Moms, Take a Memo: Get Back to Work!

On the other end of the Caitlin Flanagan spectrum is Bonnie Fuller's "The Joys of Much Too Much," which I read about in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle. Fuller is the former editor of Cosmo and Glamour who now directs a tabloid empire. Not only is there no guilt about working full-time, despite having four (four!) kids in her family, but Fuller argues that women should follow their passion, and for most, that means career.

Now, keep in mind that both Flanagan and Fuller are fueling a media frenzy that was born in the media and will probably stay there, since as I've quoted in this space before, 72% of women are in the workforce and 78% of mothers are working. (I guess I'm wondering who the audience is for these types of books, then, besides editors who want to feed the mommy war myth as far as it will go?)

Still, it's nice to see a counter-balance, even if it comes in the form of an insane-crazy working woman who sounds like she has more in common with the anti-hero of The Devil Wears Prada than Norma Rae. (Fuller apparently reviewed page-proofs while in labor and was denounced as a hard-driving, perfectionist boss. Well, DUH.)

I guess we're just left to figure out the middle ground for ourselves.