Motherhood

· Three in 10 have worked from home on a regular basis.

Overall, nearly half of the working mothers in the area have done at least three of these things, according to the poll.

And that doesn't include the mothers who have taken the most dramatic option: quitting their jobs altogether.

"It's this fluid situation, with women opting out for a short amount of time, or taking a scenic route," said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, president of the Center for Work-Life Policy in New York, who researches this particular issue.

Hewlett also said women may not be as satisfied as some survey findings suggest. "There is a huge human need to feel good about what you chose," she said.

Whatever choice a mother makes, the overwhelming majority believe it's harder to do the mom job these days. Mothers may insist that their lives are not out of control, as suggested by several recent books, most notably "Perfect Madness" by local author Judith Warner, but they do agree that they are under a great deal of pressure, both internal and external.

Two in three mothers interviewed believe society sets expectations for modern motherhood too high, and a similarly large majority think mothers themselves had raised the standards compared with the previous generation. And those feelings cut across class lines: Three in four low-income mothers sometimes feel pressure to be "the perfect mom," a breakdown that matched the poll results for upper-income mothers, who were the predominant demographic in Warner's book.

Public opinion doesn't seem to make it any easier. Although 68 percent of Americans in a recent Post-ABC News national survey agreed that motherhood is more demanding today than it was a generation ago, 48 percent think mothers are doing a worse job, compared with 12 percent who feel they were doing better.

As for the media fixation on what has been dubbed the "mommy wars" -- the suggested divide between working and stay-at-home moms -- the differences turn out to be much more nuanced. Sixty-three percent of mothers polled identified themselves as working mothers, compared with 36 percent who saw themselves primarily as stay-at-home moms. But nearly one in four of the working moms worked less than the classic 40-hour work week. And half of those who considered themselves stay-at-home moms have been employed at some point since the birth of their first child. In fact, one in four stay-at-home moms currently do some work for pay.

Take Cindy Forrest, for example. She quit her job with Marriott when her now-8-year-old son was born. But Forrest, of New Market, currently works 24 hours a week, in two 12-hour weekend shifts at an emergency animal hospital.

"My career is Andrew and being a part of his life," she says.

Both sets of moms are also almost indistinguishable when it comes to feelings about motherhood. Levels of satisfaction, stress, tiredness and accomplishment were all similar. And they were equally likely to report being challenged by the many responsibilities that come with the role.

"You can't really judge anybody else," says Julie Kotler, a Clarksville mother of three who works 35 hours a week, many of them from home. "You don't know what's going on in someone else's house."

And across all lines, mothers had another thing in common: They overwhelmingly agreed that they don't have second thoughts about their decision to have children.

Director of polling Richard Morin contributed to this article.