Customer Reviews

To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

The description on Amazon says that "Flanagan's take on why modern mothers are conflicted about their roles is witty and well researched." I can't say that I agree...I'd say that Flannagan's take on why modern mothers are conflicted is, well...conflicted itself. For me, the title: To Hell With All that: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife was about the most interesting and exciting thing about Flannagan's book. It serves to draw you in and makes you think you are in for something different and interesting, sadly this feeling doesn't extend beyond the title page. Hell With All that: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife is ten chapters of loosely related information that sounds promising, but never pay off. They ramble along allowing a glimpse into Flanagan's very pampered and privileged version of stay-at-home motherhood that left me shaking my head and wondering what the heck was the point she really wanted to make here.

Originally she quit her teaching gig to write a novel, and when she couldn't successfully do that she decided to have kids instead. The premise here seems to be that since she was failing at writing a novel and couldn't bring herself to just go back to teaching, she'd have kids because that would give her an "excuse" to not have to worry about the novel or deal with the feelings that failure held for her...it'd be OK if she found some measure of success as a parent. She might not have turned out a novel, but she DID squeeze out a kid...the logic is unfathomable. In reading the first few chapters, I didn't get the feeling that she wanted to be a mother, I got the sense that being a mother was a means to the end of continuing to stay at home...an excuse not to go back to work or find something else more meaningful to do with her time. Not all mothers (I might even say MOST) come to the decision to have children like this...it's either planned or it just happens...we don't think to ourselves...hmmmmmmm, I'm bored with my job or I've not been successful enough at what I really wanted to do and rather than admit that and find something else to do with my life, I think I'll have a kid and let my husband support me so I can continue stay at home. Can you tell I was irritated by this book?!

Additionally, she says in several places in the book that she doesn't believe that there is a "better" when it comes to being a stay-at-home mom or a working mother, but the entire book seems to be a pat on the back for her decision to stay at home with her kids, but not REALLY stay at home with them...she's got a nanny to do the boring, menial part of parenting, a maid, a gardener, and even an organizer by the end of the book...she's not really raising those kids herself, she's got an entire support staff (and bully for those who can afford it or know they need it and thus use it)...but I don't feel it's right to pat yourself on the back for being a stay-at-home mom while you spend about as much time with your kids as most working parents do.

I was less than half way through the book when I began to realize that this book wasn't making a point, it was just another well-to-do white woman bemoaning how hard it is to be a wife and mother (either of the working or stay-at-home variety) while going on and on about her nanny, her maid and her organizer and how hard it is to organize the little tikes schedule of activities while still maintaining a sense of self...not all of us can afford those expensive classes and extracurricular activities for our kids. On the one hand she bemoans over scheduling kids but does it herself...she says for her staying at home with the kids is the best choice, but once she's published she spends time mocking other stay-at-home moms with two working mothers (the cool girls of the motherhood world, whom she desperately wanted to be "in" with)...basically she wanted the best of both worlds and luckily for her, her husband (who is rarely mentioned in the book outside of being the provider and wallet in the Flannagan family) can afford to make this a reality for her, so she never has to make those touch choices that most of the rest of us HAVE to make.

Overall, I felt that each chapter would have made a fine stand alone essay without the inclusion of all the personal information and what she perceived as the difficulties of motherhood. Taken as a whole, this book never make a point and I found it to be personally irksome to read, Hell With All that: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife is a jumble of individual points and rambling personal exposition that never coalesces into a cohesive or satisfying whole. I wound up giving it two stars...I just couldn't see my way to three stars. Sure it was humorous and interesting for what it is, but it doesn't really go very far in making a cohesive point about why modern mothers are conflicted about their roles, it's clear that Flannagan IS conflicted herself and is unable to discern WHY that is exactly. In the end, I was more annoyed than entertained or informed.

After reading this book, I have one big question: What's your point?

