Exhuasted by the Mommy Wars

Work Wednesday

I'm tired. Too tired to think, too tired to type, and, ummm, too tired to blog.

So, I apologize in advance if this week's post is, well, a bit weary. It's not just that it's been a crazy month with visiting parents, holiday celebrations, my son's birthday, my wedding anniversary, two international trips (one personal, one work) and the rest of the activities and commitments that make up my regular routine.  It's this:

I am tired of the "mommy wars."

In the last few weeks, the "mommy wars" seem to have mutated from a mostly far-off skirmish (albeit, one that never completely goes away) to a hot home front battle. There have been a slew of articles, commentary and "analysis" from politicians, pundits, and bloggers drumming up the conflict.  (Just Google "mommy wars" and you'll see.) The line of fire has come from multiple directions including the Ann Romney-Hilary Rosen row and French feminist Elisabeth Badinter's new book, The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women. (Actually, more on that when I'm awake. From what I've read about the book and Badinter's philosophy, it will be a controversial but interesting read.)

While much of this mommy war-mongering seems phony, manufactured cynically to sway women voters and sell books, it's clear that there are still some real divisions in society over motherhood and work. The Pew Research Center recently reported that while society has, more or less, come to a consensus that values women in the workforce, there's still a lot of what Pew termed "ambivalence" about working moms, especially moms with young children working outside the home. (In fact, 37% of Americans think that this is "bad" for society.) Sometimes, when that ambivalence is stoked, the "mommy wars" erupt.

Still, most moms, whether they work outside the home, work inside the home, stay-at-home, or do some combination of paid and unpaid work over the course of their lives, don't engage in mom-to-mom combat (except maybe in the wild world of "comments" on the Internet). The "mommy wars" exist mostly in the media although, as my CurrentMom colleague Katherine Reynolds Lewis has osbserved, there is a  low-boil conflict that "lives in the silent pauses and judgments in conversation between two mothers about their lives." But, as sociology professor Barbara Risman (who is also the executive officer of the Council on Contemporary Families) recently explained on CNN.com, 

The "mommy wars" that have cropped up repeatedly this campaign season are a figment of political pundits' imagination. . . . The truth is most women aren't fighting about this. They know that work is involved to make everyday life happen: the feeding, and clothing and caring for oneself and one's family, whether earning the money to buy the clothes and food, or being at home, washing those clothes or cooking dinner. All mothers work, nearly all of the time. And so do many fathers.

Risman goes on to show how the "mommy wars" are a distraction from the real issues surrounding families and work such as our contradictions about the value of caregiving and the "mommy penalty," issues I've written about before. She ends by calling for a "truce on the fictional mommy wars," something many others are calling for as well.

A truce. Sounds good to me. Now, yawn, just let me go to sleep and wake me up when the latest round of the "mommy wars" - faux or not - are all over. Or at least let me sleep until until the current battle's done.

 

Comments

[Lyn]

I liked this take in Salon about the NYT's latest ridiculous link-bait pitting motherhood against feminism. http://www.salon.com/2012/05/01/the_nyts_ridiculous_motherhood_debate/

[Brian Lewis]

So, the lesson is, if you really want to exhaust yourself, keep reading incendiary writing! I think you are really on to something, Stacey.

A close relative once asked how I would deal with the incendiary comments made by a prominent political figure on the eve of an election. After a moment's thought I realized I would deal with it by...just voting then moving on. Different situation, but same lesson:
- Focus on what you *can* do to make the world a better place.
- Limit reading rants.
- Don't forget to ask yourself the most important question: What *you* will do to follow *your* path, in *your* way, according to *your* values?

Three cheers for moms who are not at war. Who has the time for all this war anyway, while busily and imperfectly parenting, while imperfectly employed or not (as fits each unique situation) and imperfectly keeping up with all the faddish op eds? And don't forget imperfectly connecting a bit with their supportive husbands.

Perfect!

- A totally imperfect husband
(Brian Lewis)

[Katherine]

OMG, I am so tired too! Not only by the mommy wars link-baiting, but also by the end-of-school madness. Why doesn't the media hype that the way we hype back to school? (Oh, right, not as big of a retail opportunity.)

[The Mommy Psychologist]

As a child psychologist and a mom, I've spent lots of time discussing what I think is "wrong" with our generation of parents (myself included). Here's one of the biggest differences that I think exists and that is that we are the generation who have all been to therapy and blame our parents for our mistakes. So, when the table is turned and we have children of our own, we are terrified of "damaging" them in the way we feel our parents "damaged" us. I talk more about it here:
http://www.themommypsychologist.com/2012/02/26/whats-wrong-with-us/

[Stacy]

Actually, I did write about the end-of-school madness last year" A Working Moms End-of-Year Frenzy at
http://www.currentmom.com/currentmom/2011/06/working-mom-end-of-year-frenzy.html
But I guess I'm just a blogger, not "the media." Isn't it a little early to start?