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Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety
A lively and provocative look at the modern culture of motherhood and at the social, economic, and political forces that shaped current ideas about parenting
What is wrong with this picture? That's the question Judith Warner asks in this national bestseller after taking a good, hard look at the world of modern parenting--at anxious women at work and at home and in bed with unhappy husbands.
When Warner had her first child, she was living in Paris, where parents routinely left their children home, with state-subsidized nannies, to join friends in the evening for dinner or to go on dates with their husbands. When she returned to the States, she was stunned by the cultural differences she found toward how people think about effective parenting--in particular, assumptions about motherhood. None of the mothers she met seemed happy; instead, they worried about the possibility of not having the perfect child, panicking as each developmental benchmark approached.
Combining close readings of mainstream magazines, TV shows, and pop culture with a thorough command of dominant ideas in recent psychological, social, and economic theory, Perfect Madness addresses our cultural assumptions, and examines the forces that have shaped them.
Working in the tradition of classics like Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, and with an awareness of a readership that turned recent hits like The Bitch in the House and Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It into bestsellers, Warner offers a context in which to understand parenting culture and the way we live, as well as ways of imagining alternatives--actual concrete changes--that might better our lives.
What is wrong with this picture? That's the question Judith Warner asks in this national bestseller after taking a good, hard look at the world of modern parenting--at anxious women at work and at home and in bed with unhappy husbands.
When Warner had her first child, she was living in Paris, where parents routinely left their children home, with state-subsidized nannies, to join friends in the evening for dinner or to go on dates with their husbands. When she returned to the States, she was stunned by the cultural differences she found toward how people think about effective parenting--in particular, assumptions about motherhood. None of the mothers she met seemed happy; instead, they worried about the possibility of not having the perfect child, panicking as each developmental benchmark approached.
Combining close readings of mainstream magazines, TV shows, and pop culture with a thorough command of dominant ideas in recent psychological, social, and economic theory, Perfect Madness addresses our cultural assumptions, and examines the forces that have shaped them.
Working in the tradition of classics like Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism, and with an awareness of a readership that turned recent hits like The Bitch in the House and Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It into bestsellers, Warner offers a context in which to understand parenting culture and the way we live, as well as ways of imagining alternatives--actual concrete changes--that might better our lives.
352 pages, Paperback
First published February 17, 2005
72 people are currently reading
2167 people want to read
About the author
Judith Warner
17 books47 followersJudith Warner is the author, most recently, of And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School, which was selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice when it was published in early May. She is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety and Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story, as well as the multiple award-winning We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication. A senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, she has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times, where she wrote the popular Domestic Disturbances column, as well as numerous other publications.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews
June 22, 2008
There was a time when working moms were vogue and stay-at home moms (today known as SAHMs) were regarded as pathetic and unfulfilled. These days, the pendulum seems to have swung back, at least in my experience as Bad Working Mommy. At a birthday party for my nephew not long ago, I was asked by a homeschool mom, "So, do you homeschool your children?" When I said no, that I taught in a Christian school where my children also attend, I got what I have come to recognze as The Look: smug, superior, and an air of how-sad-for-you. Many of these SAHMs have that attitude, fully believing (and I quote) "Children need their mother's love and attention ALL DAY LONG." Yikes. No wonder there are so many self-centered, immature brats out there. My children DO have my love all day long, thank you, and all their lives long, but paying too damn much attention to their every little move and whim will be the ruination of society. And even if I didn't work, they STILL would not be the center of my universe. It's unhealthy. And my big, big question is always, "WHAT ABOUT YOUR HUSBAND??" Good grief!
So, this book. I love it. It explores in detail how frantic mothers are about making sure that their children have perfect lives-perfect birthday parties, perfect school experiences, perfect playgroups, and on and on and on...These "helicopter moms" infantilize their children to such extremes that, well, sometimes the Supernanny has to intervene. It appears that, working or not, almost all moms suffer from Mommy Guilt. The message of the book is, RELAX. I like the part where the author is talking about "socialization" and points out that, when she was a kid, you ran in a pack with the neighborhood kids, and if you acted like an ass, no one would play with you. Thus you learned to act right. That, she says, is socialization. I say, AMEN. It's so absurd how mommies intervene in everything to make sure little Hortense and little Damien never, ever have a negative experience. My kids have to take their lumps, unless they are actually being bullied. My kids don't have me breathing down their necks all the time; we give each other space. Still, I take an interest and delight in their lives and accomplishments. I encourage them. I teach them to be independent, compassionate, and savvy. We have plenty of family time and organized activity, but they also have plenty of time in which to paly with friends, pursue their own interests, and just BE. It's called balance, and that's what this book is all about.
So, this book. I love it. It explores in detail how frantic mothers are about making sure that their children have perfect lives-perfect birthday parties, perfect school experiences, perfect playgroups, and on and on and on...These "helicopter moms" infantilize their children to such extremes that, well, sometimes the Supernanny has to intervene. It appears that, working or not, almost all moms suffer from Mommy Guilt. The message of the book is, RELAX. I like the part where the author is talking about "socialization" and points out that, when she was a kid, you ran in a pack with the neighborhood kids, and if you acted like an ass, no one would play with you. Thus you learned to act right. That, she says, is socialization. I say, AMEN. It's so absurd how mommies intervene in everything to make sure little Hortense and little Damien never, ever have a negative experience. My kids have to take their lumps, unless they are actually being bullied. My kids don't have me breathing down their necks all the time; we give each other space. Still, I take an interest and delight in their lives and accomplishments. I encourage them. I teach them to be independent, compassionate, and savvy. We have plenty of family time and organized activity, but they also have plenty of time in which to paly with friends, pursue their own interests, and just BE. It's called balance, and that's what this book is all about.
