Posted on 02/13/2005 7:20:56 AM PST by jimbo123
Back in the days when I was a Good Mommy, I tried to do everything right. I breast-fed and co-slept, and responded to each and every cry with anxious alacrity. I awoke with my daughter at 6:30 AM and, eschewing TV, curled up on the couch with a stack of books that I could recite in my sleep. I did this, in fact, many times, jerking myself back awake as the clock rounded 6:45 and the words of Curious George started to merge with my dreams.
Was I crazy? No—I was a committed mother, eager to do right by my child and well-versed in the child care teachings of the day. I was proud of the fact that I could get in three full hours of high-intensity parenting before I left for work; prouder still that, when I came home in the evening, I could count on at least three more similarly intense hours to follow. It didn't matter that, in my day job as a stringer for this magazine, I was often falling asleep at my desk. Nor that I'd lost the ability to write a coherent sentence. My brain might have been fried, but my baby's was thriving.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
"In general, we need to alleviate the economic pressures that currently make so many families' lives so high-pressured, through progressive tax policies that would transfer our nation's wealth back to the middle class.
So that mothers and fathers could stop running like lunatics, and start spending real quality—and quantity—time with their children. And so that motherhood could stop being the awful burden it is for so many women today and instead become something more like a joy."
Isn't that always the solution to everything according to Newsweak?
I know, I know, pointless to even try talking to someone who, when overwhelmed by work and motherhood, chooses to gripe about the motherhood rather than the work.
...through progressive tax policies that would transfer our nation's wealth back to the middle class.
Isn't that always the solution to everything according to Newsweak?
And yet somehow the middle class always ends up paying
through the nose. Odd isn't it?
Transfer = steal from the "wealthy" (anyone who makes a good honest living) because they have too much money. If a woman thinks motherhood is an "awful burden", she shouldn't have kids. Why should my tax dollars support her welfare like lifestyle? The writer should have kept her panties on and maybe she wouldn't have so many "burdens".
And who turned motherhood into such an "awful burden"????
These whiners make my teeth ache.
Where your heart is, there will be your treasure.
Motherhood (full time mom here) is an incredible joy - never a burden. We willingly, and without hesitation, turned our backs on the 'extras' and live simply, in order to provide the best possibe upbringing for our child.
Another insight into this whacked out writer:
"I lived in France before moving to Washington..."
possibe = possible
Well..........sometimes....Just kidding.
We willingly, and without hesitation, turned our backs on the 'extras' and live simply, in order to provide the best possibe upbringing for our child.
Well said.
Crux of the problem...they don't enjoy their kids, they don't find their kids fun.
This would be the case if they were working, weren't working, had a full time maid, earned gazillons of money or made hardly any.
If you don't think taking care of your kids is fun, you'll always think you're a victim.
I can't imagine anybody saying they enjoy TV more than their kids, but evidently she found moms that did.
Ditto on that sentiment!
A joy beyond description if you choose to allow it!!
My thought exactly! I've been a working mom and a stay home mom. At no point has motherhood ever been anything but a blessing, no matter how overwhelmed I may have been feeling.
'Another insight into this whacked out writer:
"I lived in France before moving to Washington..."'
"My then 18-month-old daughter painted and heard stories and ate cookies for the sum total in fees of about $150 a month. (This solution may be French—but do we have to bash it?)"
Yea, well, I'm a stay at home mommy too (BY CHOICE! I QUIT MY CAREER AND BIG PAYCHECKS JUST TO HAVE A KID)...my 4 year old goes to a great preschool three 1/2 days a week at a cost of $85 a month. I prefer the American solution over the french. This writer is a liberal whiner! Can I punch a wall now?
"And who turned motherhood into such an "awful burden"????"
Frankly, I think that women who whine about the burden of motherhood are a little too selfish to be mothers. But on the other hand, I think that women who claim that motherhood is non-stop joy and fulfillment aren't exactly telling the truth.
My sister-in-law and I call mothers of both kinds "mommy club" moms. It seems like both kinds of moms have given up their entire lives trying to be the "ideal" mom, whatever that means, instead of just doing what's practical and what works for them.
I work full-time, and my kid goes to daycare. I don't feel one bit guilty about it, and I certainly don't feel like I should be doing more. My daughter is a perfectly happy child who is right on track developmentally speaking.
from the penguinputnam.com website http://www.penguinputnam.com/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,0_1000017360,00.html
Judith Warner
Judith Warner is the author of a range of nonfiction books, among them You Have the Power: How to Take Back Our Country and Restore Democracy in America (with Howard Dean) and the bestselling biography Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story. A former special correspondent for Newsweek in Paris, she reviews books for The Washington Post and has written about politics and women’s issues for magazines including The New Republic and Elle. She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and their children."
Oh yeah, she's someone I need to take parenting advice from ... YEAAAARGHHHH!!!!!
This writer is a loon.
From Amazon.com
Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety
by Judith Warner
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Judith Warner writes about women's issues and politics for The New Republic and Elle magazine. She is the author of Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story and coauthor of books about Grace Mirabella and Newt Gingrich. A former special correspondent for Newsweek in Paris, Warner lives with her husband and their two small children.
Product Description:
A lively and provocative look at the modern culture of motherhood and at the social, economic, and political forces that shaped current ideas about parenting.
What is wrong with this picture? That's the question Judith Warner asks after taking a good, hard look at the world of modern motherhood-at anxious women at work and at home and in bed with unhappy husbands.
When Warner had her first child, she was living in Paris, where parents routinely left their children home, with state-subsidized nannies, to join friends in the evening for dinner or to go on dates with their husbands. When she returned to the States, she was stunned by the cultural differences she found toward parenting-in particular, assumptions about motherhood. None of the mothers she met seemed happy: Instead, they worried about the possibility of not having the perfect child, panicking as each developmental benchmark approached.
Combining close readings of mainstream magazines, TV shows, and pop culture with a thorough command of dominant ideas in recent psychological, social, and economic theory, Perfect Madness addresses our cultural assumptions, and examines the forces that have shaped them.
Working in the tradition of classics like Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, and with an awareness of a readership that turned recent hits like The Bitch in the House and Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It into bestsellers, Warner offers a context in which to understand the way we live, as well as ways of imagining alternatives-actual concrete changes-that might better our lives.
Scary, isn't it?
A third is a stressed-out grandmother who's children are resentful, sad, and bitter because she has no time for her grandchildren, except for buying them wonderful gifts.
You may not hear it very often from others, but here is more proof you made the right choice.
When I was born and through about fifth grade, my parents chose to do without so Mom could stay at home. I guess it did not occur to this reporter that either she or her husband could do the same. Or perhaps she could work part time or out of the home as other parents have done. Before I married my wife, she was a divorced mother of three. Her devotion to her children hindered the career that was providing for all four of them; but she accepted that, and you didn't hear her whining for a handout. This reporter has chosen her path, motherhood and a career. Realizing that her choice has created difficulties for her, she now wants others to pick up the tab for alleviating those difficulties. What a maroon, what a typical liberal.
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