Flanagan, the anti-feminist, has set out to convince us that the women's movement has done women a disservice in showing that women might be dissatisfied with merely performing perfunctory household duties. Being a housewife should be celebrated, she says; women should be glad to fix dinner and do the laundry. Child-rearing has been elevated to an art and needs to be scaled back a notch, back to the days when being a wife was first and foremost and the children a mere by-product.

Excuse me? She really expects me to believe this tripe?

And she is the poster child?

Flanagan writes of the evils of nannies, the amount of discomfort they can bring to a household. And this in the same book where she devotes an entire chapter to the relationship she has with -- you guessed it -- her nanny. The woman she hired to care for her children for three years when she wasn't even working. It is the noblest thing to be home with one's children, she says, and points out that she stayed home with her children. But in the same breath she tells us that she had a 9-5 nanny and that she was practically paralyzed, unable to function, between 7 and 9 a.m. before the nanny's arrival. She makes it clear that children need their mother their when they're sick in the night ... but that she did not actually put the sheets in the washer -- that was the nanny's job.

She talks of the amount of satisfaction a woman should get from taking care of her home and her family. Then tells you of the maid and gardener who actually do most of said housework.

Sometimes it seems as if her point is to make it clear that she is a woman of privilege -- she can afford to be home, to pay all this household help. She and her husband can send their two boys to a soigné preschool, on whose very élan was disrupted by an outbreak of head lice. What -- parents of children who go to public kindergarten aren't disrupted by such things? Do we merely take it in stride?

Flanagan's writing style, praised by some, is a bit pretentious for me ("soignée? Élan?). She seems more interested in painting a picture of herself as having made the right choices than in looking at what is good for all women. Her own mother tossed aside the apron in the early 70s in order to have a job and some time for herself, and all Flanagan can see is that she felt abandoned. In retrospect, can't she see that maybe it was the only way for her mother to survive?

I don't see a need to pit working mothers against stay-at-home moms -- we all have our children's very best interests at heart. To her credit, Flanagan does confess the realities of her life -- the privilege that eludes most stay-at-home mothers of preschoolers -- but she doesn't quite see that they set her apart. She honestly sees herself as an ordinary sacrificing mother, even when she had full-time help. And today, as a staff writer for the New Yorker, she does not consider herself a working mother.

Not a book I could recommend. And not only because I didn't agree with her point, but more importantly, because I couldn't discern that she had one.

If you're a stay-at-home mom with a nanny who cleans the sheets after the kids have the stomach flu, this book is for you.

For the rest of us, though, "To Hell with All That" is a curious look at stay-at-home motherhood through the eyes of a wealthy anti-feminist who has the time and the energy to actually consider following Martha Stewart's over-the-top housekeeping suggestions.

I found myself agreeing with Flanagan in some places and snorting disapprovingly in others, while being entertained throughout much of the book. At the very least, Flanagan writes beautifully. And her larger-than-life persona has helped land her a segment on the Today Show. If only she were speaking for us.

If you're looking for validation in your choice to stay home with your kids, you won't find much of it in this book. Flanagan likely has never endured a toddler temper tantrum in the post office, wondered if she can afford to buy a brand name cereal without a coupon or volunteered to make cupcakes for 500 kids at the school rally.

If you want to find out how the other half live, though, enjoy this book.

Gosh, I am almost speechless. Flanagan receives two stars for her fine way with words. Had she written a coherent and believable book that had a thesis backed by the facts of either her life or anyone's life, I would have been pleased to give her at least four stars. It wasn't so much that I don't agree with what she says, but rather that I am not sure what she said. Of course, that does make a reasoned discussion about her viewpoint rather problematic for a reviewer...

Flanagan entertains with witty and irreverent tweaks to the strangely conflicted ways of middle and upper middle class mothers. She hits clever and common notes as she rifts about her childhood and her own life as a mother. The problem is that I don't get it. And, as a reader, it's always nice if the reader can say, "oh, yes, I see what you mean," or "I don't agree with you." With Flanagan's book, her thoughts were so muddy (or must I apologize for being simply a dense reader?)that I am left...yes, I said it before. But, it bears repeating: speechless -- almost.