April 10, 2012
i did not care for this book. warner maintained such a smug tone throughout, it was nearly impossible to read. supposedly she was inspired to investigate the uniquely dysfunctional approach to parenting that america mothers have adopted over the last thirty years, inspired by the culture shock she experienced when she moved back to the states after having her babies in france. france offers socialized health care & government-subsidized child care called creches. obviously there's nothing like that in the united states, & warner declares that american mothers are experiencing a crisis of anxiety as a result, driven by their desire to be perfect mothers, even at the expense of their own personal well-being.
one of the most irritating aspects of this book is that warner makes no bones about how she is mainly talking about middle class & wealthy mothers. she baldly states that working class/poor mothers are outside her purview, apparently just because she doesn't know any. seems to me that a real journalist would have made an effort to track some down, or look into the numerous studies & reams of documentation about working class & poor parents' struggles. but warner herself is relatively wealthy & travels in a wealthy circle, & the book is mostly cobbled together case histories of women she personally knows, mixed with a heaping helping of various studies that have been reported in the "new york times".
it's also worth noting that this is another book that was written before the recession, & as such, it seems really dated in a lot of ways. distractingly so. warner also seems to have an axe to grind with parenting styles that she does not personally subscribe to. she spills a lot of ink over how women are needlessly stressing themselves out & ruining their lives by co-sleeping & breastfeeding on demand. i just get so sick of arguments about that kind of stuff. it works for some people, it doesn't work for others, & it's all basically a matter of balancing personal priorities with what fits into your life. i got the feeling that the american mothers warner met who are into attachment parenting maybe stirred up some of warner's own weird anxieties, because i can't figure why else she would be so viciously dismissive toward them.
in the end, she insists that women need to stop fighting among themselves to be the best mom of all & start pressuring the government for better health care, child care, etc. but it's hard to take that in when it's coated in such a gooey layer of smugness & privilege. is it really any surprise that this is a really popular book to name-drop among a certain class of new york professional writers who pontificate about the mommy wars? let's just leave them to it while the rest of us get on with living how real people live.
one of the most irritating aspects of this book is that warner makes no bones about how she is mainly talking about middle class & wealthy mothers. she baldly states that working class/poor mothers are outside her purview, apparently just because she doesn't know any. seems to me that a real journalist would have made an effort to track some down, or look into the numerous studies & reams of documentation about working class & poor parents' struggles. but warner herself is relatively wealthy & travels in a wealthy circle, & the book is mostly cobbled together case histories of women she personally knows, mixed with a heaping helping of various studies that have been reported in the "new york times".
it's also worth noting that this is another book that was written before the recession, & as such, it seems really dated in a lot of ways. distractingly so. warner also seems to have an axe to grind with parenting styles that she does not personally subscribe to. she spills a lot of ink over how women are needlessly stressing themselves out & ruining their lives by co-sleeping & breastfeeding on demand. i just get so sick of arguments about that kind of stuff. it works for some people, it doesn't work for others, & it's all basically a matter of balancing personal priorities with what fits into your life. i got the feeling that the american mothers warner met who are into attachment parenting maybe stirred up some of warner's own weird anxieties, because i can't figure why else she would be so viciously dismissive toward them.
in the end, she insists that women need to stop fighting among themselves to be the best mom of all & start pressuring the government for better health care, child care, etc. but it's hard to take that in when it's coated in such a gooey layer of smugness & privilege. is it really any surprise that this is a really popular book to name-drop among a certain class of new york professional writers who pontificate about the mommy wars? let's just leave them to it while the rest of us get on with living how real people live.
November 19, 2008
IF you are a mother or even thinking about becoming a mother, you need to read this book. I was totally awakened to the complete insanity in which we (as women, with procreative powers and professional aspirations) are expected to function. Ok, I guess I have been living it first hand, but I have never slowed down enough to really think about, and reflect on, how absolutely asinine and competitive modern motherhood has become. I was talking to my friend Andrea about some of my epiphanies while reading this book. Here's one of them. I know, for a fact, that my mother didn't play with me half as much as I play with my kids. And, furthermore, she didn't drown herself in wine worrying about what a terrible mother she was. The maternal guilt of 21st century society is like a disease.
You know what? I am tired of feeling guilty for letting my kids drink Capri Sun and for buying them donuts in the drive thru. Here's another one ... yeah, I let my kids watch tv and sometimes I forget to brush their teeth before they go to bed. And here's something else, they still love me and they still think I am great and I think they are the greatest too.
And, maybe it isn't so bad that I got a master's degree while they were in utero or that I started a company while they were learning to walk or that I still work way too much and spend a lot of time at the gym and sometimes prefer to go out dancing with my friends and drink too much the night before going to church and volunteering in my 3 year old's Sunday school classroom. Rather than feeling guilty about it, I am going to EMBRACE this lifestyle, that allows ME to be the best I can BE, happy, variegated, unsuppressed, fulfilled and passionate about the many personalities that my life allows me to be. Being a mom is just one of the many fun and unpredictable roles I play in the course of any given day, and my kids know that and they like it about me. And, I love them for it, and I have released the guilt (uncage the beast).
You know what? I am tired of feeling guilty for letting my kids drink Capri Sun and for buying them donuts in the drive thru. Here's another one ... yeah, I let my kids watch tv and sometimes I forget to brush their teeth before they go to bed. And here's something else, they still love me and they still think I am great and I think they are the greatest too.
