Christine VanDeVelde discusses two books with passionate points of view on motherhood

In 2002, when Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It became a modest bestseller and the "It" girl of chick lit, I took a pass on it. I wasn't interested in reading a book that I thought would make me second guess my choice to stay home and raise my daughter. Pearson's book appeared to be the latest literary salvo in the Mommy Wars, where a winner in the non-working mother vs. working mother skirmish must be declared by the end of the tale, magazine article, newspaper column or blog post. This conflict, which exists mostly in the minds of the media, is calculated not to illuminate, but instead to stir up trouble and make women feel badly about themselves.

But four years after its original publication, I accidentally picked up the UK edition of Pearson's book, not realizing it was the same story I'd shunned.  (Why are UK covers so much better than American ones? Witness Harry Potter.) And I was pleasantly surprised. I thoroughly enjoyed I Don't Know How She Does It, which is the fictional story of Kate Reddy, a hedge fund manager, mother of two small children and wife of an architect. It's far less about the Mommy Wars and far more about the front lines of motherhood where we are all just trying to get everything done, whether we're vice presidents or volunteers.

Pearson's story perfectly captures the anarchy of domestic life with children, the desperate dependence on household help when one parent is thousands of miles away closing a deal in Hong Kong, the baby has the croup, and the four-year-old needs to get to preschool, and the tyranny of the to-do list familiar to any household of three or more.  Call the repair man about the pool cover, make appointment for booster shot, order Barbie birthday cake, check for ballet class, mammogram?, oh, yes, and husband. Remember him? I won't spoil the ending here in case you haven't read it, but I can tell you that it is a depiction of marriage, domesticity and the marketplace that is engaging, compassionate and wryly funny. Above all, it talks about women's lives and their tough choices with respect.

On the heels of reading Pearson's book, though, I received The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? by Leslie Bennetts. A play on Betty Friedan's iconic The Feminine Mystique, Bennetts book is about the Mommy Wars and it's definitely a dirty bomb. "It's nice to be at home when your child loses her fourth tooth," she writes, "but is it worth the price you might pay…?" A polarizing harangue against stay-at-home mothers, Bennetts' book warns women that if they leave jobs to bake cookies and change diapers they are putting themselves and their children at risk.  "A woman without a job or career will be in dire economic straits if she loses her provider to death, desertion or debility" warns Bennetts. Really? Gosh, I never thought about that before. But this one kernel of truth in the book is laced with poison.

At a recent appearance, Bennetts opined, "Is it news that women who have never found anything meaningful to do with their lives view men as a meal ticket?" Stay-at-home motherhood, she says, is a "trap" with women "choosing economic dependency as a lifestyle." The book is astonishingly anti-male, expecting the worst from men at every turn. And it is angry, angry, angry, variously referring to mothers as "lost women", "dependent wives", "schlepper mothers", and "unachieving parents". Bennetts' utter disdain for other women's choices is shameful.

I try not to judge the choices other women have made. First of all, I recognize that many women don't have a choice. Beyond that, every family is different and I don't think I have the prescription for perfection -- unlike Bennetts, who makes me want to ride into the Mommy Wars on the side of women's right to choose between bringing home the bacon and frying it up in the pan. For me, it was important to stay home. I realized early on that I didn't have the bandwidth for babies and the boardroom. As my daughter has gotten older, I've taken on part-time work and when she goes to college, I expect I'll return to working full-time.

That's not to say that such decisions aren't difficult. I mean, that's life, right? My friends who went back to work full-time when their children were infants feel like they missed out on things that I got -- leisurely afternoon walks, tea time in the sandbox and, yes, the fourth tooth. And I look at where they are now in their careers and wish I had the resume, perks and financial security I'd have if I'd been in the work force all these years instead of driving field trips and serving hot lunch. 

But I don't know any mother who is mad at mothers who've made different choices. Since I became a parent, I've actually observed very little real rancor among mothers -- whether they were serving hot lunch or subpoenas. We were all pretty much united in our wish to do a good job and our quest to figure out how to get dinner on the table amid the chaos of kids, dogs, misbehaving kitchen appliances, Lego booby traps, and spills of Pepperidge Farm goldfish.  We're worried, stressed, sometimes bewildered, annoyed, maybe. But I'm not seeing a lot of anger in my demographic.

Copyright 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 Christine VanDeVelde. All rights reserved.