So, to review the book I can only guess at a fair summary. But, here is what I think Flanagan said: Feminists were silly and clearly wrong. I am a new generation mother. I am not sure I like what that is, but in order to work (like I want to do) and be a mother (like my mother was) I spend many thousands of dollars annually on nannies, housekeepers, fine preschools to help me. I think I might like to stay at home and be like my mother, but I am not going to do that. We even hire help to wash the vomit laden linens in the aftermath of an ill child at our house. No one should expect a man to do these things, because it's pretty clear that they simply are unable to rise to adequate performance of such demanding tasks. And, I am not going to do these things because I am miserable at such tasks and don't really want to do them enough to become competent myself.

Flanagan ends up being a champion for no one. Come to think of it, perhaps it does reflect perfectly the state of women/family issues in America today...messy, chaotic, and conflicted. It's too bad Flanagan can't be more than a very self-absorbed observer with a quite competent way with words.

Flanagan has hired help and can pass these battlefield tasks on to her lackies (oh, she doesn't need to feel guilty here because she pays her social security and withholding on these hirelings!. This fact will surely make her diatribe so much more credible to those lower income families where both parents really have to work for their literal and figurative bread...families where mom has no housekeeping and nanny options...families where it is either her or him swabbing the decks. I can only assume that Flanagan would suggest that these mothers simply work all day and night because she's already told us several times about their inherent and gender-wide imcompetence at the things women do so deftly. Flanagan recalls fondly that her mother engaged in household work in the while her father read the paper and seems to view this with nostalgia to the good (and past) family times. So, the reader is left to assume that the scrambling mother who has no choice but to work outside the home must continue to work in the evenings while "her man" reads the paper. What a picture of family bliss!

Oh, Betty and Gloria...I know we have a ways to go, but could we at least ask for someone to make an anti-feminist argument that comes makes a bit of sense for today's world, because we sure can't rely upon Flanagan's bemused and rather pleasant ramblings to help us out much.

Though this book is ostensibly about other mothers, what comes through the most are the author's own worries about herself. These are not evident in her self-deprecating comments, but in the attacks she makes on other moms. She is really, really mean. She claims that she is really, really happy. There is no way someone this mean is happy. And even more interesting is the thought you get, while reading this, that this mom, who suggests she is a great wife and devoted because she stays at home, actually has a husband who does not help her at all with the kids, actually is so unattached to her kids (sorry Flanagan, but this seems obvious) that she would let a nanny-- an employee-- care for them WHILE SHE IS THERE. She said in an interview that people are just jealous of her wealth-- but what in the world does wealth have to do with this? I cannot envision a mother I know watching a nanny take care of children. That is not some service Flanagan is lucky to have-- it is a creepy, creepy way to treat your own children. It is what she does not mean to highlight that is so fascinating. What a weird, distant mom, to allow that. So she must have written her mean observations about other wives (she acts like they aren't loved by their husbands!) and other mothers (she acts like she loves her kids more!) to keep herself from realizing what she is-- unhappy and not a natural with the kids.
Her prose sparkles though. It is really an interesting book all around, maybe not because of her actual points, but because her psychology is put on display, because she writes so well, and because these topics are ones everyone has an opinion on.

Well, I had never heard of Caitlin Flanagan before picking this up and browsing through it at the bookstore, so I didn't know that she was an "agent of the right" or a prototypical anti-feminist. In retrospect some of that comes through but the book seems reasonably balanced overall.

Flanagan deals with that basic dichotomy of work/stay home, work/housework that is the core of so many women's lives. The most interesting section (in my eyes at least) explores how housekeeping became this hateful, demeaning drudgery on one hand and this fetishized, Martha Stewart-esque haven of folded sheets and lavender sachets on the other. She also makes a distinction between the "stay at home moms" of today and the "housewives" of yesterday, something I never considered before. She does a pretty good job of not idealizing the 50's-era lifestyle too much; at one point she's talking about her own (perfect) mother and right as I'm rolling my eyes the mom says 'to hell with it' and gets a job.

