The Mother Load
It's confession time:
I was prepared to write a vitriolic response to Judith Warner and her new book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety." From the reviews I had read, I gathered that she doesn't touch on the issue that lies at the sticky bottom of modern, anxious, painful motherhood. She doesn't address the notion that women feel undeniable, ubiquitous pressure to have children, and that our culture can't grasp the concept of a "childfree" lifestyle. She doesn't address the role of the media in fueling women's illogical desire to raise Ivy League, athletic, musically inclined, cultured kids at all costs.
But she does interview a lot of women, and she theorizes about why mothers today are so haggard and insane...and then she does something novel: she calls women to action. Hm. I read closer:
The title sounded like another tired woman's take on the perils of modern motherhood, the burden of raising children when husbands don't contribute emotionally (or when there is no husband), the strain of trying to be everything to everyone. And this is, in a sense, what Warner is writing about. What makes this book different is Warner's politicization of the issue. She argues that women today were raised to be apolitical, to privatize their problems rather than looking at societal root causes for their difficulties.
She argues that women need to get up and agitate for change. For affordable day care, for vouchers for child care, for health insurance for part-time workers, for middle-class standards of living that don't require luxury-class salaries to get by.
This message is, of course, buried in the depths of anything that is written about Warner's book. Most often what is covered are the stories of women at their wits end, stories that many modern mothers will find themselves nodding along with. Salon.com summarizes the book as another mother-blaming treatise on how women are "messing up their marriages, spoiling their kids, and losing their minds."
In the New York Times Book Review, reviewer Judith Shulevitz spends more time telling her personal story and criticizing Warner's "breathy women's mag style" than lauding Warner's efforts to spread the word on what mothers ought to demand (to which I would retort that a more pop approach to the subject may serve to attract more mainstream, "I'm not a feminist, but..." women to the effort). Or worse, I've seen several antifeminist contradictory articles telling women, "Don't worry. Mom is happy." Nevermind that screeching Warner woman. Go back to your kitchens, cubicles, commutes, late nights, and frustration. Surveys say you're happy!
I applaud Warner for her efforts. I just hope people read beyond the first few paragraphs of the reviews.
I was prepared to write a vitriolic response to Judith Warner and her new book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety." From the reviews I had read, I gathered that she doesn't touch on the issue that lies at the sticky bottom of modern, anxious, painful motherhood. She doesn't address the notion that women feel undeniable, ubiquitous pressure to have children, and that our culture can't grasp the concept of a "childfree" lifestyle. She doesn't address the role of the media in fueling women's illogical desire to raise Ivy League, athletic, musically inclined, cultured kids at all costs.
But she does interview a lot of women, and she theorizes about why mothers today are so haggard and insane...and then she does something novel: she calls women to action. Hm. I read closer:
The title sounded like another tired woman's take on the perils of modern motherhood, the burden of raising children when husbands don't contribute emotionally (or when there is no husband), the strain of trying to be everything to everyone. And this is, in a sense, what Warner is writing about. What makes this book different is Warner's politicization of the issue. She argues that women today were raised to be apolitical, to privatize their problems rather than looking at societal root causes for their difficulties.
She argues that women need to get up and agitate for change. For affordable day care, for vouchers for child care, for health insurance for part-time workers, for middle-class standards of living that don't require luxury-class salaries to get by.
This message is, of course, buried in the depths of anything that is written about Warner's book. Most often what is covered are the stories of women at their wits end, stories that many modern mothers will find themselves nodding along with. Salon.com summarizes the book as another mother-blaming treatise on how women are "messing up their marriages, spoiling their kids, and losing their minds."
In the New York Times Book Review, reviewer Judith Shulevitz spends more time telling her personal story and criticizing Warner's "breathy women's mag style" than lauding Warner's efforts to spread the word on what mothers ought to demand (to which I would retort that a more pop approach to the subject may serve to attract more mainstream, "I'm not a feminist, but..." women to the effort). Or worse, I've seen several antifeminist contradictory articles telling women, "Don't worry. Mom is happy." Nevermind that screeching Warner woman. Go back to your kitchens, cubicles, commutes, late nights, and frustration. Surveys say you're happy!
I applaud Warner for her efforts. I just hope people read beyond the first few paragraphs of the reviews.
posted by Jackie at 8:09 PM
4 Comments:
It's just damn hard to be politically active when you do a double shift.
OKay, sorry, but I forgot to ask. Have you read Joan Williams' Unbending Gender... ?
It's one of my fav books on feminism and mothering.
No, I haven't read Williams' book. Although I'm not a mother, I have a lot of sympathy for the double shift working women. I know it's hard. What I wrote wasn't a cut on women who don't agitate - I was trying to show how the media always focuses on the wrong issue. And how women are made to feel powerless. Warner's book helps to show how mothers CAN do something. Not everyone has time. But those who can, should.
I agree completely. Sorry if I stated the obvious, and thanks for the review. I have a lot of interest in this, and more books on the subject than I've gotten around to reading, but I'll add this one to my list.
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