Did our mothers have more sex than we do? Is it a worthy aspiration to put a hot meal on the table at the end of the day? Why do most women hate housework but want to be good at it anyway?
I’ve asked those questions myself and out of desperation finally turned to self-proclaimed anti-feminist Caitlin Flanagan for the answers as she pokes a toilet plunger at the Mommy Wars debate in To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.
To be sure, Flanagan has a comfortable vantage point from which to pass judgment on the choices mothers make regarding the state of their households. By her own admission, Flanagan is a wealthy and very comfortably married woman. There is an abundance of hired help, including nanny, gardener and personal organizer, to see her and her two children through the day and a cushy home job with The New Yorker to fulfill any career aspirations. The whole fuzzy nostalgic dream of a return to 1950s-style domestic bliss looks pretty sweet from where she sits.
And why shouldn’t it? Domestic bliss it is, without the domesticity. Presumably due to having a nanny on hand, Flanagan guiltily admits to having never changed a sheet, let alone demonstrate any skill in whipping up a three-course dinner for hubby at the end of his tiring day. For someone who is not a cook, she does a damn good job of stirring the pot with comments suggesting that "women have a deeply felt emotional connection to housekeeping."
In my house the connection is still called guilt. The Catholic kind. A side-serve of it came with every meal when I was growing up. There were hospital corners, too.
While it is seductive to conjure visions of a Domestic Renaissance and a return to all things baked and beautiful, it is hollow advice from the mistress of the house when one is not doing those things oneself. We could all be domestic goddesses, happy to present our husbands with elegant meals, wafting about with perfectly prepared children if the hard slog has been done for us.
A peek into Flanagan's home confirms the fact that she has strenuously avoided the unpleasant side of having small children. ''Paloma, Patrick is throwing up!'' Flanagan would call her son's nanny.
Article comments
1 - GL Hauptfleisch
Nice review, amusing. Looking forward to more.
2 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
3 - Devra and Aviva
We hope you will come visit us so we can try and absolve some of that guilt for you. Our goal is to absolve guilt...One mommy at a time. Parenting should be enjoyable, even if it's not always fun. And certainly while guilt is a normal emotion, no parent deserves to be debilitated by the emotion!
4 - Devra and Aviva
not sure why our URL didn't link correctly, but here it is.
[I've corrected your url in this comment but you need to add the http:// part in the url box for it to be remembered. Comments Editor]
5 - GL Hauptfleisch
Congratulations! This article has been selected as an Editors' Pick.