And, maybe it isn't so bad that I got a master's degree while they were in utero or that I started a company while they were learning to walk or that I still work way too much and spend a lot of time at the gym and sometimes prefer to go out dancing with my friends and drink too much the night before going to church and volunteering in my 3 year old's Sunday school classroom. Rather than feeling guilty about it, I am going to EMBRACE this lifestyle, that allows ME to be the best I can BE, happy, variegated, unsuppressed, fulfilled and passionate about the many personalities that my life allows me to be. Being a mom is just one of the many fun and unpredictable roles I play in the course of any given day, and my kids know that and they like it about me. And, I love them for it, and I have released the guilt (uncage the beast).
April 6, 2008
Although I find this book a bit depressing, it really resonates with me. In a grossly simplified nutshell, Judith Warner describes how we, generation X women, are living out hollow societal promises from our childhood. Feminism of the 70s and the "you can have it all" mantra taught to us in the 80s have failed to pan out. We are not equal members of society, and we can not have it all. As mothers we have limited choices and a lack of support and we must make sacrifices (professional and personal) and endure discrimination that non-mothers will never have to. The resulting feeling of being unfulfilled is transformed into an obsessive approach to parenting. We try to gain the control and achievement we need by over-parenting impossing all kinds of (potentially emotionally and psychologically harmful) expectations onto our children. I am not finished reading the book yet, but I suspect it will not say much in the way of what we should do to improve this situation. Never-the-less, I have really appreciated her research and ideas as they explain why I, as a new mother, feel disappointed and depressed.
December 21, 2009
I was going through a phase where I just happened to be reading books by many urban East Coasters, and I was amazed at how neurotic they seem to be. This covers the specific pressures of motherhood, and yes, if everyone else is going in that direction, it would be hard not to pick up on the neurosis, even if your natural tendency was towards sanity.
Warner was able to provide an alternate perspective, having also spent time in Europe, where mothers receive more support, and face less pressure. She does not seem to get what can be good about being a stay-at-home mother, which may put off some readers, but still has some points worth thinking about.
I wonder how her perspective would change if she ever got to experience the Pacific Northwest.
Warner was able to provide an alternate perspective, having also spent time in Europe, where mothers receive more support, and face less pressure. She does not seem to get what can be good about being a stay-at-home mother, which may put off some readers, but still has some points worth thinking about.
I wonder how her perspective would change if she ever got to experience the Pacific Northwest.
May 18, 2007
I was initially skeptical, as the author began by talking about her experiences with her young child in France, but it turned out to be a really interesting book. It deals with the larger social reasons why so many middle-class mothers are so hypervigilant about the tiniest details of their children's lives. It gives mothers who work outside the home equal weight to mothers who stay home, which is nice, and examines whether or not we really have a choice when it comes to staying home or not, regardless of how we feel about work. Is it really a "choice" to stay home when the alternative is a job which barely covers the cost of fuel and sub-par daycare? I really appreciated to overview of social trends as far as women in the workplace, and whether or not the media at different times supported or rejected working mothers.
I also liked the examination of this group of women's relationship with their husbands, in regards to childrearing. I wish there were more information at the end about how to exact change in some of the social situations that make the environment so anxious, but maybe I was just too tired to notice it.
I also liked the examination of this group of women's relationship with their husbands, in regards to childrearing. I wish there were more information at the end about how to exact change in some of the social situations that make the environment so anxious, but maybe I was just too tired to notice it.
July 2, 2018
It's so frustrating to read this book, published over a decade ago, and to realize that all of the trends that Warner pinpoints are, if anything, even worse today and for the same reasons. The thesis of the book is that privileged mothers internalize untenable demands on their time and household budgets, not to mention contradictory cultural ideals that suggest that women can do anything that men can do but also that they should provide the ultimate physical and psychological nourishment for their children. Taught to see the problem in themselves rather than in the social structure, they obsess about their children and cultivate maternal guilt. The dismantling of public education and the political non-starter of subsidized child care have contributed to a bizarre neoliberal culture of competition and hovering. Warner sometimes takes petty potshots at would-be über-moms she has known, and she also overstates the generational identity factor in the cult of attachment-parenting. She and I are not in the same generation, and my cohort has drunk the same Kool-Aid. Clearly, this is a less narrow demographic trend than she envisioned in 2005. Her exhortation at the end that this requires collective political action rather than individual maternal exhaustion echoes into the Trump era with a defeated whimper.
September 3, 2013
i finished the book! it was compelling enough (the history of feminism was interesting) but overall negative and depressing. A complete 'worldly' view of mothering and this book just affirmed to me even more how my Faith gives me a sense of who I am, whose I am, and gives me a purpose and joy in living. There is no joy in this book. the author opens the book with how wonderful and different parenting in France is, spends the middle of the book complaining about how much our American life sucks, how little our husbands do, how unfair life is, and how neurotic we are. that we are neurotic about our kids because we can't change society so we have to control something. she uses extreme examples of American motherhood (mothers who drown their children) to make her point, then the end of the book on how France wasn't that great really. (kind of why I read the entire book is she hooked me in the beginning and I wanted to know what French mothers were doing that was so much better..so it was disappointing to read at the end that they weren't so much better off.) I do have to agree that some of this is a struggle with mothers of babies/preschoolers. It DOES get better. You DO have a life again when they aren't so dependent on you. It is worth it to love and nurture your children - it is an important calling. I did like how she found commonality between working and stay-at-home moms but overall did not like this book. Very depressing.
