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I've read Caitlin Flanagan before, and I throughly enjoyed Joan's smack down of some of her blatant hypocrisy. I don't begrudge Flanagan's need or desire to outsource her housekeeping or her employment of a Nanny to help with child care. I just wish she could acknowledge that.
I've been a stay-at home mom (one without employed help)and I understand the desperate crave for a break from child care, and every mother needs breaks away from their children to regain their composure (or sanity).
However, it does bother me that Flanagan is so coy about her situation, and insists she still qualifies as a stay-at-home mother, when she actually just works from home. As anyone who has tried this knows, you can't concentrate on writing and giving your children full attention at the same time. Something has to give. I know several male writers who also have a similar
work-at-home arrangement but they would never identify themselves as "stay-at home" Dads alone, they always profess that they "work from home". Such a description is honest, while Flanagan is not. Why Flanagan can't just come clean with her own description of herself is irritating precisely because of the thinly veiled judgments she hurls at other women with less advantageous working arrangments. As for her cancer, I'm a breast cancer survivor myself, and my husband stood by me even though I am a self-identified feminist, was working, didn't keep an immaculate home, and we had no children at the time. I think Flanagan's cancer rant is just her own insecure ramblings when she finally realized that despite her glorious superior sacrifice to give her children all the superior "mother love" she is still mortal, and yes it can all come to an abrupt halt. Unfortunately, being a stay-at-home martyr doesn't sheild you from getting cancer. Maybe Flanagan thought it would. And being the breadwinner and masculine poster boy won't protect her husband (or her sons) from a similar diagnosis.
Bad events happen to all people, and the fact that her husband didn't leave her during her time of need, says more about the quality of her husband, than the "face" time Flanagan invested into staying at home.
