Ellen Goodman: Women still fighting mommy wars

[question everything]

ELLEN GOODMAN THE BOSTON GLOBE
Women still fighting mommy wars

January 5, 2006

(snip)

But on this New Year's Day, (Terry Hekker) the mother of five was back in the same newspaper, updating her life. There were divorce papers handed to her on her 40th wedding anniversary. There was the shock of finding herself treated like "outdated kitchen appliances." The income that made her eligible for food stamps. Once, she had sniped at the idea that "the only work worth doing is that for which you get paid." Now, she acknowledged the harsh reality that "the work for which you do get paid is the only work that will keep you afloat."

Terry's story is not unique. But she told it as a veteran combatant in the mommy wars to the younger generation: "I read about the young mothers of today – educated, employed, self-sufficient – who drop out of the work force when they have children, and I worry and wonder. ... Maybe they'll be fine. But the fragility of modern marriage suggests that at least half of them may not be."

This sadder-but-wiser memo was just the latest missive in the heated, or reheated, debate over women's lives. Especially over work and family. Remember last fall when the same paper of record turned up the heat with a front-page bulletin: Many of the best and the brightest young women at elite colleges were planning to become full-time mothers. It was yet another variation on the Times Story That Will Not Die: "young women opting out." But it stirred up the readers and researchers, bloggers and e-mailers.

(snip)

A retired Brandeis professor, Hirshman lamented stay-at-home brides, saying that "the real glass ceiling is at home." Her message – snap out of it – was about as soothing as Mennen skin bracer across a raw wound. She advised young women to find jobs that show them the money, to marry "down" or to marry feminist men, and to have no more than one child. Not surprisingly, her hatchet job on the glass ceiling led yet another Timesman, columnist David Brooks, to counterattack with a homily about how "power is in the kitchen." Where, I am sure, he spends his days stirring the soup pot with his laptop.

Enter Terry Hekker, anecdote and life story, offering a simple refresher course on economic reality. A quarter-century after praising the satisfactions of home, she wishes she had prepared to support herself. The bottom line was/is the bottom line.

(snip)



Goodman can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060105/news_lz7e5goodman.html



See also http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=501

[xchrom]

1. david brooks AGAIN!?!

what the fuck does that mild mannered fascist know from womens lives?

[Ilsa]

2. How sad.

Glad my SO is a feminist. Glad I got my degree and spent 15 years working before having kids. I think we're too tired to find younger replacements.

[seabeyond]

8. lol lol ilsa, us too. that is funny but a reality

i think this article is very sad too. i think it is a good thing for there to be a parent, either parent with the children while they are young. i think this is a good idea. i dont like the thought of a baby doing without because of a fear of something that COULD happen.

[Warpy]

3. Women can't win

Postpone children until you're educated and established in a career, you find yourself in need of fertility treatments. If you're rich and lucky, they work.

Have children in the peak childbearing years of 18-26 and you might find yourself with a houseful of hungry kids after hubby has decamped with a younger chick leaving you no way to feed them.

Don't have children at all and you're labeled a selfish bitch who wants to party her way through life.

Go out and work and maintain a career and you're heartlessly leaving your precious children to be raised by paid strangers.

Stay home and raise your kids and you're economically dependent on a man who may or may not stick around for the duration, making you vulnerable to financial disaster not within your control. Not only that, you are too dull to talk to at parties.

No matter what a woman does, she'll be in the wrong her whole life.

[China_cat]

4. Well that's what you get for

choosing to be female. (Hey, gender's a choice, isn't it?)

[cmd]

7. You are absolutely right about that

We are not going to be returning to Ozzie and Harriet days. Women who choose to have children must be prepared for the possibility that they may have to raise them on their own. There are no money back guarantees that come with a marriage license or with children.

[Ilsa]

10. The last option is to not have the kids.

Childless folks tend to be happier according to the studies, right?

I bet the rats and cockroaches would like to take over the planet after humanity dies out for lack of procreation.

[justabob]

13. Its true

Very wrong, but true.

[wildeyed]

5. I told my husband that if he traded me in for a younger model

I would fight for every penny we have and give him full custody :)

[Boomer]

6. Since when is mandatory work the answer?

Supposedly, the point of feminism was to offer choices, not to turn women who had to stay home into women who had to work.

The real answer to this problem is to find ways to protect the vulnerable spouse (male or female) who takes on full-time responsibility for taking care of the home and the children. But to say that all women have to work is accepting an injustice, not fighting it.

I chose to work all my life (and not have any children) because that's the kind of activity I truly enjoy and I would have made a piss-poor parent. But I know that other women (and men) might make other choices based on their own preferences. They should have the same opportunity for self-fullfillment that I do.

[Xithras]

9. Heh, my friends ex did just that.

He dumped her for a younger woman after 15 years of marriage and three children, so she filed court papers giving him full custody. He FREAKED, and in the end she walked away with almost everything in exchange for keeping the kids AND he pays a couple thousand a month in child support. Funny thing is, his girlfriend left him when this all went down and he's now single and miserable. She's getting remarried in a couple months :)

[MountainLaurel]

11. What a great strategy!

:rofl:

Bet he was one of those guys who thought that taking care of his own children for two hours while his wife went to the dentist was "babysitting" and going far beyond the call of duty.

[wildeyed]

12. Tell her I said, you go!

Hope her new hubby is younger and really hot, too :)

I don't actually believe my husband would dump me, but I wanted to put him on notice just in case. All the assets are in both names, too. ;)