February 25, 2008
There were times when I loved this book and times when I hated this book. It was an amazing look at motherhood today. The one thing that I will take away from this book the most is that it has helped me look at different mothering decisions with a more open mind. There was a page in the book where it talked about a particular tribal society where women had to keep working even after the birth of a baby, or she risked starving. It made me think about genetic diversity and how it is important for survival of a species to have diversity. After reading this book I have much more respect for women who choose to go back to work (although I couldn't imagine doing it myself). I know that every mom is doing her very best for her baby and has her baby's best interest in mind, even if I can't understand how she came to the decision she has made. She knows how she came to that decision and it is right for her and her family. I'm so glad this book was recommended to me.
January 28, 2008
Moms, don't miss this. My caveat: I don't know enough about how one writes a non-fiction book to know whether she has ample sources or citations for her opinions, but I do know that her anecdotes and observations ring very true for me and what I see. We are really getting mixed up about motherhood and what it takes to be a good mother/good woman. It's shocking to see where these messages are coming from and how they got to be in our brains. It's seriously time for women to start talking to each other about all this, to start pushing for changes in policy and changes in society that truly support the nurturing and development of our familes. Check out Mom's Rising Website. Also you might like Mommy Myth. Okay. I'll step off the soapbox now.
September 24, 2008
This is an interesting book that I would recommend to certain others. Although I imagine this book has considerably fewer male readers than female ones, I think that is unfortunate. This book is especially useful for any male that wants to understand why modern motherhood is characterized by so much anxiety. Warner does a good job of communicating the exasperating aspects of American cultural expectations on motherhood, but I found the historical path of feminism she traces from the 1950's through the present to be the most interesting part of the book. The book did seem a bit disorganized at times (which, since the author is a mother, is probably just more evidence for her overall thesis), but I would still recommend it to others particularly interested in these issuess.
June 9, 2014
Another political parenting book to chew through! I feel I am really learning a lot about family policies in the U.S. through all this reading. Here are some things I want to remember.
"Listen, you don't just have this child for a couple of months. You'll have her for the rest of your life. You have to have a life of your own. Because if you are happy, she'll be happy. If you're fine, she'll be fine."- Makes me think that in this age of over-parenting we HAVE to take time for ourselves, cultivate our own fertile soils, and say the hell with anybody's problem with it. Also, to quit looking over our shoulders at people doing it better, easier, faster, etc than we are. Cut out the competitiveness in parenting.
"Our baby boomer elders often call us selfish, but in doing so they miss a larger point: that what our obsessive looking-inward hides is at base a kind of despair. A lack of faith that change can come to the outside world. A lack of belief in our political culture or our institutions. Our outlook is something very much akin to what cognitive behavioralists call "learned helplessness" - the kind of instinctive giving-up in the face of difficulty that people do when they've come to think they have no real power." -Sums up how I have felt about politics and complaints in the workforce. How could I bring about any change?
20th Century Evolution of Motherhood:
Freudian stage- 1920s: hands-off type of parenting in fear of spoiling the child through the 1950s: women as the image of perfect wifehood, trained/groomed for that "profession".
1960s: change is beginning, ideals of family oriented women, set limits, using permissive parenting, think Dr. Spock.
Feminisim stage- 1970s: urged for authentic being as a worker and/or mother, work was important through the 1980s: seen as Mother's liberation, mothers can do it all/have it all, supermom idea is planted, no motherhood guilt.
Individual/Success stage: 1990s: age of anxiety, motherhood guilt returns as women have learned how society doesn't support the big career and supermom ideal any longer, mom as the punching bag- blamed for all that is wrong with kids/family/society/schools, the Overwhelm!
"I have by now talked with hundreds of women. And what I see is that working and stay-at-home moms do what they do not so much by choice- by choosing from a series of options arrayed before them like cereals on a supermarket shelf - but out of a very immediate and pressing sense of personal necessity. There are many aspects to that sense of necessity - money, status, ambition, the needs of the children and of the family as a whole - all of which play themselves out, in various ways, in individual women's lives. And all of those aspects of personal necessity are part and parcel of the condition of motherhood - not external to it, not accessory to it, not a "selfish" deviation from it. They grow naturally out of what women have done - and who they have been - throughout their lives. So their paths as mothers are not so much "chosen" as devolved from who they are, who they've been, and what the material conditions of their families require." -Wow. I agree for me but would like to discuss this idea with other mothers and see if they agree or disagree.
"What we are trying to do, in religiously following the rites and rituals of ideal motherhood, is assuage some kind of deeper longing inside of us. For some women, I think, it is a longing for the world of their childhoods, when someone was there to take care of things. For other women, who did not feel sufficiently cared for by their mothers, it's a desire to give their children the kind of comforting childhood they didn't have - and to "re-parent" themselves in the process. Overall, I think, it's a longing to GET THINGS UNDER CONTROL." I really think that so much of the competitiveness that is rampant in our motherhood culture stems from this idea. Parents want to be validated for the choices they are making and told they are doing right by their children. Many of us want to correct things that someone else didn't in our pasts. There is no ONE RIGHT path to take as parents to ensure productive/happy/healthy children and that makes us all feel out of control. That scares us so we try to control what we can in our own homes and choices. Anxiety!
"A number of feminist writers have commented on the fact that women shifted their powers of control to their bodies at precisely the point when their control of their reproductive rights began to slip." -Sadly this led to food allergies, eating disorders, cutting, other self-mutilation of body and mind all in the efforts to control SOMETHING in our lives! Sexpot images (Marilyn Monroe) are popular when female roles of reproduction are valued in society. Thin or muscled images (Twiggy) are favored during women's progress.
