Again, they ask how mothers do it all

Katherine Craven held son John Kryzanski, 7 months, while reaching for food for dinner after a day's work. Children James, 2, and Delia, 8, are at left. (Globe Staff Photo / Michele McDonald)

The decades-old debate over motherhood and work is back, reignited nanoseconds after John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.

It's raging everywhere from the blogosphere to the workplace. Consider what Adena Cohen-Bearak of Needham - a mother, blogger, and self-described feminist - had to say this week in her "MotherThoughts" blog: "Palin (who is 44) has 5 kids . . . ranging from 18 to 4 or 5 MONTHS old (the baby happens to have Downs). I don't really understand how she can be GOVERNOR with all those kids to deal with, never mind Vice President of the COUNTRY!"

Or the opinion of Kristin Brandt of Ashland, mother of two and co-founder of Manic Mommies, a podcast and blog for working mothers. "When I first heard she was selected, I thought, 'Wow, what an amazing time to be a woman,' " she said. "That a working woman could be at this level? This is something I want to see."

Or that of Debi Gutierrez, a 40-something mother with three children, who hosts a PBS show called "A Place of Our Own" and writes a blog called "The Mad Mom in the Minivan." "This self proclaimed hockey mom needs to put her children first now," blogged Gutierrez, who identifies herself as a Democrat. "She has no business running for office, especially the second most important office in our country, while her daughter, a minor child, is going to give birth a few months from now."

Katherine Craven, who is the executive director of the Massachusetts School Building Authority, the state's deputy treasurer, and the mother of four children from 7 months to 8 years old, said that the minute she heard the news about Palin, e-mails started circulating around her office - and they weren't pretty.

"I work with a lot of men, and these e-mails started firing around saying 'Who is this woman,' " she says. "I found myself in the position of sticking up for her even though she's not in my party," Craven said. "It was like, 'How dare you assume she can't do the job?' "

You can almost hear the communal sigh of feminists who had thought their work was done.

"I thought we'd already handled all these questions about juggling work and being a mother and having it all, that they were in the past," said Michelle Nicholasen, a 42-year-old Somerville writer and mother of five children between the ages of 3 and 7.

Many working mothers are rallying behind Palin, regardless of whether they share her politics. "I think in this day and age it is quite impossible to have it all - family, career and a personal life - but I think Palin comes as close as you can get," said Lynn Zayac, 36, of Ashland, a former nurse who has 3-year-old twins. "The more I get to know about her the more I like her. I think that she represents a lot of women out there . . . She is an example of how to balance her obligations."

One group that's taken particular offense to the criticism are mothers of children with Down syndrome who resent the assumption that their children are burdensome and keep their mothers from a well-rounded life.

"There is an inherent bias in some people's minds that if you have a child with special needs you shouldn't be able to handle anything except that child," said Diane Whalen of Newton, who has four sons including a 7-year-old with Down syndrome. "I don't know enough about [Palin], but my initial assumption was, 'Wow. Anyone who can handle five kids and be governor of a state has a lot of energy and is highly organized.' "

It's been four decades since American women surged into the workplace and began changing the face of the American family: In 2007 nearly half of the people in the labor force were women. Juggling work and family has become the norm.

Craven, who has a 5-year-old son with Down syndrome, noted with amusement that she took shorter maternity leaves than Palin's and was sending e-mails from the delivery room. "It's true that every day you are torn between your loyalty to your job . . . and the child who will need resources and your time," said Craven, who relies on a nanny, parents who live nearby, and her husband, a neurosurgeon who does much of the cooking. "If [Palin] has family support, then the sky will be the limit for her."

Many mothers agree that support is the key to Palin's ability to juggle her children and her potential job as vice president. Her husband, Todd, works part time for the oil company BP and as a commercial fisherman, and has assumed many of the child-caring responsibilities.

"Somebody in Palin's family will have to play the role of advocate [for the child with Down syndrome]," said Kate Myshrall of Worcester, who works for the United Way of Central Massachusetts and has a 14-year-old son with Down syndrome. "It does take someone who is willing to learn the laws, the different learning methodologies, to build relationships with schools. It is a full-time commitment . . . but it doesn't have to be the mother. It can be shared."

Some women believe that gender bias is at play.

"There's a double standard," said Susan Reverby, a professor of women's studies at Wellesley College. "If she were a man with four [other] children and a teenage daughter who was pregnant, who would care? Who would even notice, frankly? I think this is all a real indication that we still can't figure out what to think about women and work. Anything sets it off."