So, the Mommy Wars. They're back. Again. Or still.
A super quick recap: As you've undoubtedly heard by now, last week Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen said on CNN that Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's wife Ann, a stay at home mom, had "never worked a day in her life." Naturally, the Romney campaign latched on to that one with the sort of ferocity that would make a pitbull (lipstick-wearing or not) proud, and the media has been all over it since.
While "Can't we all just get along?" is my immediate, reflexive thought in the face of such firestorms, I realize that it's just not that simple -- and that, as Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams recently wrote, The Mommy Wars are real. In her smart and honest piece, Williams writes of her experience having a foot in both worlds -- she's a mom and a freelance writer who works from home.
Here's a taste:
We as women spend our whole lives being judged, and never more so than for our roles as mothers. We suffer for it, and frankly, we dish it out in spades. We park ourselves in separate camps, casting suspicious glances across the schoolyard. And it sucks because the judgment is there and its real and it stems so often from our own deepest fears and insecurities. We pay lip service to each other's "choices" -- and talk smack behind each other's backs.
Yep, we've got each other's backs theoretically, but when it comes down to it, Williams is pretty much right about what we're doing behind them. But what is it really about? Why are we so defensive? So eager to judge each other for doing things differently? I'd argue its because, sometimes, we worry that we're doing it wrong -- and that the easiest, most comfortable defense in the face of that kind of worry is often a good offense.
And it's not just stay at home moms versus working moms. It's working moms versus their non-mom, on-the-job counterparts. It's moms versus women who don't have kids. It's singletons versus coupleds. It's pro-Botox and anti. It's Tiger Mom versus Bringing Up Bebe. It's gluten-free/organic/vegan versus chicken fingers and tater tots.
The other night I Tivo'd a show on OWN: it featured Gloria Steinem in conversation with Oprah, and then the two of them speaking at a small gathering of Barnard college students. At one point, Oprah asked Steinem about being attacked by other women, and then cut to a clip of Steinem on Larry King's show. King thanked Steinem for being with him, she smiled hugely, and King went to a call. A woman's voice came through, and she said, "I'm so glad I get to talk to you, Ms. Steinem" ...and then went in for the kill. "Why are you trying to destroy families?" she asked in a voice so hostile it made me shiver. "Are you even married? Do you even have kids?" she demanded accusingly.
So, here's the question: why are we so quick to perceive someone else's doing things differently -- or simply fighting to get access to those different things to do -- as an attack on what we're doing, a statement on our choices? As though there can be no other explanation for why we've taken the roads we've taken than that the road we didn't take is wrong.
If we go out for ice cream and you get chocolate and I get vanilla (okay, I never get vanilla -- I will always get pralines'n'cream), can't the reason we've ordered differently just be attributed to the fact that we have different taste, like different things? Must I interpret your taste for chocolate as some sort of implicit judgment of mine for caramel? An attack on pralines? Surely, that would be chock-fulla-nuts.
What would I get out of criticizing you for your choice?
Perhaps if I was a little unsure that I'd ordered correctly, or perhaps if your choice was looking kinda good, enumerating all the ways chocolate is bad and pralines are good might help to stave off the self-doubt.
When it comes down to the Mommy Wars and all of the other crazy Us-vs.-Themmery we women put each other through, isn't this kind of what we're up to? After all, what, exactly, does my choice have to do with yours? Or yours, mine?
Well, there's something: Your choice has to do with mine in the sense that you're showing me what the road not traveled looks like. If there's only one way to do something, you're spared the worry that you're doing it wrong. There is no right or wrong, better or worse, there is only the way. But, the more options there are, well, the more options there are. And none of them is gonna be perfect, because nothing is. And when we come upon the bumps in our road, we wonder about the other road -- and we worry that it's better. And then, in our lesser moments, we seethe. We judge and we criticize in an attempt to stave off our doubts. If we can make the case that we are right -- or, perhaps more to the point, that the other is wrong -- we can seize on that little boost of self-assuredness to carry us through for a while.
So I guess what I've come up with is this: the moments when we feel like we need to make the case that that other road is wrong are probably the moments when we need to look at ourselves. Honestly. Perhaps we're frustrated, or overwhelmed, or insecure or unhappy, or -- and my money's on this one -- just having one of those days.
And women still have a lot of those days: that we have these choices we're so quick to do battle over is new. We face structural inequities, lesser pay, the bulk of the burden of the second shift -- and all of that second guessing. While we do indeed have access to a ton of paths that were blocked to us just a generation ago, we haven't yet had the chance to make them smooth and pretty. They're unpaved and overgrown and difficult to find. Of course we will have moments of self-doubt and envy and insecurity and frustration. But sniping at and about each other doesn't help anyone.
Last night before I went to bed, I was flipping the channels (it was a big weekend; I allowed myself some serious couch potato time once I got home -- don't judge!) and stopped for a quick second on CNN, because the ticker below that said "Mommy Wars" grabbed my attention. Four commentators went back and forth and around and around about the Mommy Wars. They were all men.
We are all doing the very best we can in a world that it's up to us to change to make room for us. That's true for every last one of us, no matter what path we choose to take. We're all travelers -- and we should do what good travelers do: Greet each other with a smile and an open mind. Share our stories. And, then before heading our separate ways, we should wish each other happy trails.