A truce in the "Mommy Wars"

Politicians, the media -- and women themselves -- hype the work vs. stay-home issue as a catfight. But a new book says the real war is within each woman.

By Helaine Olen

Read more: Parenting, Children, Feminism, Motherhood, Life

March 15, 2006 | The pursuit of happiness has always been a loaded concept for mothers. We constantly juggle our wants and our children's needs in an uneasy balancing act. The struggle often leaves us quick to anger. Sometimes the mere mention of words like "motherhood" and "employment" or "breast" and "formula" in the same sentence can cause us to go a little feral.

Welcome to the "Mommy Wars." The term was coined in the late 1980s by Child magazine to describe the tension and anger that existed between working and stay-at-home moms. But in the 20 years since then, the phrase has been overused by an eager media that seems intent on pitting women against one another.

Leslie Morgan Steiner, an advertising executive at the Washington Post, believes women are at war not because they really have a beef with moms who make different choices, but because they are insecure about their own decisions regarding work and family. It's that internal catfight that leads to the external drama -- the one media, advertisers and politicians love to cite for their own purposes. "Motherhood in America is fraught with defensiveness, infighting, ignorance and judgment about what's best for kids, family and women," Steiner writes in her new anthology, "Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families." The book, with its provocative title and loaded subject matter, has attracted a lot of publicity both in the mainstream media -- the "Today" show, "Good Morning America" and Newsweek have all covered it -- and in the blogosphere. The attention demonstrates a fundamental truth: Point a finger of blame at another woman and you get noticed.

Yet Steiner is quick to point out she is no Linda Hirshman, the feminist flamethrower who provoked massive outrage and reams of discussion late last year by writing in the American Prospect that women should not stay home with their children because the domestic sphere is inherently inferior to the world of paid work. Steiner has no desire, she says, to tell women the proper way to lead their lives. Because for all the conflict embedded in the term "mommy wars," the truth of most women's lives is a lot more nuanced. That fact is reflected in the 26 essays in Steiner's anthology, which offer a subtler reflection on the lives of modern mothers than the title might suggest.

Many of the writers in the collection have rotated in and out of the workforce and almost all profess understanding for those mothers who have made different decisions. But while their judgments may be muted, between the lines, even writers who say that their choices are best for themselves, not necessarily others, sometimes betray their beliefs. Take contributor Inda Schaenen, who says she believes that it's great for other moms to work outside the home -- but then, a few paragraphs later, adds that "It is impossible to bring your best self to two separate full-time jobs simultaneously." What does that mean for "Lizzie McGuire" creator Terri Minsky, who took a one-year job on the West Coast while her family remained in their New York home? Her children would call her up and ask, "Mommy, do you love your television show more than us?" African-American journalist Sydney Trent ponders why the women in her husband's white family seem uncomfortable with her decision to keep on working. "As a working mother, I often feel judged by whites and rarely by blacks," she admits. Steiner doesn't provide any answers. "In order to end this catfight and emerge united, we need to explain ourselves to one another," she writes.

Steiner, 40, lives in Washington with her husband and three children. Currently on leave from the Post to promote "Mommy Wars," she has started a blog on work-life balance on the newspaper's Web site called On Balance. She met with Salon recently when she was in New York.

Why did you decide to do a book on the topic of working vs. stay-at-home moms?

I wanted moms to have a voice in the discussion over what's best for women, working motherhood or stay-at-home motherhood. I was really frustrated by everything I read and saw about motherhood. The debate was dominated by politicians oversimplifying the issues to get elected and advertising executives creating diaper and laundry detergent ads, and academics too.

The more personal part of it is that I always knew I wanted kids and that I wanted to work. I'm sort of devoutly a working mother, and I was fascinated by stay-at-home moms. Although I wouldn't have admitted this at the time, I was also jealous and angry, like, "How dare they be happy staying at home." I just couldn't believe they could be truly happy, without work and without their own financial independence. I couldn't get stay-at-home moms to talk about it; they wouldn't talk to me because I was a working mom. There was just a big divide.

Why do you think this whole issue of women and work choice has become such a hot topic recently? I'm sure you know about the Linda Hirshman piece...

I thought she made some really good points, and part of what she said I agree with and part of it I disagree with. I love the debate. We should be talking endlessly about these issues.

What did you agree with?

When she says it is a financial risk to stay at home with your children, to forgo your own earning capacity, she's right.

Do you feel -- like Hirshman -- that these women are failing feminism by staying home?

I think that's ridiculous. A lot of younger women today are choosing to stay home because they don't feel they need to prove they can have it all in terms of work and family. And you know what? I think that's great. That's what I and a lot of other women worked so hard for.

Why do you think the subject of women and work arouses so much passion and anger?

Every woman, every mom in America, wants to feel good about herself. Everybody is a unique kind of mom, but there's no message out there, anywhere in American society, that you are a good mom. If you can't feel good about yourself the next best thing is feeling better than somebody else. Ask any seventh-grade girl. That's what cliques are about; that's what catty behavior is all about.

We're taught from an early age not to compete with men, that that's the worst thing in the world, that you're an unlikable, unlovable person if you compete with men. So we compete with women, and bash women because we're trying to feel good about ourselves.

Instead of saying, "You know what, she can do whatever she wants. It's a free country and she makes some good points, but this is my life," we just go crazy, and that's why I was so angry at stay-at-home moms. How dare they be happy? What did I care? It's great that they were happy. I didn't feel that way before because I was insecure.

Over 40 percent of Americans work at least 50 hours a week. So we live in an environment where it is very hard to have two parents working. Especially without resources to hire a sitter to come in...

But it's not just about outsourcing child care. People talk a lot about how little time we have and how manic we are: We're eating fast food and we're making our kids eat in the car and do their homework in the car and we're so rushed. All of that's true but the reason is because we're expected to give so many sheer hours to our jobs.

It's almost impossible in today's world to have two people work and raise kids unless they're self-employed or one's an entrepreneur or they have a very understanding employer.

Next page: "These moms may be better educated and more economically stable than others, but they are still tackling universal problems"