"Food-and-body control is an opiate. A highly effective and highly adaptive way of drowning out the angst of existence."
"What's really unique about maternal anxiety today is our belief that if something goes wrong with or for our children, it's a reflection on us as mothers. Because we believe we should be able to control life so perfectly that we can keep bad things from happening." -Reading this does make it sound really ridiculous that this mind set has really taken over. I find myself believing in its myth still, however.
"The perversity in all this, of course, is that what we're trying to control is precisely what one cannot control; you can't shape and perfect human beings, pre-program and prepare them so that you can predict the course of their lives and protect them along the way. But you can- ostensibly- exert some control over what kind of society you live in." -This requires us to be vigilant in electing and promoting the kind of politics we wish to see in the world.
"While hyperparenting can induce anxiety, depression, and stress in older kids, among younger children it now seems chiefly to produce bad behavior." -She goes on to say how they are used to being played with one on one,demand constant entertainment, and are overprepared intellectually but underprepared in social skills.
"Listen, you don't just have this child for a couple of months. You'll have her for the rest of your life. You have to have a life of your own. Because if you are happy, she'll be happy. If you're fine, she'll be fine."- Makes me think that in this age of over-parenting we HAVE to take time for ourselves, cultivate our own fertile soils, and say the hell with anybody's problem with it. Also, to quit looking over our shoulders at people doing it better, easier, faster, etc than we are. Cut out the competitiveness in parenting.
"Our baby boomer elders often call us selfish, but in doing so they miss a larger point: that what our obsessive looking-inward hides is at base a kind of despair. A lack of faith that change can come to the outside world. A lack of belief in our political culture or our institutions. Our outlook is something very much akin to what cognitive behavioralists call "learned helplessness" - the kind of instinctive giving-up in the face of difficulty that people do when they've come to think they have no real power." -Sums up how I have felt about politics and complaints in the workforce. How could I bring about any change?
20th Century Evolution of Motherhood:
Freudian stage- 1920s: hands-off type of parenting in fear of spoiling the child through the 1950s: women as the image of perfect wifehood, trained/groomed for that "profession".
1960s: change is beginning, ideals of family oriented women, set limits, using permissive parenting, think Dr. Spock.
Feminisim stage- 1970s: urged for authentic being as a worker and/or mother, work was important through the 1980s: seen as Mother's liberation, mothers can do it all/have it all, supermom idea is planted, no motherhood guilt.
Individual/Success stage: 1990s: age of anxiety, motherhood guilt returns as women have learned how society doesn't support the big career and supermom ideal any longer, mom as the punching bag- blamed for all that is wrong with kids/family/society/schools, the Overwhelm!
"I have by now talked with hundreds of women. And what I see is that working and stay-at-home moms do what they do not so much by choice- by choosing from a series of options arrayed before them like cereals on a supermarket shelf - but out of a very immediate and pressing sense of personal necessity. There are many aspects to that sense of necessity - money, status, ambition, the needs of the children and of the family as a whole - all of which play themselves out, in various ways, in individual women's lives. And all of those aspects of personal necessity are part and parcel of the condition of motherhood - not external to it, not accessory to it, not a "selfish" deviation from it. They grow naturally out of what women have done - and who they have been - throughout their lives. So their paths as mothers are not so much "chosen" as devolved from who they are, who they've been, and what the material conditions of their families require." -Wow. I agree for me but would like to discuss this idea with other mothers and see if they agree or disagree.
"What we are trying to do, in religiously following the rites and rituals of ideal motherhood, is assuage some kind of deeper longing inside of us. For some women, I think, it is a longing for the world of their childhoods, when someone was there to take care of things. For other women, who did not feel sufficiently cared for by their mothers, it's a desire to give their children the kind of comforting childhood they didn't have - and to "re-parent" themselves in the process. Overall, I think, it's a longing to GET THINGS UNDER CONTROL." I really think that so much of the competitiveness that is rampant in our motherhood culture stems from this idea. Parents want to be validated for the choices they are making and told they are doing right by their children. Many of us want to correct things that someone else didn't in our pasts. There is no ONE RIGHT path to take as parents to ensure productive/happy/healthy children and that makes us all feel out of control. That scares us so we try to control what we can in our own homes and choices. Anxiety!
"A number of feminist writers have commented on the fact that women shifted their powers of control to their bodies at precisely the point when their control of their reproductive rights began to slip." -Sadly this led to food allergies, eating disorders, cutting, other self-mutilation of body and mind all in the efforts to control SOMETHING in our lives! Sexpot images (Marilyn Monroe) are popular when female roles of reproduction are valued in society. Thin or muscled images (Twiggy) are favored during women's progress.
"Food-and-body control is an opiate. A highly effective and highly adaptive way of drowning out the angst of existence."
"What's really unique about maternal anxiety today is our belief that if something goes wrong with or for our children, it's a reflection on us as mothers. Because we believe we should be able to control life so perfectly that we can keep bad things from happening." -Reading this does make it sound really ridiculous that this mind set has really taken over. I find myself believing in its myth still, however.
"The perversity in all this, of course, is that what we're trying to control is precisely what one cannot control; you can't shape and perfect human beings, pre-program and prepare them so that you can predict the course of their lives and protect them along the way. But you can- ostensibly- exert some control over what kind of society you live in." -This requires us to be vigilant in electing and promoting the kind of politics we wish to see in the world.
