Customer Reviews

Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

These 27 essays provide a wealth of opinions about the range of emotions, controversy and ambivalence that can fill the minds and hearts of mothers. Even those who think they know their values before giving birth may have a profound change of heart. Some decide to stay home. Others go stir crazy and go back to work. Then there are the women who face life-threatening conditions (cancer or something else), have children with disabilities or don't yet have children but are exploring the dilemnas that may face them.

The most wrenching essay for me to read featured a woman who'd already made it through some very, very tough years as a single mom to two young children (her husband deserted the family), struggling with the indignities of welfare and making do as best she could. After she starts to become more successful, meets a decent man and has another child, she learns she may die within "8 months"....that is the grim prognosis...and that fact radically changes her life...forever. I won't go into more detail about that section because I don't want to spoil the suspense of you, the reader, discovering what happens next...but believe me, you won't be able to predict it.

Very few of these women seem to be totally at peace with their decision, at least not without a period of angst and guilt (is this the universal norm for mothers?). Ambivalence and even guilt seemed to be the order of the day, something I could really relate to.

I'd strongly suggest reading this with A Perfect Madness (another exploration of Motherhood) as it goes into greater depth when it comes to researching the challenges facing mothers today. Taken together, the two books provide a wealth of information. Both are honest and insightful.

In Mommy Wars, you'll get a host of viewpoints, some full of ambivalence, some full of guilt and some fully comfortable with their choice -whether it is working or not working outside the home. You'll feel affirmed with some pieces, challenged by others and perhaps alienated by yet others.


No matter the viewpoint, reading this book made me feel more connected to other women, since I've had both guilt about working and affirmation at well. My personal choice was to focus on parenting, primarily because my work schedule was not family friendly.

Reading this book made me realize yet again (since this isn't the first book of its kind to appear) that I was not alone. Parenting is hard. Working can be hard, too. Juggling the two can be...well....very tricky. Sometimes it isn't workable at all. Other times you make it by the seat of your pants. But connecting with other women, whether on the pages of a book or at the park or over lunch..can serve as inspiration and support. It doesn't hurt to have some more of that.

What ISN'T fully explored in this book (beyond what is implied in the personal essays) are the economic realities of work versus staying home. I wish there'd been a bit more detail about that. The reality is that women who bring in under $10.00 an hour may actually lose money by working (and create a higher tax bill, actually reducing income even more). Even so, the payoff may be worth it, since working may satisfy a need to be with other adults, build skills,etc. In time, as the kids grow older and day care isn't necessary, the income may build again.

For other mothers, work isn't worth the sacrifice, no matter how hefty the salary. In the years since I've been a parent, I've known several lawyers, accountants and others who've left work when their children started having trouble at school. The teenage years seemed particularly rough and dropouts from the work force seemed higher in my circle of friends at those times.

But I'm speaking only personally. Read this book and you'll get a wider range of viewpoints about the emotional and financial and spiritual benefits and costs of working. I confess that I'm one of those moms who don't want to miss the time I have with my children, not for work. But I am lucky enough not to have to make that choice - yet.

This anthology, as well-intentioned as it is, has one very significant short-coming: the amount of mothers this anthology missed equals the majority of mothers they are trying to market this book to in the first place. These are all professional writers, either formerly or currently or on the side. As with the similar anthology, "Bitch in the House" (Harper, 2003), these essays contain mostly professional women of middle and upper-middle-class families with dreams of success in their chosen field of writing and a husband who doesn't seem to exist.

Because of this, "Mommy Wars" exposes only one very thin layer of the entire picture. If the editor wanted to end the invisible cat fight that she claims all mothers engage in, why didn't she flag down those twenty-six minivans?

In fact, the message this book sent to me was that the "war" only exists between mothers of past, present or future success, in writing or other competitive, professional writing-related fields. To the mothers in this essay, everyone is out to get them, out to compete, because of the cutthroat business they are a part of. Perfectionism, to them, is synonymous with feminism, with motherhood. Success is that mark of a good mother. Success in her children, well, that's even better. That's perfect.

On a more positive note, a handful of mothers had very unique experiences (unique in terms of the content of this anthology). The only essay I truly felt moved by was the first, "Neither Here nor There" by Sally Hingston. This essay left a very poignant message: the mother admitted that she was a bad mom after years of thinking she was perfect. She was brave enough to write that she called her sick teenage daughter a "whack-job" in front of the therapist, who scolded her after her daughter said it was fine; her mother says that sort of stuff all the time.

To me, the mark of a good mother is not that goal of mutual success in herself and her children and the awards won by both, but the mother who can admit that she has failed. One who can admit, honestly, that being a mother does not make her infallible. That her hopes and dreams may not suit her offspring.

