Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety
Author: Judith Warner
Year: 2006
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
ISBN: 1594481709
I was predisposed to like Judith Warner’s book; I’ve been reading her column in the New York Times for the past year and enjoying it greatly. She writes about the issues facing modern mommies with passion and a desire for something better. Her book, however, was quite a chore to finish.
But first, the bookish positives:
1) Overview of Feminism (beginning with Betty Friedan). For someone whose previous curiosity about the ERA consisted of asking my parents about it (they told me that the ERA would have made all restrooms unisex), this history of feminism, from a post-feminist sympathizer, was informative (though I’m pretty sure a little biased; I need to read another perspective on this).
2) Accurate Articulation of the Angst I feel. As a stay-at-home mother of three, I feel her pain. I’ve felt unfulfilled and under-appreciated. I’ve considered that I might lose my mind if I’m stuck home with these hooligans for one more day. And I feel great uncertainty about my husband’s and my ability to support our growing family on one income.
3) Anecdotal evidence. For almost every conversation or vignette she relayed, I thought to myself, I know someone exactly like that. I know a 2-year-old who goes to eating therapy, and a mother who co-sleeps her 3-year-old because she feels guilty being gone all day, and a wife who barters sex with her husband for favors.
Now the bookish negatives:
1) Long. I think Warner is great at a column length, but this book overwhelmed her (maybe it was “The Mess”?).
2) Repetitive. Yes, mothers are over-parenting, over-obsessing and over-competitive. I agree. Can we move on?
3) Circular and Contradictory. Warner says she wants to write a book about the middle class, but what we see as the middle class (MC) on TV and in advertising, etc, is actually the upper-middle-class (UMC), so she decides to interview the UMC instead, because they set the standard to which we all aspire. Then she applies the lessons learned from the UMC to the policy changes she thinks are necessary to benefit the MC. The lower-middle-class really doesn’t matter, but they would probably benefit from these pro-family policies too, eventually. Huh? She also goes on and on about how most women do not have a “choice” as to whether to work or not, yet her whole book focuses on women agonizing over that “choice.”
4) Strident. In short, I’d say hysterical, but I don’t want to insult Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Now for the ideas, and Yea or Nay
A) The demands on mothers (for perfection, super-momism, etc) are crazy. Yea
B) Only UMC women can choose to work or not. Nay. We MC women can choose, too, but it is a sacrifice.
C) Feminists are wrong to focus on getting elite women to shoot for the glass ceiling. Instead, they should support policies that would benefit all women. Yea.
D) Stay-at-home Moms (SAHM) are wrong to promote a religion of motherhood that demonizes working mother (WM) as women who don’t care about their children. Yea. Name-calling is never good.
And here is the kicker:
E) Mothers who stay-at-home and mothers who work both do so simply because it is the practical thing to do. Nay. Or, at least, we shouldn’t.
Warner argues long and loud for a devalorization of both the SAHM and the WM ideologies. She is for a pragmatism that takes the purpose and principle out of doing what we do. We shouldn’t think, she implies, about why we do what we do; instead, we should concentrate on getting society to make the choices we’ve already made work for us. This is insidiously attractive. We could stop the Mommy Wars and stop all the noise about which is better, which is more valuable, mommy-work or paid-work, and we could all just get along to make the world better.
Except, should we do things without first investigating and validating our purpose for doing them? Should we just do what needs to be done without asking “Why?” Do we want to live without examining why we live the way we do?
If something is broken about the way that we mother, should we re-examine what and why and how we mother, or should we look externally for ways to buttress an admittedly-already-strained methodology?
Even if she weren’t mistaken in this desire to strip intent and deliberation from our lives, Warner squanders the credibility of her stated assurance that she favors neither SAHM nor WM. She works hard to ingratiate herself with (and alienate) both camps by insisting that we view both choices stripped of any emotion or morality. Then, when she gets around to discussing the pro-family policies that could ameliorate this mess, her consideration of different options is damning.
Proposals have been made for SAHM tax credits. These are derided by Warner as expensive and ineffective. Government funding for affordable, flexible, high-quality daycare (though estimated to cost 30 times more than the SAHM credit proposed) is considered blindingly obvious.
Now, if we grant that tax money should be used to subsidize families, wouldn’t it only be fair to subsidize both SAHM and WM — if we value (or not) both equally? When it comes time to put her (America’s) money where her mouth is, her mouth is clearly with the working mothers.
I asked before, “Why do you “stay-at-home”?”
Now that I’ve revealed a bit more about the woman behind the curtain,
Why do you “stay-at-home”?
But first, the bookish positives:
1) Overview of Feminism (beginning with Betty Friedan). For someone whose previous curiosity about the ERA consisted of asking my parents about it (they told me that the ERA would have made all restrooms unisex), this history of feminism, from a post-feminist sympathizer, was informative (though I’m pretty sure a little biased; I need to read another perspective on this).
