Let's Quit Fighting the Mommy Wars
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As I read Leslie Morgan Steiner's tirade ["Moms at War: Attacking Each Other, and Themselves," Style, March 6] about the differences between stay-at-home moms and moms who work outside the home, I was relieved that as a stay-at-home mom I cannot count myself among the "corrosive, fake-smiling" group that she cavalierly placed all women in. No woman who is confident in and comfortable with the choice she has made would count herself as part of this group.
I couldn't understand why your paper would waste space by printing these stereotypes and myths. Then I read more about the author and discovered that she wrote a book about the topic. I can see why she would want to further this misconception instead of trying to truly understand the community in which she and her children reside.
-- Annie Harold
Arlington
Having been a "working mom" who is now a stay-at-home mom, I can relate to many of Leslie Morgan Steiner's observations. But the only path Steiner understands is the one she's been fortunate enough to take.
Many similarly educated and ambitious women don't have the high-level careers, commutes and child-care options that make Steiner's juggling act possible. I didn't have those elements; nor did my husband. So I let go of the career ladder. I now work a 16-hour-plus day caring for three children younger than 7, with no help. I get no sick days or vacations. I don't feel I have, as Steiner says stay-at-home moms do, "a breezy Carol Brady confidence that [I] will always be taken care of." For someone who is so "taken care of," I do an enormous amount of work and caretaking.
-- Melissa Stanton
Davidsonville
