Guilty moms, the next generation

JUST WHEN YOU thought there couldn’t possibly be any more pastel-colored books about the magic, mysteries and political ramifications of parenting, several more titles have entered the fray in recent weeks.

Some are anthologies, such as “Mommy Wars,” in which stay-at-home moms “face off” against career moms, and “Maybe Baby,” which ponders the question of whether to procreate at all. Others, such as “Every Mother Is a Daughter” by Perri Klass and Sheila Solomon Klass, and Caitlin Flanagan’s “To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Your Inner Housewife,” unpack the narrative baggage of traditional femininity as if it were one of the original Greek myths. As Susan Salter Reynolds pointed out in a review in this paper last Sunday, “in the ebb and flow of publishing, these and other books, all released within a short period, indicate a groundswell, an issue about to break.”

In other words, now that it’s 2006 and the Gen-Xers (including me) have completed their apprenticeships in self-reflection under the masterful tutelage of the boomers, it’s time for a whole new crop of domestic literary disputes.

The funny thing is, we don’t seem to have learned all that much from our elders -- except, perhaps, that books about existential crises brought on by dirty diapers sell a lot better than books about plain old existentialism. As wonderful as motherhood is, we’re told again and again, it involves compromise (and resulting peace) somewhere on the level of the Oslo accords. Careers derail, marriages flounder, finances dip, bodies are permanently altered and, inevitably, household labor gets divided unevenly.

Whether you’re a nostalgic like Flanagan, who unapologetically champions stay-at-home motherhood, or harried and angst-ridden like the writers in “Mommy Wars,” the take-away from all this chatter is as much an endless circle as it is a groundswell. After nearly three decades of dealing with this stuff, we’re still not much closer to figuring it out than we were back when Betty Friedan, in “The Feminine Mystique,” wrote about “the problem that has no name.”

Except, of course, by now that problem has found a name, and it is Guilt. Of all the emotions these books tap into -- unconditional love, unquenchable desire, unrelenting fear -- the one that rises most quickly to the surface is the self-reproach that comes from the inability to combine a 1950s standard of perfect motherhood with the fervent careerism that took hold in the 1980s.

Call me crazy, but that sounds like feeling guilty for being unable to walk forward and backward at the same time.

The 1950s-era paradigm of nuclear family life was culturally and economically relevant for less than 20 years, yet it continues to be held up as a historical norm. That suggests a fetishization of the Eisenhower era that extends well beyond midcentury modern furniture. We’re simply obsessed with this period. But the truth is, before World War II, most women worked outside the home, even if that meant they were working in the fields (often with their children alongside them). They also had help from extended family members and neighbors -- that’s right, the “village” that Hillary Clinton celebrates and that Flanagan sees as broken beyond repair.

From where I sit, which, admittedly, is on the couch where I can read without the interruption of feeding schedules or carpool duties, it seems to me that both sides of this debate have validity. As enticing as it sounds to be able to break away from rigid nuclear family structures and invite the community to participate in raising healthy children (in the form of universal healthcare, government subsidized day care or, ahem, decent public schools), the fact remains that even the most affluent communities now look more like the Mall of America than Mayberry. And if there’s anyplace you don’t want to turn your child loose, it’s at the intersection of a video arcade and Victoria’s Secret.

But it’s worth remembering (or at least trying to believe) that in terms of sorting out these issues, we’re still in a transitional time. It may seem like we’re making the same complaints our mothers made, but we’d do well to remember that feminism, despite rumors of its death, is still in its early stages. Perhaps becoming a mother does mean realizing we haven’t achieved as much equality as we thought we had. But perhaps, also, we can take steps (albeit baby steps) toward using our guilt for a good cause. If my generation can accomplish one goal, maybe it should be ensuring that our daughters don’t feel as guilty as we did. But what kind of mother would do something like that?