"While hyperparenting can induce anxiety, depression, and stress in older kids, among younger children it now seems chiefly to produce bad behavior." -She goes on to say how they are used to being played with one on one,demand constant entertainment, and are overprepared intellectually but underprepared in social skills.
August 3, 2024
A thought-provoking read.
August 17, 2011
Before becoming a mother I knew I'd be entering a different world of paranoia and mommy insanity. After becoming a mother I had to learn how to navigate within it to find the few mothers who thought as I did about the germaphobe mothers that swarmed around us. This book set out to explain it all and it did.
I liked the timeline through history to modern times of how we, as American culture, got so fanatical. One man, John Bowlby, became the founder of the attachment theory which is known as "bonding" in today's lexicon. Because of Bowlby's books our society believes that a mother's time away from her child is detrimental to physiological and psychological needs of her child. America practices and loves attachment parenting. I've known several mothers who, in their child's first year of infancy, will not let the father take care of the child while she goes out by herself.
What our modern mothers do not know is that this kind of attachment and parenting is based off of Bowlby's research on war orphans and homeless children. This research was landmark as it was the first of it's kind to delve into the psychological states of these orphans. In our modern American we associate orphans with classic literature and orphanages don't really apply to American society.
America is a safe country yet fear runs rampant. We believe that there is always a stranger waiting to take our children. We cannot believe that the child abductors and sexual predators we fear are more likely to be the people that we know. America is good at being afraid about everything when it comes to our children. No, it is not a bad thing to be protective as being protective is a maternal and a paternal instinct. It is a bad thing when we are so paranoid that we fall prey to advertising and marketing that knows our fear and will sell ridiculous products that defy common sense.
The book discusses how mothers are over-stressed because they are over-scheduled. This book is for two types of mothers/parents. If you are feeling so stressed that you are at that dark breaking point you thought you could and would never go this book may help explain how the world around you got to be the way it is. This book is also for the mothers who, like me, have always found themselves looking inside from the outside of all this insanity. Again, the book will explain to you how the world around you got so insane and you are still rest assured that you are not apart of it.
The book also discusses the self-sacrifice that mothers make for their children. This may seem noble in our over-achieving society but it really quite harmful. The book states:
"Too many of us now allow ourselves to be defined by motherhood and direct every ounce of our energy into our children. This sounds noble on the surface but in fact it's doing no one-not ourselves, or our children-any good. Because when we lose ourselves in our mommy selves, we experience this loss as depression. When we dis-empower ourselves in our mommy selves, we experience this weakness as anxiety. We desexualize ourselves in our mommy selves, it leads us to feel dead in our skin. All this places an undue burden upon our children. By making them the be-all-end-all of our lives, by breaking down the boundaries between ourselves and them so thoroughly, by giving them so much power within the family when they're very small, we risk overwhelming them psychologically and ill-preparing them, socially, for the world of other children and eventually, other adults."
YES! Thank you! Someone actually said it.
We want kind, compassionate, successful children but we don't allow them to fail. This book doesn't claim to be a self-help book. This should not be a self-help book as it is an observation of our mothering society. If there's one thing that makes a great mother, as I have observed, it is learn how to fail and to do it well. Our children will learn accordingly. When they are allowed to fail they will learn how good success feels. When they are allowed to feel discomfort and hurt-feelings only then can they learn to be compassionate and kind.
I liked the timeline through history to modern times of how we, as American culture, got so fanatical. One man, John Bowlby, became the founder of the attachment theory which is known as "bonding" in today's lexicon. Because of Bowlby's books our society believes that a mother's time away from her child is detrimental to physiological and psychological needs of her child. America practices and loves attachment parenting. I've known several mothers who, in their child's first year of infancy, will not let the father take care of the child while she goes out by herself.
What our modern mothers do not know is that this kind of attachment and parenting is based off of Bowlby's research on war orphans and homeless children. This research was landmark as it was the first of it's kind to delve into the psychological states of these orphans. In our modern American we associate orphans with classic literature and orphanages don't really apply to American society.
America is a safe country yet fear runs rampant. We believe that there is always a stranger waiting to take our children. We cannot believe that the child abductors and sexual predators we fear are more likely to be the people that we know. America is good at being afraid about everything when it comes to our children. No, it is not a bad thing to be protective as being protective is a maternal and a paternal instinct. It is a bad thing when we are so paranoid that we fall prey to advertising and marketing that knows our fear and will sell ridiculous products that defy common sense.
The book discusses how mothers are over-stressed because they are over-scheduled. This book is for two types of mothers/parents. If you are feeling so stressed that you are at that dark breaking point you thought you could and would never go this book may help explain how the world around you got to be the way it is. This book is also for the mothers who, like me, have always found themselves looking inside from the outside of all this insanity. Again, the book will explain to you how the world around you got so insane and you are still rest assured that you are not apart of it.
The book also discusses the self-sacrifice that mothers make for their children. This may seem noble in our over-achieving society but it really quite harmful. The book states:
"Too many of us now allow ourselves to be defined by motherhood and direct every ounce of our energy into our children. This sounds noble on the surface but in fact it's doing no one-not ourselves, or our children-any good. Because when we lose ourselves in our mommy selves, we experience this loss as depression. When we dis-empower ourselves in our mommy selves, we experience this weakness as anxiety. We desexualize ourselves in our mommy selves, it leads us to feel dead in our skin. All this places an undue burden upon our children. By making them the be-all-end-all of our lives, by breaking down the boundaries between ourselves and them so thoroughly, by giving them so much power within the family when they're very small, we risk overwhelming them psychologically and ill-preparing them, socially, for the world of other children and eventually, other adults."
YES! Thank you! Someone actually said it.