2) Accurate Articulation of the Angst I feel. As a stay-at-home mother of three, I feel her pain. I’ve felt unfulfilled and under-appreciated. I’ve considered that I might lose my mind if I’m stuck home with these hooligans for one more day. And I feel great uncertainty about my husband’s and my ability to support our growing family on one income.
3) Anecdotal evidence. For almost every conversation or vignette she relayed, I thought to myself, I know someone exactly like that. I know a 2-year-old who goes to eating therapy, and a mother who co-sleeps her 3-year-old because she feels guilty being gone all day, and a wife who barters sex with her husband for favors.
Now the bookish negatives:
1) Long. I think Warner is great at a column length, but this book overwhelmed her (maybe it was “The Mess”?).
2) Repetitive. Yes, mothers are over-parenting, over-obsessing and over-competitive. I agree. Can we move on?
3) Circular and Contradictory. Warner says she wants to write a book about the middle class, but what we see as the middle class (MC) on TV and in advertising, etc, is actually the upper-middle-class (UMC), so she decides to interview the UMC instead, because they set the standard to which we all aspire. Then she applies the lessons learned from the UMC to the policy changes she thinks are necessary to benefit the MC. The lower-middle-class really doesn’t matter, but they would probably benefit from these pro-family policies too, eventually. Huh? She also goes on and on about how most women do not have a “choice” as to whether to work or not, yet her whole book focuses on women agonizing over that “choice.”
4) Strident. In short, I’d say hysterical, but I don’t want to insult Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
Now for the ideas, and Yea or Nay
A) The demands on mothers (for perfection, super-momism, etc) are crazy. Yea
B) Only UMC women can choose to work or not. Nay. We MC women can choose, too, but it is a sacrifice.
C) Feminists are wrong to focus on getting elite women to shoot for the glass ceiling. Instead, they should support policies that would benefit all women. Yea.
D) Stay-at-home Moms (SAHM) are wrong to promote a religion of motherhood that demonizes working mother (WM) as women who don’t care about their children. Yea. Name-calling is never good.
And here is the kicker:
E) Mothers who stay-at-home and mothers who work both do so simply because it is the practical thing to do. Nay. Or, at least, we shouldn’t.
Warner argues long and loud for a devalorization of both the SAHM and the WM ideologies. She is for a pragmatism that takes the purpose and principle out of doing what we do. We shouldn’t think, she implies, about why we do what we do; instead, we should concentrate on getting society to make the choices we’ve already made work for us. This is insidiously attractive. We could stop the Mommy Wars and stop all the noise about which is better, which is more valuable, mommy-work or paid-work, and we could all just get along to make the world better.
Except, should we do things without first investigating and validating our purpose for doing them? Should we just do what needs to be done without asking “Why?” Do we want to live without examining why we live the way we do?
If something is broken about the way that we mother, should we re-examine what and why and how we mother, or should we look externally for ways to buttress an admittedly-already-strained methodology?
Even if she weren’t mistaken in this desire to strip intent and deliberation from our lives, Warner squanders the credibility of her stated assurance that she favors neither SAHM nor WM. She works hard to ingratiate herself with (and alienate) both camps by insisting that we view both choices stripped of any emotion or morality. Then, when she gets around to discussing the pro-family policies that could ameliorate this mess, her consideration of different options is damning.
Proposals have been made for SAHM tax credits. These are derided by Warner as expensive and ineffective. Government funding for affordable, flexible, high-quality daycare (though estimated to cost 30 times more than the SAHM credit proposed) is considered blindingly obvious.
Now, if we grant that tax money should be used to subsidize families, wouldn’t it only be fair to subsidize both SAHM and WM — if we value (or not) both equally? When it comes time to put her (America’s) money where her mouth is, her mouth is clearly with the working mothers.
I asked before, “Why do you “stay-at-home”?”
Now that I’ve revealed a bit more about the woman behind the curtain,
Why do you “stay-at-home”? // –>
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I don’t get the difference in the question. and by the way, what happened to the flashing changing pictures. I liked them.
sylwia
I don’t see what’s so hard about staying at home when you have a good husband. (It sounds to me like you have a good husband, shannon) To feel fulfilled you can read lots of books, listen to books on tape while you cook and clean, you can go on walks with friends. You can even take a class in the evening when your husband is home with the kids. I like to take community ed classes. Josh and I took a dancing class. now I am taking a citizens fire academy class. I put out a car fire today. after my class I went to an enrichment group activity and chatted with some friends.
