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• Wednesday, April 12, 2006 10:52 AM

  the criticism is flying in both directions

  "The stay-at-home moms today aren't traditional so much as hyper-neurotic"

  This is just one line from many in all of the letters about this article. I guess I don't get why it's OK to denigrate stay-at-home moms and lump them into some kind of monolithic body but not OK for Flanagan (whom I've never read) to do the same to working moms. Why not just criticize her judgmental nature without judging others yourself? It's like the pot calling the kettle black.

  I've been an on and off stay-at-home mom for the past 15 years. I have no regrets and have seen good and bad parents of both varieties. Obviously everybody is entitled to their opinions about what works and doesn't and--guess what--they're even entitled to think that what others do is wrong or bad for their kids. I guess I really think people should just be secure in their choices. Could this Flanagan author make you so angry or defensive if there weren't a twinge of doubt or guilt within you? Maybe you should confront that head on and perhaps in the process reinforce your decision with the kind of confidence that will allow you to dismiss such books in the future.

  I'll always remember what a therapist told my friend once when she was in the throes of group therapy. Some other patient made a remark suggesting that my friend, who was a stay-at-home mom, didn't do anything all day. My friend got all upset and angry at the inference, and the therapist kept coming back to the same thing: If what you do is satisfying to you and your family, if it completes you and makes you whole, if you really and truly feel confident that your choice of meaningful work is right for you, THEN IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE THINKS.

  What I agree with most in this article is the apparently deceptive nature of Flanagan. For goodness sake, she doesn't sound like a stay-at-home mom at all! It reminds me of Dr. Laura who castigated women for all those years for working while she herself enjoyed a lucrative broadcasting career.

  I understand this critic's confusion, given the conflicting statements from Flanagan, but I found her to be one-sided; everywhere Flanagan criticized stay-at-home moms was seen as helpful and truthful, while every criticism of working moms was a sword in the side, a bullet out of nowhere, a betrayal. And how come a group of moms could snicker in a "get-a-life" fashion at a stay-at-home mom, but the MEAN MOM label gets put to the stay-at-home moms putting down the no-show working mom? That's the kind of bias that kind of bugs me.

  —elaine
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