The Author’s Marketing Genius

Being short on time, I don’t feel compelled to read the latest cog in the Mommy War machine: Leslie Bennetts’ book The Feminine Mistake.  Plus, having read much of the buzz, I feel confident I understand her hypothesis.  Bennetts argues that when choosing to leave careers for childrearing many women don’t consider the long term economic impact.   By depending on men for income now, Bennetts posits, women may significantly limit their choices later in life - with negative consequences for them and their children.  It’s a common story and an immensely important point, worthy of discussion.  But I’m not entirely convinced Leslie Bennetts really cares about propelling civic discourse.

Bennetts’ titling of the book is simulataneously a clever invocation of Friedan feminism and genius marketing, and I’m admittedly jealous. You tap a nerve, you sell a book.  Still - in every article I read - Bennetts, a savvy journalist by trade, defensively insists she had ”no idea” the book would cause such a “backlash”.   

Sure, Leslie, you put right on the cover of your book: “Hey, Mom, Your Choice Was WRONG,”  and you didn’t have the slightest inkling it would disturb mothers and cause buzz?  The suggestion is disingenuous at best and preposterous at worst. 

Unfortunately, the combination of the savvy title, her defensive response, and the current status of reporting feeds the One-Right-Answer myth and sells news.  We’re back to arguing about who’s best instead of discussing the more important questions … How can we abolish gender and family discrimination in the workplace?    Why do we accept the high cost of childcare while also accepting such low standards of care?  And what action can people take to  care for their children and protect their financial future?

Unfortunately, the real and important questions implicated by Bennetts’ work have been lost in a sea of provocative news headlines and biased blogging.  Too bad. 

Posted in The Fretting Feminist | |

I’m Late to the Party, but Gimme a Drink.

I didn’t see the Today Show segment on Cocktail Playdates when it ran last week, but after reading all the controversy I watched it on MSN.   

Since it ran, the blogosphere’s been aflutter with support and disdain for blogger Melissa Summers.  If you don’t want to take the time to watch the entire clip, here’s a long story made short:  

Summers has admitted she has combined social drinking and children’s playdates. So the Today Show invited her to come on the show and talk about that with Meredith Viera.  They also invited a psychology pundit named Janet Taylor to argue the “other side” and say something along the lines of ‘you need to do something way more appropriate to relieve stress lest you be a bad role model, endanger your children, and wreak havoc in the modern world.’ (I’m paraphrasing, of course.)  As a side note, I found Melissa’s reflective and thoughtful response to the experience, though lengthy, to be worthy of my reading time.  

The thing is, Janet Taylor’s got the high road, and there’s really no arguing with her logic.  Of course we need to be reasonable about what we do when we have children.  But the show, and the whole “Cocktail Playdate Controversy” leaves me still begging for an answer to the same question I posed last week …

Why [Oprah, or Meredith, or Katie, or Elizabeth]? Why do you, and the media machine that drives you, continue to pit mothers against each other and take us to task for every choice we make for ourselves and our children?

   … Mommy, do you work or stay home?  WRONG.  Mommy, do you cook or eat out?  WRONG.  Do you ever have a drink?  WRONG.  Do you spank, yell, Ferberize, bribe, punish, swear, allow TV, disallow TV, run, play, blog, have sex, go out, stay in, craft, read, speak languages, join PTA, homeschool, no school, private school, public school, sports, dance? Ooh - bad, bad, bad, bad and double bad. 

Alas, I renew my demand for One.Single.Story from a national news program that grills (or even just politely asks) the modern father about:

1) Men and how their work choices impact their children; 2) The application of Family Leave laws to MEN; or, as here, 3) The impact it has on the children when men drink a beer at the family SuperBowl party. 

In the alternative,  I guess we can all just keep martyring ourselves at the foot of the duty mother, ignoring the role of fathers, and arguing over who gets the title of Best Mommy. 

Here’s me doing my part in sing-songy schoolyard voice … ”Not It.”

Posted in The Fretting Feminist | |

This Just In - the Mommy Wars Have Ended.

