Flanagan's latest, "How Serfdom Saved the Women's Movement," is now online. (Or just read this commentary — "There is a point in the article somewhere, but you'll have to slug through all the self-satisfied bullshit first.")
Aaauurrrrrggh!
I felt in every way superior to them: every day while they had been miles away from their babies, I'd been right there with mine, catching every little smile, writing down every advance—rolling over! eating a bit of mashed banana!—on the lined ivory pages of their baby books, importantly calling the pediatrician if anything seemed slightly awry. That so much of the day had been tedious and (truth be told) mildly depressing was itself a badge of honor.
If it's tedious and depressing, maybe you should rethink your "career" choices.
See, Flanagan had "a highly capable and very industrious nanny who did all of the hard stuff. There was no need for me to be moping around the apartment all day; I really could have lightened up and had a little more fun, clicked off the TV and gone to the movies or lunch or shopping. But I felt anxious about the whole thing—very, very anxious. If I was going to stake out my turf as an "at-home mother," putting all my worldly promise in cold storage to do it, didn't I have to actually stay home?"
Uhh, what about the mother part?
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