The parts that really puzzle me are the sections devoted to nannies, both the British nannies of yore and in film, and the current-day nanny situation. Surely having a nanny is not part of the average mothering experience in this country-- I for one have never even met anyone with a nanny; my closest experience would be reading "The Nanny Diaries". (don't bother with that one, by the way!) This book makes it seem as though every third household is employing 'help' and she gets totally sidetracked talking about paying Social Security for your nanny. Not that that's a bad cause, it just didn't fit the rest of the book very well. At that point in the book she really starts delving into her own personal experiences, which basically weren't that interesting. Still, the book is thought-provoking overall, and asks some interesting questions.

This is one of the worst prose collections I have ever read. There is no insight, just whining. A lack of perspective and credibility.

Indeed, just another straight white educated woman who chose to marry a high income earning man and has chosen to live in an insular enclave of white well to do people and SAHM like herself? When her only voluntary interaction with people of color is her Latina nanny?

There is little link to real life economics here, such as, what happens to women who work? Women who become divorced, widowed, abandoned, etc. Nothing really bad happened to her. She herself has not made real difficult choices, she has not lost anything because she has not tried hard for anything.

Lack of life experience - that is why she lacks wisdom. She should live life before writing about life and giving advice.

I got this book because I remember this author's New Yorker article about how she felt as a child when she became a latch key child after her mother decided to go back to work. It was a piece that moved me.

The essay however was good because the author hid herself, and had the discipline to write objectively about a limited subject.

Flanagan is often very astute and witty in her observations (why do women in their 40's wear white to their weddings?). She is also often touching in her depictions of her mother and her children. She is such a "social climber" though, that she comes across as a morally vacuous person. Ok, so her father was a college professor, her first husband was from "money" (whatever that means, but it was intimidating for her), and her latest husband is an executive at a toy company. So what? She writes as if she was a member of the landed gentry, and it comes across as crass and grasping. She's so unsure of herself - her intellectual ability, her parenting, her role as a wife, her "relationship" with the nanny. Her "voice" ultimately sounds like that of a clever teenager.

Maid, nanny AND gardener?
We're all supposed to take you seriously on the subjects of feminism and stay-at-home moms when your hired help outnumbers your children?

Why are women so conflicted about their roles and wives, mothers and economic agents? Beats me. But at least I don't feel quite so alone now that Caitlin Flanagan has weighed in on the subject, in a funny, straight-on manner that feels like a close friend has poured a glass of wine and sat us down for a real talking-to. Plus, it's kind of fun to hear a conservative golden girl use the word "hell".

Despite Flanagan's reputation as an Instrument of the Right and a Prototypical Anti-Feminist, no one gets off easy - not conservatives, not liberals, not anyone in between. And anyone with a die-hard intellectual or emotional investment in keeping those lines drawn may well end up pretty uncomfortable with Flanagan's deconstruction of how women got where they are today, bringing home goodly amounts of money while also supervising (if not actually conducting) the upbringing of their children and subsequently becoming too tired to participate in a loving, sexual marriage. But a woman's life is complicated and Flanagan shirks only a little from relating her own contradictions (wait, she's not a working mother? What's with the nanny? What's with the book writing?).

Although I don't agree with all (or even many) of her conclusions I find Flanagan's writing to be entertaining and well-researched. And her complaints about feminism as a political movement are similar to frustrations that I - a proud feminist - have often expressed. And despite her near hysterical endorsement of "traditional marriage", handily leaving out homemakers partnered in non-traditional ways out of her lionization of homemaking, I share her conviction that married people in general and in the absence of abuse, probably ought to work a little harder at competing less with each other and just generally getting along better.

My primary complaint with the book is that it ends in such cliche. A scary diagnosis and subsequent treatment gave Flanagan nothing so much as an opportunity to carry the uber-mater banner, proudly proclaiming that she "wanted to go home." Well fine, but what about the women whose similar medical challenges light fire to explore the world on new terms? Are they lesser women and mothers? And what if the incident had not made her want "to go home"? What then?