Guest Blog: The most noble prize

It's old news by now that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Thomas Friedman of The New York Times suggested that the Nobel committee did the president no favors by awarding the prize prematurely, yet encouraged him to accept it on behalf of the American military, the world's peacekeepers. A day later, Ross Douthat argued in the Times that the president should turn down the honor. Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, an admirer and supporter of the president, admits that the Nobel Peace Prize is about "doing and not being."

There is still time for the Nobel committee to redeem themselves next year:­ award the Nobel Peace Prize to me. Unlike the president, I am seeking it.

I make peace daily. I hold bipartisan negotiations all the time. In fact, I regularly have tripartite summits, not all that dissimilar from the 2009 beer summit with President Obama, Professor Gates and Officer Crowley.

Just yesterday, my son received some monetary compensation for folding the laundry and cleaning his room. His older sister was none too happy. She helps clean the house every Friday and gets no compensation. She sat on him, and he hit her. As with all conflicts in the Middle East, matters escalated rapidly. He touched her Ipod, she took his rock collection. All-out war loomed.

I did what all good negotiators do: I asked both parties to renounce violence as a precondition to final status negotiations on not only the Ipod and the rock collection, but appropriate compensation for what the children consider slave labor (and the adults call chores).

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter complained that she is tired of her brother's complaints about school. She has more school work, doesn't complain and is tired of the whining. She has a point, but alas, she is five years older and she should show some sympathy and tolerance for the difficulties her brother sometimes faces. This fruitful discussion took place during an ice cream summit.

I would have preferred a tripartite meeting, with the boy, the girl and the Mom, but my gut told me that an ice cream summit attended by only two of the parties would yield better results. Baby steps toward reconciliation are sometimes better than gigantic leaps.   

Every mother out there understands our role as peacemaker between and among our children, and sometimes between our children and their friends. And just like the Iraqi war, we have milestones to measure our success; if they don't actually kill each other, it's a good day (threats yes, but action no). This is a great accomplishment. In homes across the land mothers "do" peace every day.

In his New York Times piece, Tom Friedman aptly drafted an acceptance speech for President Obama. Here's an advance copy of my acceptance speech for when the Nobel committee does the noblest of deeds by awarding me the peace prize.

I accept this award on behalf of mothers everywhere who have ably deflected the time-honored complaints 'he started it,' 'she hit me,' or 'why does he always touch my stuff?'

I accept this award on behalf of mothers everywhere who have transformed the sibling relationship by finding common ground in the pizza dinner.

I accept this award on behalf of mothers everywhere who skillfully use the demilitarized zone (time outs) to de-escalate the rhetoric.

I accept this award on behalf of mothers everywhere who gracefully await the time when their children will recognize that they must emulate our peacemaking techniques to achieve a peace with one another on their own."