The other essay that stood out was a hardened look at two-generations of postpartum depression and how it wasn't a choice to stay home that caused the mother so much pain-it was something beyond her control. Something that had already been in her life, yet she was unaware of it. Here is a real internal conflict; one that is impossible to escape without help. One that any mother could experience, regardless of her career.

Unfortunately, many of the essays blended together in a boring shade of, "Who cares?" The tiresome repeats consisted of: mother has writing job of some sort, mother gives it up for children, mother attempts to go back to work or thinks about going back, mother does or does not, mother angsts over decision and sees her faults in other people, husband is pointless, there is no conclusion. I stopped after stuffing myself frustrated with a majority of them, then declined to do more than skim the rest.

Take the advice of reviewers of "Bitch in the House", and doubtless this anthology too, and find more variety. If the professional writing mom continues to be evaluated as the representatives of the rest of the women in the world, I won't listen anymore.

My main complaint is with the editor, Leslie Morgan Steiner, for choosing such similar women to contribute. Most are from the Upper East Side or West Side of Manhattan (no one from below 42nd St, muchless the midwest!), most are affiliated with the publishing world (editors, journalists, columnists, etc.), most are the type of person to specify that she went to "Harvard" or "an ivy league college" even when this specificity has little to do with the essay. They had "Type A" personalities (few spoke about having messy homes); they wrote with that contemporary columnist tone of "aren't I so cute and current?"; more than half a dozen of them shared the EXACT SAME ANECDOTE of being unpopular at cocktail parties because now they were "just moms." (I personally haven't been to a cocktail party in years--I associate them with the pretentious phase I went through and outgrew after college). There is so much more to say and learn about motherhood than the string of essays I've read about one's cocktail party cache going down the drain.

To be fair, several essays were very lovely, vulnerable, and honest. One wrote of post-partum depression, another about the legacy or her mother's suicide, another about the dilemma of helping the daughter of an abusive mom. These and several other essays had, in my opinion, that special quality one reads in great literature. They transcend the ego of the writer and touch upon that soft and mysterious part of the reader, and linger.

But for the most part, I was very annoyed that the part-time editor, who changes into her yoga pants after 2:00 pm every day, had cast such a small net of contributors. Part of me wants to go through the essays and pull quotes that struck me in terms of narcissism and self-entitlement, but I'll refrain.

I got through about 6 of these essays when I decided to flip through the book and read the biography of the authors since it was all starting to sound the same. All of these women are writers!! How is this a good sampling of real women? These are women with careers that can be translated into part time work through free lance. And it is difficult to feel the struggle of the women that have full time babysitters when they are "stay at home" moms. I am a working mom in a technical field where it very difficult to take off years and then go back to the work force or do anything part time. It would have been nice to hear the voices of people in similar situations.

Let me state up front that I have really enjoyed this book. The essays are very interesting to read.

However, I don't understand why Leslie Morgan Steiner limited those she solicited essays from to mothers in fields who could parlay their previous full time careers into opportunities for freelance work. What about all of the moms in other industries and fields that don't offer the enormous flexibility *almost* all of these moms have? Surely that would be more applicable to most of us who don't have jobs that translate easily into part-time freelance work from home. For us, "scaling back" to part-time or freelance work means entering a completely different field (perhaps less prestigious) and/or developing a whole new skill set. In my opinion, that makes the decision...continue in current career vs. stay home full time vs. figure out something totally new to do...far more dramatic and difficult. Working for a newspaper and scaling back to freelancing articles just doesn't seem like that big of a deal.

As a middle-aged mother with a child in college, I read and reviewed this book with a "retrospective" lens, and truly enjoyed it. The Mommy Wars have been smoldering for decades, and it's very interesting to follow the dialogue between mothers who are nearly 20 years younger than I am. I applaud Ms. Steiner for tackling such an unwieldy project, and for re-opening this discussion for another generation of women.

That said, many of these fine essays were written by women who can afford nannies and/or household help -- whether they work or stay home with kids. In my part of the Midwest, WAHMs and SAHMs enlist (or beg) neighbors and grandparents for help with childcare and, in many cases, the frustrating search for good daycare centers is also a huge topic of conversation. But where I live, calling your sitter a nanny is considered an affectation. The essays in this book are written, primarily, from the East and West Coasts, as well as suburbs near Washington, D.C., where "nanny" is a household word.

No matter which side of the "war" they defend, the pieces tend to echo the sentiments of well-heeled women in the film , television, or publishing industries. Of course, this makes for some great reading. But it's very important to consider that perspectives from the East and West Coasts are often quite different from those of women who raise kids and work in the South or Midwest -- both culturally and economically.

