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Carol Platt Liebau - Columnist

Carol Platt Liebau is editorial director and a senior member of tOR and CRO editorial boards. She is an attorney, political analyst and commentator based in San Marino, CA, and has appeared on the Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNN, Orange County News Channel, Cox Cable and a variety of radio programs throughout the United States. A graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Carol Platt Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com [go to Liebau index]

The Perfect Madness of "Mommy Stress"
...And the Myth of "Having It All"...
[Carol Platt Liebau] 2/21/05

In last week’s Newsweek, Judith Warner – author of the new book Perfect Madness – asserts that mothers today are uniquely “stressed out” and unhappy. This phenomenon causes her to ask,

[W]hy has this generation of mothers, arguably the most liberated
and privileged group of women America has ever seen, driven
themselves crazy in the quest for perfect mommy-dom?

It’s a fair question. After all, women raised children for years on the American frontier – and today, throughout much of the world – with much less diversion and many fewer conveniences than even the most underprivileged Americans enjoy today. And it’s not the most impoverished mothers who are complaining the loudest – it’s the upscale, the affluent, the suburbanites.

In apportioning blame, Warner often picks the wrong scapegoats – for instance, “our country’s lack of affordable, top-quality daycare” – but she does, eventually, stumble onto the roots of the problem that is afflicting many American mothers. She writes, “We became mothers, and found when we set out to ‘balance’ our lives . . . that there was no way to make this most basic of ‘balancing acts’ work.”

Yes, women have discovered that the feminist propaganda that they were fed as children in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s just isn’t true. It really isn’t possible to “have it all.” There is no way to work a demanding full-time job and be the primary figure in a small child’s life – or even be around enough to keep in meaningful touch with a busy teenager – and enjoy a normal domestic life, all at the same time. At some level, many stay-at-home mothers know this, and resent having been assured that all their hard work could pay off in the end with a stellar career and a well-functioning family. And at some level, most working women know it, too, and they feel terribly, terribly guilty about the choices they are making.

Along with the shared experience of being raised in an age where feminists promised young women the world, today’s moms were also the first generation to have to cope with widespread divorce – and their own mothers entering the workforce. Many of them grew up without the maternal attention that their own mothers had experienced as children. And so, if they know nothing else, they know that just being there for their children matters. That’s why some highly educated women will stay home, even though they prefer to work. And that’s why most working moms suffer tremendous guilt.

From all of this derives the new phenomenon of “mothering perfectionists.” Many stay-at-home moms are making that choice for their children’s benefit. They are determined to give that sacrifice meaning through superior mothering that validates their choice. Working moms become “mothering perfectionists” out of a sense that, even if a child is deprived of his mother most of the time, the lack of “mothering time” will be compensated for by superior “mothering quality.”

It goes without saying that there is no perfect answer to the “perfect mother” dilemma. But sometimes – especially during the few short years when children are little – maybe it isn’t supposed to be about the mommies. Perhaps if Judith Warner’s stressed out mommies could muster the maturity to accept the fact that no one can “do it all” and that sacrifices aren’t always easy, at least some of the ballyhooed “perfect mother” stress would, finally, dissipate like a malodorous mist. tOR

Columnist Carol Platt Liebau is a political analyst, commentator and theOneRepublic / CaliforniaRepublic.org editorial director based in San Marino, CA. Ms. Liebau also served as the first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. Her web log can be found at CarolLiebau.blogspot.com

copyright 2005

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