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Why are women excoriated for having household help and staying at home? I think they're pretty lucky of you ask me. Instead of running around rabidly cleaning and cooking when the baby sleeps (as all the child rearing books proclaim a mother should do) or, on the other end, letting all go to pot, they can enrich themselves in the manner that they please. If this means writing, then great. If this means spending a few more hours reading or catching up on their entrepreneurial ventures, then, well, great for that too.
In the past, stay-at-home mothers had servants, often more than one. They weren't expected to do everything themselves. There was also community and safe places for children to run wild in the streets. You knew who your neighbors were, and people often kepts eyes on each others' children. Now, such community efforts are few and far between as we further isolate ourselves in our large roosts with bigger and bigger lawns and taller and taller fences.
Now at-home mothers are expected to hold up the entire load singlehandedly. If they do it with some help, then they aren't really mothering their children -- as many have expressed here. They're frauds, because they refuse to present themselves as burnt offerings where self-sacrifice defines the self in the eyes of all the mothers in the same misery-loves-company boat.
And I believe Caitlin Flannagan has fallen into the trap of believing the dross that she peddles rather than fess up to the notion that she actually lives a pretty charmed life. She isn't fooling anyone. Most women don't fall into one striated camp or another, they work sometimes, or always, they may be lucky enough to stay at home if that's what they want. Let's just call it what it is and get on with things. Like dinner, because our 7:00 pm conference calls aren;t letting up these days.