We want kind, compassionate, successful children but we don't allow them to fail. This book doesn't claim to be a self-help book. This should not be a self-help book as it is an observation of our mothering society. If there's one thing that makes a great mother, as I have observed, it is learn how to fail and to do it well. Our children will learn accordingly. When they are allowed to fail they will learn how good success feels. When they are allowed to feel discomfort and hurt-feelings only then can they learn to be compassionate and kind.
September 16, 2019
焦虑的母亲似乎在孩子为中心的时代成为工业国家共同的形象，怎样寻求满意之道？作者认为国家、社会应当肩负起一些责任，还是不够深刻。我给5星是唤起对国内父母育儿竞赛模式的共鸣。em，不婚不育保平安。
December 26, 2009
On one level, this book is about "mommy madness." As Warner explains in her foreward, this is "the insane sort of perfectionistic and hyper-controlling behaviors that so many mothers engage in today." But it is also about a crazy time in American history where the middle class is being reduced to nothingness. As Warner explains:
"It's about the way that mothers' (and fathers) behaviors have been perverted by social and economic forces that they feel they cannot control. It's about how that feeling of being out of control drives them to parent in ways that are contrary to their better instincts, their deepest values, and the best interests of their children."
When I first got the book it was minus the foreward and instead immediately began with tales from a group of mothers in Washington DC who all felt stressed and lost and generally in a mess. Warner brought an interesting perspective as an American who had only recently moved back to the states. She had her first child in Paris and moved to DC when her second was 6 months old. She had a unique viewpoint on how American working mothers carried a sense of guilt with them - something I've fought with and the reason the book called to me. Guilt from the media, parenting magazines, pressure about breast-feeding, attachment parenting craziness etc ad nauseum.
Why are moms these days suffering the way we do?
1. We are a generation of control freaks - we feel the need to control our children, our bodies, our homes etc.
2. The women's liberation movement of the '70s gave us many more choices but it didn't change the underlying way that women and certain responsibilities are viewed.
3. Today's generation of moms saw what their mothers went through and didn't want to see history repeat itself but don't exactly know how to make changes that also make them happy.
4. Our current economic and political realities that have squeezed out the middle class make it seem that much more pressing to be the "best" and increases the general sense of pressure parents feel to make sure their children achieve what they haven't been able to.
This book was fascinating. The simple fact is "we can't do it all because we can't be it all." Warner not only talks about all of the emotions behind all of this, but by the end she brings in a ton of politics. She says a great deal about how family friendly policies have been "stymied by the Holy War that rages between social conservatives and feminists." That there is no middle ground between a vision of women's equality and the Christian fundamentalist viewpoint of family values. There were definitely pieces that were dull and needed to be skimmed through, but on the whole, this was a fascinating read.
"It's about the way that mothers' (and fathers) behaviors have been perverted by social and economic forces that they feel they cannot control. It's about how that feeling of being out of control drives them to parent in ways that are contrary to their better instincts, their deepest values, and the best interests of their children."
When I first got the book it was minus the foreward and instead immediately began with tales from a group of mothers in Washington DC who all felt stressed and lost and generally in a mess. Warner brought an interesting perspective as an American who had only recently moved back to the states. She had her first child in Paris and moved to DC when her second was 6 months old. She had a unique viewpoint on how American working mothers carried a sense of guilt with them - something I've fought with and the reason the book called to me. Guilt from the media, parenting magazines, pressure about breast-feeding, attachment parenting craziness etc ad nauseum.
Why are moms these days suffering the way we do?
1. We are a generation of control freaks - we feel the need to control our children, our bodies, our homes etc.
2. The women's liberation movement of the '70s gave us many more choices but it didn't change the underlying way that women and certain responsibilities are viewed.
3. Today's generation of moms saw what their mothers went through and didn't want to see history repeat itself but don't exactly know how to make changes that also make them happy.
4. Our current economic and political realities that have squeezed out the middle class make it seem that much more pressing to be the "best" and increases the general sense of pressure parents feel to make sure their children achieve what they haven't been able to.
This book was fascinating. The simple fact is "we can't do it all because we can't be it all." Warner not only talks about all of the emotions behind all of this, but by the end she brings in a ton of politics. She says a great deal about how family friendly policies have been "stymied by the Holy War that rages between social conservatives and feminists." That there is no middle ground between a vision of women's equality and the Christian fundamentalist viewpoint of family values. There were definitely pieces that were dull and needed to be skimmed through, but on the whole, this was a fascinating read.
August 6, 2013
An incredibly well-researched and insightful commentary on modern motherhood. Our generation of women has been raised on the feminist message that we can "have it all" and for many of us (given good educational opportunities, sufficient finances, and general class privilege) that has proven true right up to the point of motherhood where we hit a wall. Sadly, rather than looking outwards to enact societal change (paid family leave for both genders; government standards for universal, high-quality, and affordable daycare), we look inwards and apply our hyper-achieving, self-directed energies (which have previously served us so well) toward hyper perfection of our selves and our families: thus, the sacrifical mother mystique, helicopter parenting, extended professional work hours, nursing self-diagnosed ailments and allergies, maternal guilt, anxiety and stress. Bringing up the need for larger societal change which supports young families and women is viewed as pitiable, even among peers with young children.
In my mind, if you want to talk feminism, or life/work balance, or class equity, this book really hits at the heart of so many matters.
In my mind, if you want to talk feminism, or life/work balance, or class equity, this book really hits at the heart of so many matters.