What’s so horrible about staying at home? Maybe you keep your house too clean or your children have laceing shoes. My kids hardly even wear shoes when it’s warm, and I clean only what’s necessary. I chat with my neighbors a lot. we sit in the sun and let the kids play together. We go to the library. I really don’t see what about staying at home is so hard. If you are so unfulfilled, do stuff in the evening when your husband is home with the kids. Give yourself a break most evenings. Do grocery shopping then, and with a friend. So you can chat and shop and not take any kids into the walmart bathroom…….
sylwia
Hmmm, sounds like Sylwia doesn’t know you as well as I do, Shannon. I know you like to stay home with those hooligans, you just like to complain about it too. I’m glad I have you to read long complicated books for me and keep me up to date on these things. I agree with all your yeas and nays and am impressed with your reading lists lately. What happened to all your YMCA trashy romances? I went to run tonight and really missed you!
Hi Sylwia,
i can’t remember what you studied in college; I studied English after changing my major 9 times; so i read books and think about them and write about them (and just about everything else) for fun. that is a big part of what i do to feel fulfilled–i’m interested in the ideas behind what we do, maybe even more than what we do.
and, Tara is right, i do enjoy staying home; i also feel like it is the right thing to do. if i didn’t feel that i was fulfilling a grand and glorious purpose in making “motherwork” my most important work at this time in my life, i might make other choices.
the difference in the question was that before i just quoted from Warner’s book and asked why we stay at home. now, i have shared most of my understanding of her entire book, including what her agenda was for having said what i earlier quoted. i think this makes a big difference in how we answer that question. if we say that we stay home SOLELY because we enjoy it, then we cannot think there is anything wrong with working while our children are young SOLELY because we enjoy it. i do think there is something wrong with working (long hours, outside the home, having a husband who can work) while my children are young; therefore, there must be something right (morally, emotionally, etc) about staying home.
oh, and the time i took Avery to the bathroom at Walmart was when we were coming home from the beach as a family; Tom stopped the car and she and I ran in. i spend less time “at-home” than any other stay-at-home mom I know. and I couldn’t be more blessed in my companion-husband (well, if he’d take out the trash, just once, without my reminding him.)
the slideshows that were in the sidebar (and messing it up) can now be seen by clicking “slideshow” at the top.
Tara,
what? i don’t like to complain; i like to “discuss.” and i miss you even double more!!!
now, we’re off to the aquarium with Danielle and Danielle, where i’m sure i’ll still find time to ponder my fate.
I don’t “enjoy” staying at home. I think I’d enjoy being a working mom more, except that I would then have to do all the SAHM stuff also upon coming home from work, and that I’d really miss my kids. Otherwise I’d rather be a career woman.
As far as being a MC SAHM, the ideology of the UMC is the very reason many MC women don’t think it’s possible. They think they have to have weekly manicures and pedicures, daily Starbucks, a brand new car trade-in every two years.
Brad and I share a car, which means that I can’t get out very much when he’s at work. I don’t get new clothes, I get a haircut maybe once a year. Starbucks is a very rare treat. To take the kids to do things, they generally have to be things I can walk to and are also free. Meaning we can go to the park, but we can’t go to the indoor kid fun places. My interaction with other people is mainly limited to the computer and phone. When Brad comes home from work, I can’t just foist the kids on him and go somehwere: he’s just worked all day too, and wants a break as well.
So why do I do it? If I were to get a job, 75% of the money would o to childcare. The other 25% would have to stretch to cover a second car, a career wardrobe, more frequent haircuts, and more restaurant food. There would be no monetary benefit whatsoever. And I have simply never understood how working moms can stand to pay other people to watch / teach / influence their kids for the greater part of the day. I know working moms who take their kids to day care at 7 AM, where the kids have breakfast and such, pick the kids up at 6 PM, rush home for dinner and put the kids to bed at 7. One hour a day with your child???? And I just don’t see how a paid, trained stranger can give my kids the love and care that I can.
Why do I stay at home w/ my kids?
Well, I guess because when I first became pregnant, my husband had twice as much earning potential as I did, plus we were breastfeeding. Now, things have evened out a little, and I make as much as him/hour, but the nature of my job is very part time, therefore he still works full time.
Somehow, I have managed to strike a balance between SAHM and WOHM. I am a college student (either my mom or my husband takes care of the kids while I am at class), and I when I go to work.
10 hours/week at school + 5 hours/week working= 15/91 hours away from my kids each week, or actually 76 out of 91 hours each week employed in nurturing and educating my small brood. I say 91 hours in a week, because they sleep 11 hours each night, and I don’t count those hours in my time WITH them.
I love it, and most of the time I do feel fulfilled. My issues with being a SAHM have less to do with them, and more to do with my choice in a spouse.
[...] was two years late with my review of Judith Warner’s book; recently, in looking for blogs that examine stay-at-home mom-ness, I [...]