family, some media types viewed it as a double-standard. The argument: You can’t tell the media to leave them out of the spotlight and then parade them before the spotlight.
But it seems to me whoever makes that argument in the media is simply mean-spirited.
I think all the candidates have a right to acknowledge their families. There’s a big difference between that and exposing them to brutal, entirely irrelevant questions.
Truth is, the kids have been the best part of either convention, in my opinion.
Barack Obama’s two girls are simply adorable.
And so are Palin's children.
In fact, the presence of those young children may be the only unscripted aspect of any convention. They provide the real moments that we all can relate to.
When Obama’s young daughter shouted out “Hi, daddy!’’ when she saw him on the big screen, that was a genuine, warm moment that any parent can relate to.
But the best, most real moment of all came on Wednesday.
Palin’s 7-year-old daughter was holding her baby brother, Trig. Then she did something that I think we all have experienced, one way or another: She licked her fingers and smoothed down the baby’s hair.
And this simple act proves a point that surely must be beyond debate: Girls are BORN with a maternal instinct. That is the sort of thing only a mother would do.
Anyone who has ever been a mom or a child (which includes just about everybody) has had that experience.
I know it was something I remember from my childhood. My mama would do the same thing to us boys, usually as we were piling out of the car at church on a Sunday morning.
She would stop us in our tracks and give us The Inspection: Shirt-tail tucked in? Check. Pants zipped? Check. Shoes tied? Check.
“Now let me look at that hair,’’ she would say, as he licked her fingers and plastered down our cowlicks and stray “bed-head’’ hair.
We hated it.
In fact, having your hair slicked down by your mama’s saliva ranked second only to being kissed by really old people when it came to things young boys hated most.
So, yes, I absolutely approve of candidates showing off their families at events such as this.
It is a reminder that we all share a common bond as Americans.
As long as mamas slick down their kids’ hair with spit, we’re going to be OK, I think.