Happy Housewife vs. Mad Mommy

[dogday]

A new book says that if middle-class mothers are sleep-deprived, angry, exhausted and unhappy, it's a consequence of their foolish demand for self-fulfillment.


http://www.alternet.org/images/managed/Story+Image_thumb_flanagan-book.jpg

It's hard out there for a working mother. She is her offspring's designated maid, cook, chauffer, playmate, teacher, nurse, and of course, the source of absolute, unconditional love. Yet nothing she does is ever quite enough -- at least not for cultural conservatives, to whom she is the very epitome of female narcissism, a selfish monster eager to sacrifice the happiness of her children to meet her personal needs.

More alarmingly, it's not just NASCAR rednecks or James Dobson followers who subscribe to this anti-feminist cant. The breadth of its appeal can be measured by the career of someone like Caitlin Flanagan, who has been a staff writer for two of the nation's most prestigious magazines, the Atlantic Monthly and now the New Yorker. Flanagan's singular claim to fame: her relentless advocacy of the idea that a "good" woman sets aside her needs to serve those of others, a task best achieved by remaining within the confines of the home.

Flanagan, as it turns out, is no happy housewife quietly tending to husband and child, but a "domestic diva" who delegates the actual housework to the less fortunate, leaving her free to wax eloquent about the virtues of homemaking in lengthy essays that have now been turned into a new book, "To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife."

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/35901/

[Caoimhe]

1. OMG

:popcorn:

[mirandapriestly]

2. Ugh, that reminds me of (usually male) pediatricians

telling mothers how to raise children when they've never spent more than than an hour with a child and get paid handsomely to do it. It's easy to be happy & fulfilled when you are just telling others how to do their job.

[dogday]

4. Isn't it though

They have no idea what life is like in the real world

[azurnoir]

3. Reminds me of those infomercials

how I became a millionaire: (by getting you idiots to buy my program at a $200 or so bucks a pop).

[Midlodemocrat]

5. Sounds like that asshat Dr. Laura.

Stay home with your kids, (everyone but me)
Stay married to your kids' father (everyone but me)

[mikeytherat]

10. Take your husband's name in marriage (everyone but me)

Be an upright, moral person who would never pose nude for photos taken by your adulterous lover (everyone but me)

Man, we could go on and on with this couldn't we?

mikey_the_rat

[Warpy]

6. Another Phyllis Schlafly

a career woman of extreme privilege who sits on her pedestal surrounded by fawning servants and dares to tell working class mothers with lousy wages, high bills and not enough hours in the day that they're selfish for working for a paycheck.

Ladies who hate women will always be with us. It's up to us to educate our sisters on where they're rally at and what they're really all about.

[azurnoir]

7. Maybe the

"new century" definition of self fulfillment is being able to afford food and electricity.

[seabeyond]

8. dont f* with me on this thread. as women have the right to work

and i support them, and i will not judge, dont be deciding who i am staying at home. i serve no one. i do as i please. and my hubby makes no demands., lol lol. this is my world. i create what i want and i love my life and i am not a good little housewife because i stay home. more i see it i have a beautiful life full of freedom and ease, even in the work of staying at home and would not trade it for anything in the world. so as this trhead begins to grow,..... standing up for the working woman, dont be putting me in my place. cause, my place, is awfully grand too, and just how i like and want.

[DBoon]

9. Keeping employers off the hook for allowing domestic leaves

if women are supposed to stay home in the first place, then there is no need for family leave, right?