Despatches from a mother who started late (and is running to catch up)

Feminine mistakes

An article on the excellent News for Parents site reports that an American writer has stirred up controversy with a book arguing that mothers who don't work could be risking their financial security, as well as their happiness.

In The Feminine Mistake, Vanity Fair journalist Leslie Bennetts warns stay-at-home mums that their decision to give up economic self-sufficiency and rely on their partner could have disastrous consequences.

The book's title's an ironic nod to fellow American writer Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, the groundbreaking work credited with launching the feminist movement. The book attacked the idea a husband and children were all a woman needed for fulfillment.

The latest book's stirred up a hornet's nest in the US, where according to poor Bennetts, stay-at-home mums are "burning up the blogosphere denouncing me". Last time I checked there were no fewer than 68 heated reviews of the book on Amazon alone, most of them huffy and defensive, all defending the writer's personal choices on working or not working.

Bennetts, herself a working mum, insists she only wants to alert women to dangers in giving up work to rely on a partner's income, like divorce, or a husband losing his job. My fellow blogger Omega Mum over at 3kidsnojob can tell you all about the latter scenario in her entertaining account of what happens when a husband loses his job, in their case through no fault of his own.

Bennetts also says that women who take career breaks planning to get back to work once the kids are ready should know they will take a huge salary hit - and might not get back to the same level at all. And there's also the sense of self-worth that women can gain outside the home. Plus pension entitlement. I'll see what she says about part-time work-at-home mums, and let you know about that.

The report was mostly manna to my web-weary eyes after a sorry day filling up the depleted Mother at Large household coffers. But why do I need a US author I've never even met to validate my parenting choices? Why do I need to read this to feel okay about how I arrange my life? Am I the only mother who needs approval from a book I've not yet read for choosing to work? I'd like to see a time when women can make career decisions without reference to a battery of parenting experts. Then again, maybe most women already do.

Posted 30 May 2007 22:44

Angst Childcare Dilemmas Home working Nursery Work Work vs mothering Parenting gurus

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