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I always wonder why female social critics/feminists always feel they have to address every traditionalist assault.
I have read Flanagan on and off in the same magazines as the author and I always finished up the articles thinking, " Yup , this woman is still full of BS," and dismissed it all.
Flanagan isn't "middle class" she is rich. None of my middle class
"working mom" friends have half the help she does and truthfully neither do any of my "stay at home mom" friends. Flanagan exists in some alternative universe and assumes all other women have the same luxuries she does. This is a popular universe for traditionalists to float around in while they try to make other women feeel like crap for the choices they made while engaging in boring self promotion about how wonerful they are.
Flanagan other than suffering from cancer has never har a "real dilemma" in her life: do I call into work sick because my child is sick and risk losing my job because it has been a bad year, do I work overtime to pay for private school but then spend less time with my kid, do I stay at hom and then let my kid know that there won't be any college on one income, do I exhaust myself at work and at home and not spend any actual time with anybody but have a clean home and a functioning one, ect ect ect. Women calculate these options all the time and I don't know one single person who sulks about whether the nanny has a closer relationship with the kids or whether I should pay the house keeper more because I don't know any of those people. My general feeling is if you can really afford to hire somebody else to do any of this stuff common sense says you should pay them decently.
Flanagan doesn't irritate me with her pronouncements she irritates me because she acts as though class standing does not have an impact on the choices women make or the ones she promotes.
Paula Langley
