feedback for "Equality Now"

1. I really related to this article.  My newborn son was pretty happy as long as he was constantly held, constantly bounced, and I never sat down.  But when my husband offered to help my initial response was, "That's okay, I can handle it."  However, despite my compulsion to take everything on, or at least to feel guilty when I don't -- I think my son as well as his mom and dad, will really benefit from having two parents who are parenting together and both of whom  pursue interests outside the home.  Thanks for the article!   

   posted by : Camille on 2/12/2007 at 9:24 PM Flag For Abuse

2. While I'm accustomed to reading about upper-middle class women and the trials of their parenting lives and thinking, "Geez, first world problems," I think this is the most privileged whining I've ever been tormented with on this site. How many women with husbands, let alone single mothers, are thinking the same thing while reading this?
   
   I'm sorry to be so brutal, but I've never read anything in which someone felt so tormented by the fact that they were so fortunate.

   posted by : Bunny 2 on 8/5/2008 at 4:26 PM Flag For Abuse

3. I'd have to agree with Bunny2 on this. Having grown up in a lower-class (read: poor) family, and having worked my way through college on minimum-wage jobs, it's absolutely astounding to me how ungrateful and insecure the author of this article is. So your daughter runs to Daddy after scraping her knee--so what? Daddy's her parent, too! You thought you'd be a first among equals, but Daddy's generous helpful spirit thwarted your overachieving plans? I can't work up any sympathy. Get over the fact that you're not the most important person in your daughter's life. Get over the fact that you're not the perfect mother/wife/writer/whatever. Get over your inferiority complex about working freelance and not being a stay-at-home run-the-household child's-only-parent type of mom. Appreciate your husband, love your kids, live your life, and quit whining.

   posted by : teddygram on 2/6/2009 at 10:19 PM Flag For Abuse

4. No one way to parent is perfect. No Mom is perfect. Sacrifice will not make you a better Mom. ( I know - I tried it.) You want to work and your husband apparently willingly does rather more than his share. Be thankful, and enjoy, I guess. 
   But you do have to wonder where your daughter is picking up all that gender stereotyping. And at such a young age, she is "doing the math" and apparently sees your husband as the main parent. I dare say most of us saw our Moms as the main parent and the Dad's didn't seem to mind much at all. Live with it or even things out.    

   posted by : beenthere on 2/17/2009 at 6:37 PM Flag For Abuse

5. I felt that this article examines a big issue for "career moms" today.  This is something that I struggle with.  As a full-time teacher and a part-time online instructor, my work takes up a great deal of my time.  My husband is wonderful with our 2-year-old daughter, and I am very grateful.  However, I do feel guilty that I am not the stereotypical "good mom" that our society shoves down our throats on a daily basis.  It's like we say as a group:  "It's okay for a woman to work...as long as she is still the primary care giver."  I try to make jokes about the fact that my husband does all the cooking and, unlike the author's home, all of the laundry, too.  I do a lot around the house, but usually I reserve any free time I have while my daughter is awake to hanging out with her.  And I still feel guilty.  Maybe I shouldn't, but I do.
   
   To the previous two posters who said that this article was "whinny," I could not disagree more.  I did not detect any "oh, poor, pitiful me" statements from this article.  It's not like she wrote a piece about how terrible it is to have to find a new nanny because her current one can't go with them to their summer home.  This is a serious, feminist issue in our country, and the author is struggling with something that many middle-class, working moms are struggling with right now.  I thought this was timely and appropriate.  We wanted equality in the home, and now we have to force ourselves to let things like this go.  It doesn't really matter what parenting problems you are experiencing; they are all difficult in their own way.
   
   To the author:  We have to think that the benefit to all of this is that we will eventually have a generation of daughters who will not feel guilty about these things because it was what they saw growing up.  Thanks for the article!

   posted by : cgglass on 8/7/2009 at 11:31 PM Flag For Abuse