Ann Romney, Hard Worker

Ann Romney approaches the podium.

I have called this press conference to address the allegations made by democratic pundit Hillary Rosen who claims I have “never worked a day in my life.”

While I may have never held a formal job at a factory or a mill, I did raise five boys.  And not just any five boys. I raised five super-rich boys. If that’s not hard work, I don’t know what is!

I mean, keeping the house neat and tidy could have been a full time job of it’s own. Five super-rich boys can make quite a mess!  They leave their croquet mallets lying around, let their ponies walk through the house, leave old caviar sitting out— and I was responsible for making sure the housekeepers could handle all of that.

Do you know how hard it is to deal with a housekeeper when your youngest son's favorite cufflinks go missing? You have to file a police report, search through all the housekeepers’ things, and often times deal with a language barrier that can be very difficult to scream through.

And while not everybody has been to a super-rich boy’s birthday party, you can at least imagine how much work goes into it! The walk between the liger rides and the swimming pool filled with golden coins is at least a few acres! Walking that path in a pair of designer heels? Now that’s hard work!

And don’t get me started on the boys and their sports! It’s not easy to make your children appear good at lacrosse when all you have is power and money.  “Check my son again and your father loses his job!” is a difficult concept to get across to an 8-year-old. 

But when you work as a stay-at-home super-rich mom, you can’t crumple in the face of adversity. You just have to work even harder to come up with a solution. For example in Josh's case, we hired a bunch of child actors to form a fake lacrosse league and always let Josh win the game, and score all the goals, and choose all the toppings on the celebratory post-game pizzas.

Oh, and do you think Hillary Rosen knows how many yacht names I have to keep track of as the mother of 5 super-rich boys? Just a hint Rosen, it’s way more than 5! 

There’s the “Patrician,” the “Class and Grace,” the “Wealthy Lad’s Companion,” the “I Promised My Dead Butler I’d Name a Yacht After Him But I Never Learned His Real Name,” “Romney’s Ark,” and so, so many more.

But I’m not here to prove that I’ve memorized yacht names. And I’m not here to complain about how hard I worked raising my super-rich family. That was the career choice I made.  Sure, I could have chosen to be a lawyer who works long hours and never sees her kids, or a waitress who lives off of tips and leftover scraps from the kitchen, but I took a different path. And my path is no less noble, and certainly no less difficult-- which I think I've proven here tonight. 

Thank you.