The Mommy Wars Inside My Head

It’s been exactly two weeks since the dreaded “Mommy Wars” re-exploded into our collective lexicon. Since then — courtesy of figures as disparate as First Lady-hopeful Ann Romney and French feminist Elisabeth Badinter— we’ve been pitting stay-at-home-moms against working moms in an inexorable, intractable struggle.

I’m completely on board with all those who think that this faux cat-fight sets up a false dichotomy within the female voting block that’s neither productive nor accurate. As far as I’m concerned, the real wars aren’t the ones that go on between women, they’re the ones that go on within women.

And I’m exhibit A.

 

Read the rest of this post at The Washington Post’s She The People blog

 

Image: Dressy Bessy, the long view by massdistraction via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

 

7 Comments
  • Reply ASuburbanLife

    April 28, 2012, 5:32 am

    This is an interesting perspective – one I’ve never thought about before bit it certainly rings true.

  • Reply Cecilia

    April 29, 2012, 1:17 pm

    I love your line about how the real wars are the ones raging within us; I think most women struggle with their choices and make the one that’s least imperfect to them at the time.

    You’re spot on about the power too. That was my biggest issue when I had been home on a one year maternity leave, and my husband decided to leave his job to start a business from home. Suddenly he was telling me to get out of the kitchen and I had to share knowledge, power, a diaper bag…I personally find it easier when the roles are separated, to be honest. 50/50 is hard to achieve and there’s too much resentment when the equation is tilted. Good luck and looking forward to your posts once you get to “the other side”!!

  • Reply delialloyd

    April 29, 2012, 9:05 pm

    Thanks! Yes, it will be quite difficult to relinquish control over the metaphorical diaper bag but probably healthy for everyone-especially the kids. I think that they are actually ready for me to recede a bit into the background, especially my very pre-teen 11 year old. Let’s hope we can manage. Ready or not, here I come!

  • Reply BigLittleWolf

    April 30, 2012, 10:12 pm

    I don’t think this should create a political divide (voting-wise, or female warrior-wise), but I think it’s a far more complex issue than most people are willing to consider. You raise many of the factors that are involved for women (there are repercussions on the men as well – that is – for those who have men assisting with income generation and/or child-rearing). The identity issues are huge, yes, and not getting any clearer or “better,” in my opinion. Certainly not in the US.

    One of the problems is the interpretation that homemaking/parenting is not “work” – because it isn’t paid work, though when we aren’t there to do it (and there isn’t another parent or family member), we pay teachers, babysitters, nannies, after-school providers, tutors, etc. – considerable sums of money – to do the “work” that theoretically isn’t…

    I have other thoughts on this that I wrote a week or so ago and haven’t posted yet. Perhaps tomorrow. Thank you for raising this issue. It bears a great deal of discussion, in my opinion. And good luck with the new job!

  • Reply Delia Lloyd

    May 1, 2012, 8:50 am

    @biglittlewolf – yes it is a big irony that we pay others to do the work that we aren’t compensated for. I will look forward to your post!

Write a comment