GO, FRED THOMPSON! AND JERI, TOO!

Former Senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson is a candidate for President of the United States. He is a member of the Republican Party. The biggest scandal of his campaign so far is that he is sixty-four years old, and his lovely wife is forty years old. Many women are up in arms over the fact that they have had two babies since they married in 2002. Why is this suddenly such a big deal? Younger women have been marrying older men for centuries. It has only been since the turn of the twentieth century that the notion of a couple being the same age or in the same demographic has been accepted in mainstream society.

Now it seems to have been made almost taboo by society for a woman to marry a much older man. Women are being raked over the coals for this by women in the same demographic as the older man. Why? Are these women now going to be raked over the coals, chastised, outcast and ostracised like the inter-racial couples of yesterday? It seems to me that some people are being petty and mean because they are jealous. Some men may be jealous that Fred Thompson "landed" a very nice second wife. Some women may be jealous that now they have competion for the eye of a man their age, and feel they cannot compete with a fresh-faced younger woman. Get a life, people.

Accept the fact that love really is where you find it. Fred and Jeri Thompson love each other and want to spend their lives together. They don't need each other- they want each other- just like any other couple in the world. They have had two babies since they married. Bully for them! Just because he happens to be twenty-some years older than his wife, does not make either of them perverts, nor does it say anything about his abilities or qualifications to be President. What happens in the Thompsons' bedroom is for the Thompsons'.

The Thompsons' are in the glare of the spotlight right now because he is a candidate for president. That is the only reason their marriage is in question by anyone right now. I have been married to a wonderful man for almost four years. He happens to be nineteen years my senior. We have a four-year-old daughter together, and he is the adoptive father of my oldest child. I am two years older than his oldest child. His children from his first marriage are grown, but they call me Mom. I had to earn that respect, and I would never want to lose that respect. I can well imagine that Jeri Thompson's start with her husband's grown children was not so easy. Whether she is freinds with them, I cannot say. I do not know them personally. But there is something to be said for living your life your own way, whether the nay-sayers like it or not, conventional or not, as long as it makes you happy, and it harms none, then who cares? Its no one's business but yours.

The biggest "scandal" of Mr. Thompson's campaign thus far is that Mrs. Thompson is much younger than he. Is that all you biddies can come up with? You don't like his wife because she's pretty, and because she is the mother of his two youngest children? Those children and that wife are happy, well-cared for, and they know who their father is, and where her husband is every night. Neither of them is flashing their body parts getting out of cars, or getting arrested for DUI, or busted for drugs at the airport, nor have they had to dodge statutory rape or molestation charges, like some other famous folks. In fact, they really seem to be pretty low-key, and family-oriented. So what's the problem? If Mr. Thompson's grown children take issue with the way he chooses to live his life, then that is their problem. They are grown, and he has no obligation to them. He and his wife have the right and the responsiblity to live their life together as they see fit, as long as they harm no one, nor infringe on any other person's rights. Just like anyone else. If anyone has a problem with the way Mr. and Mrs. Fred Thompson live, perhaps they need to look at themselves and see what the problem is inside of them, not with the Thompsons'.

Love is where you find it, but you have to be open to it to see where that love is to be found. I personally wish them many happy years together, and as many babies as they can stand. Oh, yes, and I know of at least one person who will be voting for Mr. Thompson. Sometimes us younger wives just have to stick together.