Op-ed by Peter Children –
Stay at home dad or slacker. Eric Bookmeyer wants to be portrayed as a stay at home dad…wouldn’t that be wonderful if it were only true? Unfortunately he doesn’t stay at home much; he drops his children off at daycare then peruses the city looking for ways to create a legacy which wouldn’t be any harder than, lets say…….. walking on water.
What Bookmeyer fails to acknowledge is that his legacy has already been written and it spells Budweiser. His drinking habits followed him here from Clinton, Iowa where he was a familar figure on the police blotter, here the chief of police works for him….ironic.
When you are handed the mantel of responsibility by a city….what do you do with it? Do you step up and take it seriously, or do you get plowed in its many taverns and try to close and or rearrange governmental departments and agencies like Human Rights, the Sanitation Department, Fire Department and God only knows what else lurks in that alcoholic haze. His attempt to ram an unproven waste facility down the throats of this city failed in part thanks to a concerned group of citizens who stood against it.
This community is not unique in the fact that Bookmeyer lives here, his ilk live in many cities and towns across this country, you just don’t hear that much about them. Recently the mayor of Maple Lake, Minnesota made the news. It appears that he and Eric share some similarities other than their office as mayor. Eric has not been censured….yet and probably won’t be by this council who have undoubtly somewhere in some secret ceremony, pledged their lives to him.
In life somewhere along the way as we traverse the journey that takes us through we have opportunities to choose; some of us make the right choice and others do not. No one is immune from taking a wrong turn, it would be rare not to. But when you can clearly see the road ahead is closed and is clearly marked as such, and you continue to try and push through, you are just fooling yourself and the consequences can be painful. At some point you just need to stop ask for direction……
Peter Children
Where did Matt Dodge go?
Who cares? There are a lot of doctors’ wives who are “stay at home moms” whose children still go to daycare so that they learn how to share, etc. And, if we are worried about creating jobs, we should be grateful that his children go to daycare.
Obviously NOT a stay at home dad. Must be a slacker. Even if the wife works, he could also work if the kids are in daycare anyway. Just adjust your schedules, that’s how most of us do it.
I was reared by a stay-at-home mom. I would have given anything to have been able to go to a day care when I was 2 or 3. I was bored to tears staying home with Mom all the time. I remember way back to being 3 and crying the day a friend who was a year older than I got to start school and I didn’t. Thankfully, I started all-day kindergarten when I was 4 and loved every minute of it.
Don’t bash Mayor Bookmeyer for taking his kids to day care. It’s stimulating for kids to go there and socialize at least once in a while. When he ran for Mayor, his kids were younger and he probably was at home with them a lot more. Family dynamics change. I also know women who work part-time who still take their kids to day care on some of their time off so they can run errands, go to doctor appointments, and get some things done without having to juggle kids. It’s not a crime for someone to use day care.
If you’re going to criticize an elected official for something, stick to criticizing the job performance, not something as petty as switching to day care, which has nothing to do with his job or his character. Expecting a local mayor to make a public announcement about his status, “I’m no longer caring for my children at home, but taking them to day care”, is about as ridiculous as expecting him to announce he switched from boxers to briefs. It’s a non issue.
Katie,I agree this is really a non-issue but when you hate someone like Peter seems to hate Bookmeyer I guess any little thing is fair game. I really hope Bookmeyer doesn’t forget to put his trash out one day because Peter might accuse him of being a dirty hoarder or worse.
is beermeyer gettin fat?????? must be from all the beer huh
Bookmeyer is still not a stay at home Dad.
Anyone that takes their kids to a day care so they can run around the community stirring up trouble don’t appear to me to be staying home and taking care of their kids.
some lawyers must have talked to him. thats the only reason he would, because he stated more than once that he aproved of all that was written by Mr. children
Matt why are all the comments deleted?
On the story comments, I had several persons contact me about the comments being off-topic. I felt that since the comment thread had been hijacked and was very far off-topic, that all comments would be removed and a fresh start was in order. Feel free to leave comments that relate to the story.
To “50 miles south,” no lawyers contacted me, but they have before. My office number is 515-897-1144, they can call anytime.
Matt, so from now on any comment that goes far off-topic will cause ALL the comments to be deleted?Why not just delete the bad ones?Seems like overkill to me! If this is your policy I hope you will be consistent with it!!!!!!