"The Conflict: How Overzealous Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women" by Elisabeth Badinter

This book may be the new Feminine Mystique. It certainly has the potential to be as controversial. Badinter occasionally gives in to the temptation to make blanket statements that actually made me mad. However, I think if you eliminate the (intentionally?) polemical tone, and look at the content, the woman's got a real point. Over-parenting may ultimately be almost as bad for the kids as neglect. It certainly is bad for the parents, especially mothers.

My mother never worked for wages. Most of the mothers of my childhood friends worked at home, as well. I knew few women who were employed. Virtually all of the women who worked for wages had no children: some were childless and others were older ladies whose children were grown. One of my school chums was the child of a single mom (I don't recall if her parents were divorced or if her dad had died). Her mother was a nurse. She was the only working mom among all my friends. I never met her because she was not involved at the school like the other mothers. She was too busy keeping food on the table and the light bill paid.

When I had my daughter, I quit working for wages for four years. Among my group of friends, a few worked full time, a few were at-home moms and most worked part-time. The women who worked full-time had more money, and typically had help with both housework and childcare. We at-home moms lived a very similar existence to our mothers, and we shared childcare among ourselves to give one another a break from time to time. When my daughter was four, I went to work part-time in order to pay for a nursery school for her, because she needed to be around other children. 

In my first job after I returned to gainful employment, I worked with three women: a woman who had never married and who was the caregiver for her elderly mother who suffered from dementia; a woman who worked full-time and had five children from three to early teens (the older three all played some kind of sport); and, a single mother of one preteen girl who also worked full time. All three of those women were exhausted virtually all the time.

In various subsequent part-time and, now, full-time jobs, I've seen that scenario play out over and over. Mothers are expected to work full time, take care of their homes and be involved in every aspect of their children's lives. Some husbands step up and help with child-rearing and housework. Most do not. The women all take up the slack. Virtually every woman I know with children at home is trying to do all the mothering that at-home moms used to do (and more) while working full-time. It's no wonder they are stressed-out and exhausted.

Part of that is because I think on-the-job expectations of productivity have increased with the use of technology. In the past, a day in which I read and responded to twenty or thirty letters or memos would have been an extremely busy day. Now, I get more than 100 emails a day, and virtually every one of them is time sensitive. At the end of the day, I'm mentally drained. But, that's okay because I come home to an empty house. I can make dinner if I feel like it, or eat cheese and crackers for supper. My house doesn't get messy because I clean as I go, and I'm the only one here. That gives me the time in the evenings and weekends to relax and rest.

My colleague, on the other hand, who has the same workload, goes home every night and cooks for her family. She helps her two kids with homework. She does all of the housework. She is exhausted, stressed, and worried all the time. I worry for both her physical and mental health.

The few women with kids who worked in the 1960's were not expected to be involved in their after-school activities or sports. Actually, a lot of the kids of working (usually single) moms did not participate in after school activities or sports because there was no one to provide transportation, and, often, not enough money. The at-home moms were involved in school activities because they had the time, but even the at-home moms did not spend every minute of every day serving their children's every need or wish.  Parents did not "entertain" their children. Kids were expected to keep themselves occupied and stay out of the way as much as possible. 

Until recently, nobody was expected to parent with the intensity that young people are doing today.

Today, women are expected to bring home the bacon, cook it, clean up, take their kids to sports practice and/or make sure they are being entertained with "enriching" experiences.  After that, they do the laundry and/or help the kids with (mostly stupid, busywork) homework assignments.

The constant pressure to over-parent endangers the parents' health and, potentially, their relationships. Badinter's point is that it is very bad for women in every area of their lives. Modern mothers are supposed to be virtually slaves to their children.

That's bad for the parents, but I fear even that what it's doing to the kids may be worse.  They are growing up believing that they are each the center of the universe and all their desires must be fulfilled immediately and abundantly.

They are in for such a rude awakening! 

Book Review: "The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel" by Diane Setterfield

Life is compost. ... The writer's life needs time to rot away before it can be used to nourish a work of fiction. It must be allowed to decay." Vida Winter in The Thirteenth Tale

This is a book* for writers and readers and anyone else who reveres the power of Story.  It is a beautifully written modern Gothic novel. (I love British prose.)

