The world would be a different place if mothers ruled. These might be a few of the changes:

. Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon would have been pulled out of the sandbox, spanked and put in the corner for quiet time until they learned to play nice;

. A child’s head would be shaped like a bike helmet and made twice as hard, to protect it at all times from hard knocks. During adolescence it would be equipped with a TV camera so Mom could always see what you were up to. When you went to college all of that would disappear because at that point she does not want to know what you are really up to;

. A Pap smear would just be when some guy named Pap maligned your reputation;

. Driving drunk would send you straight to hell where you would be forced to change poopy diapers for eternity;

. Women could get their mammograms by simply slipping on a beautiful Christian Dior dress;

. The government would pass a law requiring that all annual gynecological exams for American women be done in Hawaii on the first day of a one week vacation paid out of the annual salary of an health insurance company executive making more than $1 million annually;

. The problem of some Muslim women having to wear the veil and more to protect them from the roving eyes of men would be solved instead by having the men wear blindfolds. The problem, after all, is not the women being looked at, but rather the men doing the looking;

. Viagra would still be a prescription medication but women would be the only ones who could prescribe it;

. The National Rifle Association would spend its energy and millions supporting a man’s right to bear children;

. Rush Limbaugh would be a welfare mom;

. Monica Lewinsky’s mother would get to decide how Bill Clinton spends the rest of his public life;

. Generals, admirals and other leaders contemplating a war would have to wear pink tutus at all times;

. All of the vaccinations children now have to have – HIB, Hepatitis B, chicken pox, MMR, DPT, Pneumococcus, etc. – could be given in the form of a mother’s kiss on the forehead;

. That same kiss on the forehead would vaccinate children against heartbreak, abuse, high speed car crashes, and acne that shows up on the forehead two days before the prom;

. Saddam Hussein’s mother would have had better access to birth control;

. What’s al-Qaida?;

. What’s an ATV?;

. What’s a suicide bomber?;

. What’s homelessness?;

. Every time a woman had a hot flash George Clooney would fan her, Brad Pitt would spritz her with cool spring water, and Harrison Ford would pass her estrogen pills to be washed down with a cold beer;

. Before any army could buy a tank or a land mine every woman would have to have access to food, shelter and education for herself and her family;

. Men would bear children until women everywhere had access to birth control;

. American presidents would have to live at the poverty level, so they would be motivated to make sure life there was not one of constant deprivation;

. President Bush would have to live at the poverty level until no other American did;

. American presidents, and U.S. senators and representatives could not have health insurance until every other American did;

. The guys who ran Enron would be sent to bed without supper for a long time;

. Puberty could be postponed if it was not working out well for

one of your children;

. So could adulthood;

. Your children could be sent back to first grade if they needed a little more of what they should have learned there, no matter how old they were when the needed a refresher course;

. Your car would only let you drive the way your mother wanted you to;

. The problem of sexually abusive priests would have been solved long before the cardinals and bishops got around to it;

. You got paid every time one of your children made you feel inadequate as a mom. That way moms could all retire before the first child turned three;

. Victoria’s real secret would be that a good bra is a good bra but a good mom is real support;

. Mother’s Day would be whenever moms said it was, and don’t you forget it.

Erik Steele, D.O. is a physician in Bangor, an administrator at Eastern Maine Medical Center, and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.