It’s been featured on Fox and Friends, Dr. Phil, Good Morning America and countless other talk shows. The so-called “Mommy Wars” pits mother against mother in a showdown for who is the best (or worst) mom. What it really all boils down to though is mother-blame, or the idea that mothers are the source of all kinds of psychological trauma in children, and that if you don’t raise your kids in the socially constructed “right way” they will end up emotionally detached criminals. This focus has mainly been around working mothers, and whether or not having a career will emotionally scar your kids for life. While generally evidence points to “no”, there’s still plenty of media hype around the concept, which therefore begs the question, “How prevalent is mother blame against working women in today’s society?”
Historically speaking, mothers have been blamed for all sorts of physical and psychological troubles in children, from homosexuality to insanity (Coontz 70). Instilling the fear that children would turn out abnormal unless all traditional female roles were fulfilled was a way of using social control to quietly convince women to adhere to traditional family values and to stay in the home. Freudian psychologists claimed that the family would disintegrate if the complete femininity was not achieved, and women’s magazines would address the problems of neuroses in the family stemming from working mothers (Coontz 69). However, we no longer live in the 1960s, and working mothers are more accepted now in society than ever, or so we’d like to tell ourselves. However, there are still plenty of people ready to point the finger and play the blame game when it comes to working moms. Celebrity therapist Dr. Laura Schlessinger wrote that working mother’s deprive their children of necessary maternal affection and put them on a path to criminality in 2005 (Zimmerman 207). This is no longer the outdated Generation of Vipers from the 1950s, but a modern, current edition of the same attack on women.
While the media’s portrayal of working mothers is problematic in itself, is it really all just sensationalism? Do real people actually think this way or is it all media hype? I was able to sit down and talk to my mom, who had a unique experience raising children. She had the different experiences of working full time vs. part time and raising them in two very different locations. However, a general theme seemed to keep popping up. When living in a working class neighborhood near Minneapolis and working part time with two children, she explains “some of the older ladies I worked with were somewhat approving of that, saying things like ‘Oh, it’s nice when you are able to spend the time with the kids and still get out of the house.’” However, once my family moved to an upper middle class suburb near Cleveland, the attitudes shifted significantly. With the new socioeconomic environment, she says “It seemed that many school and community events were based on the idea that a mom would be available during the day to attend the functions and to drive the kids around. I did get some attitude from some of the other moms at these events, or just surprise that anyone would expect it to be different.” While this is just one specific family, research does seem to support this general finding. According to Toni Schindler Zimmerman, “…mother blame has focused specifically on white, middle class working mothers…” (209). When away from that environment, my mom was praised for working. However, when thrust into the world of upper-middle class, stay at home moms, she immediately felt a completely different strain on the expectations of motherhood.
So is mother-blame and the ostracism of working mothers still prevalent in today’s society? It looks like it depends on where you live and who you listen to. While the media tries to stir up differences in the “right” way to parent, there may be less of a difference than many think. Furthermore, the media’s focus on blaming mothers for society’s ills is nothing new, but still just as detrimental to women. When women are made to choose the best way to parent, social and economic factors play a huge part, and there is nothing wrong with this in itself. However, when the media pits these women against each other it creates unnecessary tension, when in reality, many of the differences are insignificant.
Sources:
Stephanie Coontz: A
Strange Stirring
Toni Schindler Zimmerman,
Jennifer T. Aberle, Jennifer L. Krafchick, Ashley M. Harvey: Deconstructing the “Mommy Wars”: The Battle
Over the Best Mom
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