The narrator, Margaret, works in her father's bookshop and pursues a side-line as an amateur biographer.  One day, she receives a letter from an author who is one of the UK's most beloved 20th Century novelists, inviting her to visit for the purpose of discussing the possibility of an engagement to write a biography of the author.  Margaret prides herself in reading only "classics."  She has never read any of Vida Winter's novels. In anticipation of her meeting with the author, she reads everything she can find by and about the novelist.  She is surprised to discover that she loves the novels and she is shocked to discover that Winter has offered up a completely different version of her biography in every interview she's ever given. Her public "biographies" are as fictional as her novels.

Margaret is not sure she wants to write the woman's biography because she is afraid she can't trust her, but Margaret accepts the invitation to find out more about this mysterious woman. She travels to the author's home which is in a remote and desolate part of Yorkshire. Thus begins a journey of discovery into the secrets (and lies) that have cursed and all but destroyed a prominent family, and scarred many in the village as well.

The story has all the classic features of Gothic novels: the haunted mansion filled with secrets, the faithful and devoted servants (whose loyalties vary), the strange and even insane nobility, the village doctor (whose character and role in the story was a cool twist), and the Outsider who deciphers the Mystery. It somehow manages to avoid being formulaic, because Setterfield uses those elements in new and different ways. The story progresses logically, and gradually peels back the layers to reveal the Truth -- which surprised me.  (I love it when that happens.)

This is one of those novels that you should save up for a rainy weekend when you have lots of tea and plenty of time to stretch out on the couch, while the wind and rain pound against the windows. Even better, read it in under the covers on a dark and stormy night.  (I have always wanted to use that phrase!!)

Buy it here*.

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Perspective

If you've stopped by here before, you know that I'm a huge fan of Ingrid Schaffenburg at The Threadbare Gypsy Soul.  Recently, she wrote a post on Perspective that lit me up.

Those of us who live in places with clean water, available medicine, paying jobs, even just a little money in the bank and our health should spend most of our days prostrate in gratitude.

Instead too often we bitch and moan when the coffee at the 7 Eleven has been sitting for more than 20 minutes, a store clerk doesn't jump up and snap to attention the minute we walk into the department or a traffic light gets stuck. Ingrid's example about the petty and mean women on an airplane is so common, I'd be willing to bet that anyone who has flown in the last decade could add a similar example. Too many people in America today appear to have lost the capacity for kindness or forbearance.  In short, we have lost our perspective.

Perhaps that's where writers (both non-fiction and fiction) can help.  Writers can hold up a mirror to demonstrate how good we have it in comparison with how bad life could be.  If we pay attention, that could help us maintain proper perspective and avoid getting upset over things that are really not that important.

I recently read a novel that is a prescription for improving perspective:  The Wildflowers of Terezin. This novel is set in Denmark during WWII. Most Holocaust stories feature the Evil Germans and the struggle of the Jews to retain some remnant of humanity in the face of the Final Solution. This story is more like Schindler's List in that there is the third leg of the stool: the righteous non-Jews who try to help. Oscar Schindler was one guy. This story features the good people of Denmark who, inspired by their own convictions and encouraged by the Lutheran bishops, try to help their Jewish neighbors.

I read the book all in one sitting. Couldn't put it down. I ended up feeling inspired by the power of the human spirit in the face of adversity. I also felt grateful for living in America today and not Europe a generation past.

E-Book Review: "The Call of the Herald" by Brian Rathbone

This is the first of a series, set in a mythical place that seems suspiciously like Australia. An ancient legend about the coming of "The Herald" appears to be about to come true. The people of Godsland are under attack from a foreign nation that wants to destroy the Herald because they fear it will attempt to destroy them.

The Herald turns out to appear in the guise of a young girl. She possesses enormous powers that she does not know how to control. Guarded by a small group of faithful friends, she journeys across the land, in search of a safe place, while fighting the invaders to protect her homeland.

The book was very well written. The characters were interesting and engaging.  The bad guys are super bad. The heroes are good people, but flawed in ways that make them believable and sympathetic. I think the book could have benefited from more backstory: I wanted to know the source of the legends, a little more of the history of Godsland and the origin of their enmity with the invaders.  I'm guessing that information will be contained in the next volume of the series.

It was a good story, well told.

Get the book here.  The author's website is here.