If you believe all the hype, at least as it used to be, there were two sets of mothers, and they were at war…

In Corner 1 STAY AT HOME MOM. She eschews a fabulous career to do the unsung work of the home, sacrificing herself at the altar of child-rearing, possibly raising the perfect child, but sending a terrible message about gender roles in the home. Generally it is the Camp 1 mom who is blamed for using her minivan as a death vehicle. She runs motorcycle guys off the road as she races to soccer practice with perfectly coiffed hair and a basket of muffins. The carpets might be clean over in Corner 1; and they might have a healthy dinner on the table, but at what cost to feminism? After all, the Corner 1 mom is selfishly catapulting gender equality back by fifty years. She should be ashamed of her choice for the message it sends not only to her children, but to children across the globe. Why did she bother getting an education if she was just going to quit and stay home?

And in this corner - WORKING MOM. Working mom decided to keep her spectacular job, the selfish bitch. She hired someone else to watch her children so that she could follow her own dreams and goals. She may as well have sold her children on the black market because she obviously works for the dual purpose of feeding her own ego and her desire for material possessions. She may be a fantastic role model for women’s rights, but her own children will be destined to crime and therapy because of her utter lack of attention to their needs. Why did Corner 2 mom even have children if she didn’t want to raise them?

I’ve always been sidelined in the Mommy Wars, or so I thought. I’ve tried it all. I’ve worked full-time; I’ve worked part-time; I’ve telecommuted, contracted and freelanced. At every corner I’ve tried to minimize childcare without completely surrendering my contribution to income or my own desire to use my brain. And, go me, right?

WRONG! I read in Parenting Magazine that there is actually a third corner. Apparently the warring mommies got tired of taking all the flack. In Corner 3 - work at home mommy - the mother who thought she could avoid the war by being all things to all people. By trying to work and parent at the same time she gives the kids a fair quantity of her time, without giving them any quality time. She might turn on the TV while she teaches an online course or tries her hand at writing an article. She might yell “just one more minute” while she sends a resume to that great contract position. While she is working, her kids are fending for themselves. Turns out, say the so-called experts, by trying to be the best mom - Corner 3 lost the battle and the war, and actually became the worst.

Fine. I lost. I’ll take it if it means we can finally stop having this discussion.

Posted in The Fretting Feminist | |

The Vagina Monologues for Preschoolers?

Recently my oldest boy was strutting around the house practicing his math by counting the genital make-up of our household…

“Now that we have the baby,” he announced confidently, “there are three people in the house who have penises and two who don’t.”
“Yep,” I said quickly, blushing at the picture of gender math recurring in line at the grocery store.
“And” he continued to his sister “you don’t have a penis.” Just to make sure she understood he said it again, louder, getting right in her face. “You know, You Don’t Have A Penis, [Sis].”

Before I even had a chance to contemplate how to handle this issue, my daughter retorted. “Hmph!” She said, stomping away, “I don’t know what’s so great about your penis, anyway.”

While I smiled and secretly cheered my daughter for her unusual insight and gusto, I also realized something that concerned me. From the beginning of toilet talk, we teach boys the names of their private parts while we teach girls what they don’t have. We teach girls the absence of the parts.Anyone who has a girl with older brothers has stumbled upon the potty training daughter trying to pee standing up at least once. The day it happened to me, I gently reminded her she has to sit down to pee. “Why?” she inquired, “[Brother] stands up.” The easiest explanation came out somewhere along the lines of boys and girls have different body parts. Boys have penises and girls, well girls… don’t.Of course, as parents we know we are supposed to teach girls about their anatomy, about what they do have. But even when we try labeling the vagina, I will make a bold guess that most parents don’t say the word ‘vagina’ with the frequency or confidence with which we teach the boys about their penises. Many of us resort to simple babyish terms like “pee-pee” or “buttsy” that the whole family can say without risk of embarrasment.And so I went searching for some resources that might help me teach my daughter the words. I didn’t find much. Potty training books avoid using any anatomical identification words, and they certainly don’t detail the parts of the vagina. While there are a handful of good books about puberty for older girls, I wasn’t able to find anything geared toward preschoolers.I can’t provide any insight about how we erase lifetimes of discriminatory cultural history that resulted in allowing us to shout about the ‘penis’ while we whisper ‘vagina’. But shouldn’t we start to try?

Posted in The Fretting Feminist | |