The challenge of motherhood

IN regards to your Mothers’ Bill of Rights article (“Mothers’ Bill of Rights: A Baby Step Toward Radical Goal,” by Bettijane Levine, Oct. 29), I think it is naive to discuss mothers’ rights without considering poverty and the fear of poverty, as well as the increasing number of hours Americans are being required to work to keep their jobs.

Most American families are precariously balanced and dependent on two salaries to maintain the markers of middle-class status such as homes and money for the children to go to college. Even in those where the husband has a well-paid job -- say, a law professor at Yale -- women are only a man away from poverty (in the words of Barbara Ehrenreich [author of the book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”]).

Seeing the incredible cruelty with which laws against “welfare mothers” have been enacted would frighten any mother into staying in the most lucrative job she can find.

Those of us who don’t have the option of creating our own fulfilling part-time jobs, without regard to health insurance or retirement plans, must struggle along putting dinner on the table and checking the homework after a long work day.

I hope the next conference on the topic addresses a fuller range of issues that confine mothers.

Carol Dorf

Berkeley

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WHAT I find absolutely amazing is how these educated women feel diminished, in some way, because they choose to stay home with their children. The need for personal validation should not be the nod of approval from another being. Validation comes from within.

Making the decision to stay home with your child(ren) is an emotional and financial sacrifice. If you use your educational and professional know-how, ask yourself this: Is my child worth it? Without making any excuses, the answer you give to that question is the only validation you need.

Deborah Saulnier

Camarillo

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THIS article is one more example of the misplaced emphasis on the role of mothers in our increasingly feminized society.

It’s not motherhood that needs shoring up, but fatherhood. Males growing up without fathers are not surprisingly prone to gang violence and other forms of tribal tests of manhood. Girls, too, without a father figure in the house, suffer emotional deficits that are not as obvious as boys’ problems, but are real nevertheless.

If the emotional health of our society is the goal, it is the deteriorating role of fatherhood that needs looking at.

Carl Moore

Lomita