Genre: Opinion/Argumentation

The Depressing Lot of the Conflicted American Mother Motherlode Book Club Motherlode has asked women at different stages of their family and career lives to respond to Elisabeth Badinter's "The Conflict" by describing how reading it has affected their views or plans for work and motherhood. The following is a continuation of an ongoing conversation. KJ , you asked if reading Elisabeth Badinter's provocative screed, "The Conflict," influenced the way I think about how to manage work and motherhood. It did -- but not in the way Ms. Badinter intended. Let me explain. My husband and I are in the pre-child stage, so I often turn over in my mind how I will handle a career that's been at the center of my life for eight years with the demands of motherhood. In the freshest, most intriguing section of Ms. Badinter's book, she argues that embrace of "the natural" -- breast-feeding, avoidance of all chemicals and vices while pregnant, eschewing the epidural during birth -- has subjugated women. I can see where women who buy fully into natural motherhood are cutting off other possibilities. When you're still breast-feeding your 3-year-old, it might be difficult to devote yourself to work in quite the same way. But Ms. Badinter seems to completely exaggerate the pressures of this natural lifestyle. She makes the La Leche League sound like a milk-obsessed militia, forcing women to breast-feed against their will. It might be because none of my friends have children, or because I worked in women's media for so long, but I don't feel much pressure at all to breast-feed my future kinder for a set period of time, or to eat my placenta . I read my colleague and friend Hanna Rosin's marvelous " The Case Against Breastfeeding " in The Atlantic three years ago and was thoroughly convinced that if I couldn't or didn't want to breast-feed, my offspring wouldn't be pallid and dull-witted. So Ms. Badinter didn't move me much on the natural front, but the way that her book did shift my take on work and motherhood is that she made me even more depressed about the pitiful support that American women have for any choice we might make about either one. Since the book is not geared toward an American audience, I doubt this is the takeaway Ms. Badinter intended. But we're one of the few countries that doesn't have paid maternity leave ; child care is more expensive than the median monthly rent in every state; and you can forget about paternity leave in most scenarios. I knew things were better for many European mothers, but it wasn't until I read the statistics in Ms. Badinter's book that I saw how pathetic the comparison really was. Because she is French, Ms. Badinter focuses most on the benefits for French mothers: six months' maternity leave, access to child care, free nursery school. We keep hearing about how French parents are superior -- the stereotype is at least that they're less neurotic -- but it would be easier to be less anxious if there were more structural support for parents in the first place. If anything, this book made me feel as though when it comes down to deciding what to do about balancing work and motherhood, the decision will be an economic one, not one mandated by the iron fist of the La Leche League. I suppose my parting thought about this would be that for most women who don't have incredibly high paying jobs or wealthy spouses, these "choices," about work and family aren't actually choices. We weigh our particular circumstances and attempt to figure out the best course of action. The notion that scads of women are chucking fulfilling jobs to be handmaidens to idealized, natural motherhood just doesn't ring true to me. But I'm curious to hear what the other book clubbers think about Ms. Badinter's lively work, and whether, as an envoy from pre-child-land, I don't understand the kind of judgments that other mothers, and society, are truly making about your individual parenting decisions. Jessica Grose is the deputy editor of Vulture.com , New York Magazine's culture site. Her debut novel, Sad Desk Salad, is out in October from William Morrow. About Motherlode Raising healthy, happy, well-adjusted kids isn't easy. At Motherlode, we cover it all -- homework, sex, child care, eating habits, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more. KJ Dell'Antonia , the lead blogger for Motherlode, has been writing about the personal, cultural and political aspects of family life for a decade now. She is also a former corporate lawyer and prosecutor and a New York City exile, who is now raising four kids, two dogs and a cat in rural New Hampshire. Come join her in a conversation about the parents we are and the parents we want to be. Among other things, "Far from the Tree" is a tribute to parents who live the daily grind, who celebrate incremental victories, and who avoid reading books about their child's diagnosis until they're ready.