The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars
Today’s book is The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars: Who Decides What Makes A Good Mother, by Miriam Peskowitz. Peskowitz’s core argument should be familiar to any reader of this blog: that there ought to be better ways to combine work and family without running yourself into the ground, to move back and forth between full-time and part-time work and non-paid work without derailing your career, that the media-fanned "mommy wars" only distract us from making common cause. She portrays herself not as an expert, but as an ordinary mother trying to understand what’s going on, and bringing her readers along on her voyage of discovery.
While there are details that I would quibble with Peskowitz about, I really liked the book as a whole. (My quibbles: I think she overstates the case to which the media portrays SAHDs as having an easier time returning to the workforce than SAHMs; I wish she had talked more about the ways in which domestic responsibilities tend to fall more heavily on the partner who works fewer hours, or even just has more flexibility in scheduling.)
The emotional core of the book is the final chapter, entitled Playground Revolution, in which Peskowitz introduces us to a variety of groups that are working for change. Some are fighting for legislation that would provide paid parental leave. Some are organizing for better neighborhood playgrounds. Some are organizing nurse-ins at Starbucks. Some are fighting for welfare recipients’ rights to stay home with their children.
The point is that you don’t have to sign on to try to change everything at once, just the piece of it that moves you the most, that seems within your grasp. But Peskowitz makes a convincing case that even as we each grapple with a different piece of the puzzle, it’s important for us to recognize that our pieces are part of a whole. Or, as another generation might have said, think globally, act locally.
May 27th, 2005 at 6:41 am
I just read this a couple of weeks ago and found it to be excellent. It spoke so directly to the experiences of myself and of my wife and so many of our friends.
I think one of the main points it makes also is that the mommy wars is a media construction, that moms shift their work/home balance at different stages of their kids’ lives, that lots of moms who are at home with kids when they’re infants go back to work, that few are purely one or the other. In short, that the media has not only simplified a much more complicated reality, but simplified it in a way to create the impression of major conflict — and actually tries to fan the conflict. But who loses out is all of us.
On SAHD’s returning to work force, that struck me as pretty on-target, and also in line with my own perceptions. When I was a SAHD I really didn’t worry much about that, I knew I’d be able to get something. I’ve blogged about the difference between men and women on that point somewhere on my blog.
And yes, the final chapter is great, very encouraging in an environment in which we’ve been led to believe that things can’t really change.
May 27th, 2005 at 12:49 pm
I wish the title had been “Playground Revolution”, as I read that Peskowitz originally wanted – it sounds so much more encouraging than “The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars”.
There is a new interview with Peskowitz on Literary Mama: http://www.literarymama.com/profiles/
and I’ve been writing about her book on my blog for Mothers & More. I’m glad that it is getting some more press now, every time I look at the amazon sales ranks for “Perfect Madness” (767) vs. this book (96,088) I think that something is really wrong with both publishing and the book buying public.