Knowing that parents in my part of the country are also passionate about this issue, I would love to read more viewpoints from, say, middle America, or the deep South, where many women do not have the same choices as women who work in publishing and/or live in tony suburbs.

That said, there are some terrific pieces of writing in this book, and they are all worth every mother's precious reading time. Lois R. Shea's essay, "Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn," really stood out from the rest. Writing from rural New Hampshire, Shea shared an intriguing view of a lifestyle much different from the New York/Washingon DC/California pieces in the book. Shea's voice is honest, funny, and down-to-earth -- pure delight, and something new.

Let the dialogue continue!

As a professional woman and mother of three children, I can't say that I ever felt truly engaged in the conflict that Mommy Wars describes. I have always respected each mother's choices, and I always felt that other women respected mine. Although I believe that these essays are honest and contain important truths and revelations, I sometimes felt like I did when reading The Bitch in the House: I grew a little weary of the sense of conflict, anger, and resentment. Still, I want these voices out there; the conversation that these essays opens up is important and vital, and the contributors offer intelligent and often humorous insights.

If you're interested in the NEXT phase--what happens in a woman's life after the childbearing decision has been settled, the conflict has eased, and the anger has begun to dissipate, read Kiss Tomorrow Hello: Notes from the Midlife Underground by 25 Women Over 40. These women--some mothers, some grandmothers, some without children, others still trying to conceive--will remind you that there IS life after the war is over!

Like most things in life, the decision on whether to stay at home or work is not black or white, but rather many gradients of gray.

I enjoy reading this book because it spells out so many different scenarios, different reasons why women - mothers - make the choices they do. I love reading about how each woman handles the challenges she faces. I have grappled with my own identity since becoming a mother, and what I've come to realize is that there's no one right way, the key is figuring out what works for you and your own family. The examples in this book show how some women have arrived at that conclusion, and found their space that balances motherhood, career and their own personal development. Other examples in this book are in the midst of their struggle, in the midst of finding out what works for them.

You should know that majority of the authors have the luxury of CHOOSING between being a stay at home mom v. working, or something in between.

And, most of the women are in the publishing / writing / entertainment industry, which makes the book a big narrow in scope; I'd buy a sequel that had a wider range women both socio-economically and simply in terms of their career fields.

I read all of the literary reviews before buying the book, so I had very high expectations. I bought the book this past weekend, and could not put it down until I finished it. Wow. What an incredible and intense read. Before I even get into the writing, or the issues, I must first say that the essays are shockingly honest. I don't know how Steiner convinced all of these women to bare it all and just tell it like it really happened in their lives. It was fascinating to be a voyeur in all of their lives - the essays are raw and honest. No one puts on a happy face, and pretends their lives are perfect. You live through their highs and lows, and these women take you through some very personal and emotional times in their lives.

I have been in and out of the workplace during my childrens' early years, and in one way or another, I identified with the feelings that every one of the women in these essays express. They are all very different, but they virtually all struggle at their core with issues of work / family balance. They are constantly questioning their own decisions, and very few of them are angst free. I feel like each of them had a voice that spoke to me, and for me, I had a sense of validation of my own struggles, as well as a sense of comraderie with many of these women. On the other side, some of these women also made me furious! Several of these women have a holier than now attitude that really pissed me off. I found myself wanting to scream at several of the writers. They are all highly opinionated, and I do strongly disagree with some of the perspectives. However, that I did not disagree with gave me insight into many moms that I just never have been able to understand.

The writing was beautiful. Several of the essays made me cry, and not just a tear or two. Several of the essays are gut wrenching - reading for example about the struggles of a mother with an autistic child, a mother with cancer, and a mother suffering from post-partum depression. I struggle with my career decisions every day, and to bring to life the struggles that others have with these same kinds of challenges was an eye opener.

I loved this book.

These are by and large wonderful essays, unflinchingly honest and profoundly thoughtful. I don't necessarily like every woman in this book, but I admire their willingness to open up their respective lives and thought processes for our inspection. The complaint that these women are homogeneous seems somewhat shallow and literal-minded to me. Yes, they're almost (not entirely) all women who have been writers at some point, but doesn't that come with the territory of a collection of personal essays? Yes, they are also primarily middle to upper-middle class, but that covers a lot of American women right there; more important, the issues explored, from depression to dealing with a disabled child to financial trade-offs are potentially universal. The range of voices and viewpoints is extremely varied, and I can only conclude that one or two of the naysayers here did not actually read the book. If you are not interested in exploring women's thoughts about the work/children balance, then I don't know why you would bother to pick up this book in the first place. But if you are, there is a lot here for anyone to identify with, take issue with, think about. I enjoyed the company of most of these women even when I disagreed with them, and think it's time well spent for anyone (fathers included) grappling with the question of who works and who takes care of the kids.