Mommy Wars cover art

Mommy Wars

Working vs. Staying Home, a panel discussion at the 92nd Street Y

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Mommy Wars

By: Susan Cheever, Molly Jong-Fast, Dawn Drzal, Terri Minsky
Narrated by: Naomi Wolf, Leslie Morgan Steiner
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About this listen

 The battle rages in every mother: stay at home or go back to work. This panel at New York's 92nd Street Y features four contributors to the new book The Mommy Wars (edited by Leslie Morgan Steiner) as they discuss the state of motherhood. The panelists represent multiple points on the "working full time vs. stay-at-home" spectrum, and they share their personal experiences and opinions with brutal honesty and wit.

Columnist and professor Susan Cheever is the author of 11 books, including her chronicle about motherhood, As Good as I Could Be.

Molly Jong-Fast is the author of the quasi-autobiographical novels Normal Girl and Girl (Maladjusted).

Dawn Drzal was an editor who became a stay-at-home mother soon after the birth of her only child.

Terri Minsky is the creator of several television shows, including Lizzie McGuire.

Moderator Naomi Wolf is the author of The Beauty Myth and The Treehouse.

Leslie Morgan Steiner is a mother of three and works at The Washington Post.

This event took place on March 23, 2006.

©2006 92 nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association (P)2006 92 nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association Parenting & Families Personal Development Personal Success Relationships

Editor reviews

When starting a family, parents are faced with a never-ending set of decisions, each one seemingly more important than the last. For mothers, there may be no issue as contested and stressed about as whether or not to be a stay-at-home mom. To help you in your decision is this panel discussion featuring successful women who have found themselves on all ends of the spectrum. Based on their essays in the book Mommy Wars, these women detail their struggles with balancing the professional world with motherhood and offer helpful and realistic advice on how to manage the decision of whether or not to be a stay-at-home mom.
All stars
Most relevant
So there you have mums supposedly talking about the issues involving working x staying at home mums dilemma. Except that none of the panelists is a stay at home mum and the only one that came close to have being so as due to severe post-natal depression.
I could even have enjoyed listening to it if the arguments pro-working mum were sound and balanced, but even these fail to add much to my understading of the matter.
It is basically a group of working mums justifying their options in a rather self defence manner with weak and non generalizable arguments.
Dont bother buying it.

Not really a discussion going on there

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