Being a mom is hard work.

Just not, you know, "work" work.

Well, that didn't take long at all, did it?

In fact, it only took one week for Republicans to go right back to saying being a mom isn't real work.

Sure, Republicans were outraged—OUTRAGED!—when a Democratic strategist said what Ann Romney herself has said, that she never worked. They sent fundraising emails, demanded apologies on Twitter, and swore this was irrefutable proof that it's Democrats who are waging war on women.

Funny thing, though. When Democrats in Congress decided to call Republicans' bluff by introducing the WORK Act to give all mothers the same choice to stay home with their young children that Ann Romney had, well, as Jennifer Bendery at Huffington Post reports, Republicans folded. In fact, they're right back to where they've always been: issuing platitudes about how great moms are, while insisting that it's not "really" work.

Like Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), for example, who agreed with Mitt Romney that "all moms are working moms," but then he added this qualifier:



"It is work, but it isn't work in the normal sense that you would qualify for those kind of benefits."

Ohhhhhhh. So being a mom is work, in the sense that look at those super mean Democrats who say Ann Romney's never worked, but it's not "work in the normal sense." You know, the "Hey, maybe these hard workers should be paid for their hard work" work.

His fellow Floridian Rep. Connie Mack thinks moms are great and all, but the WORK Act is "disgusting."



[W]e should honor women not only for the work they do outside the home, but for the hard work at home.

Ohhhhhhh. So we should "honor" the hard work women do, we just shouldn't pay them. Maybe we could just give them a nice thank you card and a box of candy once a year. That ought to be enough, right?

Then there's teabagger Rep. Steve King of Iowa, who firmly believes in equal rights for fetuses and the children are our future and all that good stuff, and "raising children is the most precious and valuable work that gets done in America," but doesn't think we should get carried away:



"There are lots of things we can describe as work. Is raising children as a mother work? Is raising children as a father work? Is washing the car work?" King asked. "I'd like to be paid for washing my car, but we have to draw the line somewhere."

Ohhhhhhh. So when he says that raising children is The Mostest Importantest Job in America Evah!, what he really means is that it's pretty much like washing Steve King's car.

The truth is, Republicans have never valued the unpaid work women do, even as they insist it's the most important thing women can do. It's fine and dandy for rich women like Ann Romney to stay home raising kids, but any other woman who wants to make that choice and doesn't have her husband's stock portfolio to support her is automatically suspicious. So suspicious, in fact, that she should be drug tested. At a minimum, they need to get a job—you know, a real job—to "have the dignity of work." So sayeth Mitt Romney anyway.

If Republicans really valued the work mothers do, they'd want to make sure every single mother in America can do that "most precious and valuable work." But they don't believe that. They never did. And now that the faux outrage about someone saying something totally true about Ann Romney is over, they're right back to where they've always been: equating the "work" of raising children with something as meaningless as washing Steve King's car.

Tell your representative in Congress to support the WORK Act, so every mother in America can make the same choice Ann Romney did.