World Famous Comics: Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety
Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety
By: Judith Warner Publisher: Ebury Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Format: Import Label: Ebury Press Number of Pages: 336 Publication Date: March 02, 2006
Excellent writer I always look forward to Judith Warner's Friday columns in the New York Times. Because she often makes me laugh, even wryly, I had expected more humor in this book. However, it is a rather serious treatise on the status of women in our society. I recommend it for anyone concerned about those issues or who has interest in how we compare to France. Well-written, thorough reporting.
Unserious Judith Warner overgeneralizes from her own personal experience and that of a small segment of society (which is self-evidently atypical of society at large), anecdotal evidence, and unsupported assertion. Her arguments are largely incoherent.
If you want polemics fine. Otherwise, pass this over: it is not a work of serious thought.
MMM? As a SaHM.. (Stay at home mom) in the mid-west, I was looking for a book that would somehow let me know that my feelings and freinds feeling were the same as other SaHM's accross the board, and was looking for way to fix these problems. IE: How to not be competitive with my 18mo Vocab with other 18mo. I was looking for a book that would make me laugh and yet laugh at myself for being so cought up in the BEST for my Child Compitition. instead I feel like I read a history book about how Women's lib was great, yet it wasn't what we thought it was gonna be! Over and Over agian. I feel that the author did a very good job in the history lesson and weighing the pros vs the cons, but this book could have been 1/2 the size and I would have gottne the point. I only read 220pgs, and just can't read anymore, I thumbed througth to see if anything cought my eye.. just the same old Blahh Women screwed up! Blahh how can we have it all? Blahh and Wahh! If you really want to be a stay at home mom the you just have to do it, and trust that you are doing the best that you can do with what you have. Rich or poor, working or not, you will always want more for your children. Not every mom is "made" to stay at home. That is okay, Just because other mom's do doesn't mean that EVERYONE should. You have to weight the pros and cons on a personal level and do what is best for you. That is kinda the jist of the book. Sorry for any miss spelled words or grammer problems!
Raises good issues, just isn't sure of causes or solutions This book took sort of a scatter-shot approach to why American mothers are going crazy. It seemed as if Judith Warner hit on a lot of themes that resonated with me, but she couldn't seem to find the exact problem, nor formulate likely to happen, workable solutions.
It seems to me that a combination of factors keeps today's mothers in a state of anxiety and isolation. One is simply the very separate nature of modern American life. Many of us live far from our parents and extended families. The mothers of young children who live near us face the same grueling schedules we do. Many women work part or full time and thus are not home in the middle of the day to get together with. We live our separate lives, coping with the pressure largely alone.
Another has to do with, I guess you would call it "expectations." After spending our lives earning advanced educational degrees, working at rewarding careers, and nurturing marriages, everything comes to an abrupt, grinding halt when babies and small children arrive on the scene. Suddenly, there are no people around, no goals to achieve, just endless rounds of diapers, food, cleaning up, and dealing with the demands of small children. Suddenly, women who up till now lived in the fast lane, are going through life with the emergency brake on.
Another factor involves the messages that society sends us, and here I have to break with other women's opinions here. I have found other women much, much more oppressive than men. A quick read on any mommy e-bulletin board yields flames telling women that if they don't breastfeed their child (competition here for how long to breastfeed), then they are engaging in child abuse. Ditto for making homemade baby food, using cloth diapers, buying only eco-friendly, educational toys, having no pain-killers during childbirth, spending as little time as possible in the hospital after childbirth...I could go on and on. If something spares a mother time, pain, convenience, or suffering, then it is denigrated by...mothers, many of them speaking in tones so arrogant and quelling that they smother any kind of debate or consensus on flexibility.
If men figure anywhere in this equation, it is in what warnings are sent to the public about pregnancy and raising small children. The warnings are dire, strident, and ultimately, produce great anxiety about outcomes with a low probability of happening. Pregnant women may not eat soft cheese or deli meat; they may not consume even a sip (a sip!) of alcohol without incurring public censure. When raising children, you may have the police on your hands if you leave your child unattended in the car for even a moment. The expectation on women is that will keep every potentially harmful substance from their children always, and likewise, that they will watch their children every single waking moment of every day without fail or be deemed defective, *bad* mothers. No wonder mothers of young children feel enormous pressure!
The issue of childcare seems like a red herring to me. Someone is still doing the work of caring for the children, and their work is the same as the mother's, except that they clock out after a few hours and get paid and go home guilt-free to their own lives, which may involve...raising small children.
As to solutions, I wish I had some... The one good thing is that the children do get bigger and wiser and require far less supervision.
Relief! This is such a great book! It took the weight off to know so many of the pressures we face are social pressures. You always think of who you are as a product of your own actions, and not ALSO as a product of the society that you're functioning in. This book suggests otherwise and highlights the Herculean demands that we face as mothers today. More importantly, though, it gave me some relief! I often feel that no matter what I do, I'm not mothering well enough. I have feared that some of my children's issues have occurred because I haven't done everything I should have as a mother. For me, this book put those feelings into perspective and helped me relax a little. I'm thankful to have read it.
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