A new study finds a growing divide between attitudes of stay-at-home and working moms, while several recent articles claim that the mommy wars do not exist.
The tensions between stay at home and working moms are growing according to a new research study. This Pew Research survey finds that there is more disagreement now than ten years ago among moms about whether it is better to be a stay at home mom or a working mom.
Asking mothers about their views on raising children, a 2007 Pew study about motherhood finds that “A 44% plurality of at-home moms consider the increase in working mothers bad for society while about half as many say it is good for society and the remainder take a neutral position. By contrast, working moms are split almost evenly between positive, negative, and neutral views of how this trend is affecting society. … the opinion divide on this question between at home and working moms has emerged over the past decade.
A number of books discuss of the roles of moms and the delicate balancing of work and family. These include: Mommy Wars: Stay-at-Home and Career Moms Face Off on Their Choices, Their Lives, Their Families by Leslie Morgan Steiner; The Truth Behind the "Mommy Wars": Who Decides What Makes a Good Mother? by Miriam Peskowitz; and To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife by Caitlin Flanagan. A new novel - The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross - explores the challenges of modern motherhood from perspective of an at-home and career mom.
Taking the opposite view from the Pew study on moms opinions about motherhood, several recent articles claim that the mommy wars is a marketing concept, not a real conflict between working moms and stay at home moms.
A recent Washington Post article titled “The Mommy War Machine,” E.J. Graff says: “But I've got news for you: This is a war that isn't. The ballyhooed Mommy Wars exist mainly in the minds -- and the marketing machines -- of the media and publishing industry, which have been churning out mom vs. mom news flashes since, believe it or not, the 1950s. All while the number of working mothers has been rising.”
Susan Faludi views the war of the mommies as a distraction from the fundamental issue of equality between women and men and faced by moms who stay at home versus moms who work.
In her recent piece, “Pitting Women Against Each Other,” she explains: “Since the late ‘90s, and thanks in large measure to the steering influence of the media, the national “debate” on women has centered on content-free blatherings about Monica and the bad behavior of a host of interchangeable celebrity “girls,” false battles over “Mommy Wars,” disingenuous musings on breast implants and botox as opportunities for enhanced female “self-esteem,” and ephemeral pop-culture “trends” on whether, say, “Knocked Up” heralds the dawn of the “beta male.” This is all very far from the essential question of feminism: how do we remake society (not just give women the equal opportunity to max out their credit cards and be crushed by debt) so that women and men will be truly equal and full citizens, full agents not just in their personal lives but in their responsibilities to a public world?”
Nanette Fondas says in a Huffington Post article “A Peaceful Revolution: What Do Mothers Want? Presidential Candidates Take Notice!,” “American moms wish their lives were portrayed accurately by the media, with interest and nuance, not a bias toward "mommy wars.'' None of the working mothers I interviewed were critical of moms who stay home to care for children: Everyone wanted more time with their loved ones. None of the at-home moms derided mothers who go to work for pay. They recognized it as an economic necessity and often an emotional one. None expressed much angst about opting out of a big, promising career, because most had no such choice.”
Despite the common motherhood issues faced by all moms, communication differences may be a source of much of the strain between moms who work and moms that stay at home. In fact, many mothers do not fall clearly into either camp and find a work and family balance somewhere in between full time at work and full time at home. Perhaps, more attention in the future will be paid towards bridging this gap and finding a way towards mutual understanding.
