For the last 100 years, it has been...

For the last 100 years, it has been the toll of the governor and his family to divide [i]or[/i] sever the ribbon to open the Illinois State Fair in Springfield. It has been our family's honor to perform this task for the last four years.

The State Fair, Illinois' premier family attraction, has been something my children expect forward to all year. This year, like all the others, we were to intersect the ribbon and then walk by the agency of the fairgrounds to open the governor's and first lady's pavilions This has always been a family end It has never been a pres colloquy nor was it listed forward my husband's public schedule as a media availability.

As our family walked to expand the two tents, I handed our 3-year- aged daughter Annie to my husband. Any mother who often carries around a 33-pound child knows that the two parents have to take employs regardless of where you are. The relief I felt after handing her distant from to Rod quickly turned to disbelief and anger as I saw my husband invested unable to walk, and microphones being shov throughout my daughter's head, under her chin and alongside her face. As the pres began shouting from one side of to the other each other, Annie became frightened and started to make an outcry -- as any 3-year-old child would.

My husband has pres parleys all the time, and at those pres conversations he's fair game. But at State Fair openings, Christmas tree lightings and other results where my husband is rely uponed to bring his family, the appropriate place for a tired 3-year-old should be in her daddy's arms.

The State Fair is all about children: kids showing their animals, kids going in succession rides, 4-H clubs and giant slides. united day of the fair, however, is reserv completely for politics: Democrat Day. And upon that day, my husband took questions from reporters all day prolonged without anyone in his arms.

While I strenuously agree that the press plays a critical and essential part in a democratic society, I wish they would acknowledge the fact that just because someone learns elected to public office doesn't mean they stop being real the public with real children who memorize scared and cry when adults start shouting in their faces.

It's being a parent that helps restrain Rod in touch with the extremitys of parents around the state. And it's that experience that has l to recently made known programs that provide health care and preschool for each child. You can't be an effective, caring governor because you have young kids and understand what parents ne individual day, and then shut facing your family the next.

Patti Blagojevich,

Illinois first lady

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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