Placing the Guilt

The women interviewed in Beverly Beyette’s Dec. 12 article, “Working Mothers and the Career-Parent Conflict,” would not feel guilty if they realized they are being manipulated by a still patriarchal society. Indeed, many of these conflicts would disappear if husbands did their fair share of the child care and made some career sacrifices of their own; if employers regularly incorporated flex-time, job sharing, and other innovations into work patterns; and especially if the smug housewives who responded to the article stopped demanding kudos for their “selfless” devotion to “full-time” motherhood.

JEANNE KAHALAN

Dallas