Mothers are not nearly as different from one another as all these labels make it seem. And what is the investment in creating all these differences anyway? I remember in parenting class I was treated like a pariah because I was choosing to have an epidural. Same with breastfeeding versus the bottle. What is with the fetishisation of these differences between women when in fact the overwhelming reality is that the main activity is the same - in this case, giving birth, nurturing an infant, raising a child and earning a living.

So to the so called 'mommy wars' - are the choices we would like to make really that different? I think overall most mothers want the same things. What's relevant to public discourse, as the author points out here, are the institutional barriers and inducements that make it too hard for too many, children as well as parents.

The discourses on mothering prevalent at the moment not only individualise choices that are in fact created institutionally, they create false divisions and treat mothering like just another 'lifestyle' where your choices define you like the car you drive or the brand of shoes you wear.

But this is real. For most people work is hard. Raising a child is hard. It's not a question of lifestyles, it's a question of competing necessities. Motherhood is not like choosing what brand of shoe to wear. There are forces at work dictating a lot of our so-called 'choices' that are neither good for ourselves or our children, or the society at large. Until we start recognising this and discussing these issues in terms of public policy these discussion will never go anywhere.

Let's drop all talk of 'wars' and start focusing on what we have and what we want in common.

I know why we need to keep both the upper and middle management folks happy - both male and female. If they are happy and accommodated and flexed then the peons who work under them get left alone to do their work in peace.

I know from brutal experience what office freaks do when they are unhappy - they issue meaningless memos, take away any last vestige of perks for the people who work under them, cancel raises, you name it. Oh gully, gully, their lives are soooo hard and when they're not happy, nobody's happy.

Sorry for my total lack of sympathy for the plight of the upper management woman or man for that matter. I really and truly don't give a crap about people who don't give a crap about me.

Women should never leave the work force or depend on husbands; women will never be equal until they are psychologically and financially autonomous.

25 years ago, I was an assistant professor at a big state university. My husband was first an assistant professor, then a management consultant. We lived in a nice house on a street full of kids, and our lives were completely manageable. Why? Well, our town was rather small, it had plenty of affordable daycare, good affordable health care, moderate housing prices, and the university, as a public insitution, could not legally discriminate against either one of us. We progressed in our careers. It was a manageable life that included home-cooked meals and sufficient family time. We knew lots of couples like us. Our kids were happy. By comparison to what most couples have to deal with today, it was a socialist paradise. There were no private schools There were no real disparities between what one couple had and what another couple had, and what the kids in each family had. EVery couple we knew had two ambitious spouses, and each spouse had sufficient time to fulfill his or her ambitions, and also to change them and try new things. Now I laugh at the amount of money we all earned, it seems so small. But it was sufficient for our needs.

But the fact is that since then, the US has made no no no effort to maintain a middle class or the sort of educational and medical infrastructure that sustains it. Almost every institution and therefore every wage-earner has had to go the other way, toward more and more individualized solutions, which in the family-raising context always result in the parents being overwhelmed and one or the other of them bowing out of something--family, work, avocation. Do you want a house? Some kids? A career? a job? a vacation? A retirement? Pick one or two, because you can't have them all. And the reason you can't have them is that the tax laws and regulations have made sure that any extra money goes to shareholder profits and lining the pockets of the rich, not to sustaining the institutions that the majority of people depend on. Reagan was the one who changed course for us--I think in 1980, US society might have gone either way--toward greater egalitarianism or greater division. The Republicans chose greater division (for profit, of course), and trashed any idea of a society that was more cohesive and less brutal. Now the damage is done. These books are a sign that even for upper class women, the society we live in is getting dangerous and unbearable.

I knew then that my life was pretty good, and I assumed that my daughters would lead similar lives, but sadly, thanks to the rise of the corporate right, it is not to be so.

When are we going to stop talking about women and mommy wars and start talking about what will make a difference - a change in they way men view work and family. Why is it that all these "soft" issues are viewed as women's issues? Aren't men invested in their families? Until men become full partners in parenting we will keep reading these books.

Bush, Reagan, Thatcher, Howard ... they hate/d the middle classes.

All the daddies I know would never see something like this as their issue. If they're overworked and never get to see their kids they're far more likely to defend their employer to their wife than actually go and complain.

I don't know why men aren't more politicised generally about how hard they're expected to work and what it does to their health and their families and their lives. Is it unmasculine to complain?

So many men I know work hard all the time. They're fat, exhausted and unhappy. Where is the political movement and spate of books attacking social and corporate policies about this? Oh! That's right - if they do blame anyone it will be 'the feminists'.