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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Go to it, Joan Walsh. I've always liked your writing.
Call her on her self-righteous phoniness. (I know I seem tongue-in-cheek, but I'm serious.)
While you're at it, why not get her side of it by asking her for an interview on Salon.com?
Nothing like getting the hard questions asked and seeing firsthand the justification for self-delusion and lies - from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I'd really like to hear what she has to say for herself in response to queries posed by you.
This ongoing debate between working and stay-at-home mothers always seems to occur in a vacuum where there are no men. Dad is always assumed to be the full-time working stiff and main breadwinner, except that this isn't true in many families, including mine. My wife works full-time outside the home in a very demanding job. I work full-time, but am based at home (kind of like Caitlin Flanagan, except that I don't pretend that my job isn't really a job). I know at least three other families in our neighborhood who follow similar working schedules. Our kids all seem fine, but who gets credit for that? Do the working moms get to use us as an example of successful two-career families, or can the stay-at-home moms claim us as reasonable facsimiles of traditional families, but with some gender issues? In the end, you can't change the definition of femininity without also changing the definition of masculinity--they're two sides of the same coin. Ignoring dad provides the clearest evidence that this battle isn't really about what's best for children and families, it's about confining men and women to traditional roles.
I whole-heartedly agree with Joan Walsh's take on Caitlin Flanagan. Moreover, I can't stand this "mommy wars" crap.
The career vs. homemaker issue is too arbitrary. I can't think of any two women I know who have the exact same set of social and financial circumstances. Some women work because they can't afford not to. For example: the "Third World Nannies." Many of whom have children of their own being supervised at home by a relative. They're supporting that brood by watching... Mrs. Flanagan's, for example.
Face it: In reality, there are not two groups of women at every school function making snarky comments about each other. That sounds more like a sitcom than real life. Just like women come in all colors and sizes, we come with wildly varying points of view. That's because we are INDIVIDUALS. Not just one label or another.
My mother and father come from a very traditional Irish Catholic background. They married young and had me right away. During the '70s and '80s, they were the minority among their peers. We were also the minority in our working class neighborhood.
Being the brilliant woman she is, my mother's friends were always suggesting she go back to school, write or find a career outside the home. With me plus the four siblings who came after, those were not attainable goals. There just wasn't time and my dad didn't make enough money for her to pursue those options.
How bitter she was for all those years.
She loved us with all her heart and was the best mom anyone could ask for. Still, my sisters and I felt we were at fault for her unhappiness.
Was feminism to blame for all that angst and guilt? Hell no. It was a very specific time and place. It involved specific people.
Mom finally got her Bachelor's degree in 2002. She is still taking classes and is on her way to becoming an art appraiser. I've never seen her and my father so happy. She says she has no regrets now, but I struggle to accept that as the truth.
The media buzz about working mothers and their impact on children and society always makes me scratch my head. In what privileged universe have most mothers always had no income? That's what we're talking about, right - bringing home the rent money, keeping food on the table. My mother did it, both my grandmothers did it. Come to think of it, I can't think of a direct female ancestor who hasn't worked full time, although a few generations back it was on the farm, manual labor sun-up to sundown and beyond.
This has always been reality for women of color and women of lower socioeconomic classes.
How about us, Salon? Could you write about us for a change?
Caitlin Flanagan is interesting only because she is willing to talk about the downside of liberal approaches to domestic life. If the author of this piece was as daring and as brave, we wouldn't need Caitlin. This piece reeks with the anger directed at a heretic - ad hominem attacks, etc.
Please.
I enjoy Caitlin and think she's a great writer.
Great analysis!
We can't resolve the work v. stay at home issue by deciding which makes women happier, because neither are very appealing or pleasing alternatives in our society. Workings moms who are still responsible for the lion's share of child care responsibilities are simply overwhelmed and (real) stay at home moms feel undervalued and are full of anxiety over what they have given up (unless they have some kind of religious sense of purpose to subscribe to).
So instead we fight the work or stay at home issue on the minefield determining of what is better for children. Which is about as critical and central to a mom's identity as penis size seems to be to some men. It's no wonder that Flanagan's little digs about a mother's love are such an amazing gut check.
I think we have to make a pact not to go there. Nobody wins. We win when we work together to improve options for women and children. Only those who want to set back the clock for women are served by this kind of uncivil war.
Complaining about the very movement that got her where she is today.
Everyday I work in a hospital where women are working full time, going to school and raising children while battling husbands (ex or not)for child support. Mothers who worry every day what will happen when a child is sick, and they must stay home, losing money and probably school time, in an attempt to provide a better life for there children. I have enormous respect for these women. Ms. Flanagin would not survive a day in their world. I have only read excerpts of her work but feel no need to provide her any of my income by buying her book. I just hope I am some kind of support to the real working mothers that I encounter.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
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