January 8, 2010
Reading this book was a schizophrenic experience - I wavered between complete agreement with the author and total irritation at her inconsistencies and inaccuracies. She nails the feeling of free-floating anxiety that surrounds the contemporary practice of parenting, and correctly points a finger at U.S. society's failure to find collective childcare solutions. But a lot of undeserving targets, from natural birth to comfortable mom clothes, get tarnished by her broad brush, and her need to sustain a polemical argument engenders a tone of urgent complaint that drove me nuts. She also rarely questions the first-wave feminist assumption that paid work is always a more worthy use of women's (and men's) time than parenting, even though her larger argument would seem to suggest that our culture should place greater priority on childrearing as a public good. Finally, as other reviewers have pointed out, her exclusive focus on affluent, educated parents weakens her argument and gives the book a navel-gazing quality that ultimately constricts its scope.
January 28, 2018
A litany of examples of how Gen-X mothers are up to their eyeballs in stress and anxiety. Published in 2005, Warner's glimpse of modern motherhood doesn't sound all that different from how I hear mothers I know talk about their lives now (drowning in guilt, exhausted, filled with a sense of malaise and inadequacy). Modern moms are particularly unhappy creatures. I didn't need to read this book to be persuaded of that reality. At the very end of Perfect Madness, after 300 pages of examples of how moms are miserable, Warner's one idea, her single salve, is more federally funded child care programs. That is nice, but it only touches the surface of the mommy maladies, and it made me feel especially hopeless, hearing her optimism. In 2018, we are farther away from excellent nationwide child care than we were in 2005. The book is tedious and only serves to heighten anxiety instead of trying to determine its root cause. If you want to have kids, and you're a woman, this book will make you think twice about that desire.
April 13, 2008
Parts of this book are interesting, like the feminist and social history sections. Unfortunately the author really annoyed me with her over the top generalizations of different types of parenting approaches. She uses what I would characterize as "extreme" examples to make a point, when in reality the issues she talks about are much more complex and nuanced. I had to force myself to get 3/4 of the way through the book. Just couldn't finish it. Maybe her book describes a certain niche of parenting in her community in DC, but I just haven't found the mommy world to be so dramatic. I even follow what you would call "attachment parenting" and have found it to be nothing other than helpful and grounding as a parent. I definitely agree that our society does not support parents and mothers as they should- i.e. sub-par daycare services, maternity leave and flex hours, etc.
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April 26, 2012I love this book so far! Judith makes so many valid points about how in out strive to become perfect Mothers, we miss out on the joys of being a Mom! Stressed out parents aren't necessarily the ideal parents. American Moms have much to learn from European Moms about not feeling guilty when Dad picks up the kids or does the dishes! I am sure I will be able to pick up many useful tips from this book. So far one of the lines that made me chuckle was (paraphrasing) "Is a Girlscout Bakesale at 8pm fun for anyone or just plain ridiculous?" LOL
Finished the book and although the message was a bit redundant, it was one that almost any mother needs to hear-sometimes doing less is better for your children! Kids need to be kids & you need to be sane!
Finished the book and although the message was a bit redundant, it was one that almost any mother needs to hear-sometimes doing less is better for your children! Kids need to be kids & you need to be sane!
April 6, 2008
I enjoyed the discussion of motherhood and the needs of modern day mothers in the beginning and end of this book as well as the comparison of the child-care systems in different countries. It was thoughtful, pertinent and a call to action. The books speaks to the fears of parents who want the best for the kids and how difficult it is to achieve balance for our lives and that of our children in what can be a crazy, mean and competitive world. There is also a history of the feminist movement and of mothering in our society.
June 18, 2009
This was a bookclub selection for us and our general consensus was that there was no conclusion. She started off by letting us know how much better childcare and support for mothers is in France and then proceeded to hop all around American history trying to explain the seesaw of support here in the states. You get the idea that she believes mothers need to be happy in order for their children to be so, (and you cheer for this) and yet, there is no solution and no real structure. It just ends up a frustrating read and only one of us finished it.
May 3, 2011
Loved this book. It's the perfect antidote to Sears' attachment parenting drones, or is that drivel? Okay, I admit it, Sears was my bible until I realized I was losing it, and that I was more than just a mommy sacrificing everything for my child! Judith Warner has her head on straight and has been there. I am glad she took the time to write down her thoughts and offer some sanity in the attachment parenting perfectionism so many seem to aspire to in my little town in northern CA.
June 11, 2009
I'm fairly sure I agreed with almost everything in this book (why, just the other day I wished aloud that I could let my child run the streets, trusting my neighbors to march her back home by the ear if she so much as drops the f-bomb in public) but I may be wrong because the writing was so self-righteously dull that it's possible I was just narrating my own thoughts in my head.
February 8, 2014
I laughed and cried while reading this book because it so perfectly pinpointed modern motherhood and all its intricacies. It has certainly given my motherhood journey a better perceptive and helped me to laugh at all I do and see others do. The cycles of history, even in motherhood, are so real.
September 4, 2012
This book was an interesting look at the history of cultural shifts in motherhood. While figuring out how we got here is great, I was hoping for more analysis on how to overcome the negative cultural aspects. This book had none.
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September 2, 2015I read this years ago, but I pick it up again every once in awhile. I wish I could mail this anonymously to some of my friends that stress themselves out trying to be the perfect mom. Ain't no such thing.
January 20, 2010
WOW. Fascinating info and insight into mothering in this day and age. Reading it was amazing company and therapy to my worries and concerns as a mother of 2.
November 22, 2019
I wanted to like this. I started out enjoying it. Not so much the writing, which is opinionated and occasionally judgy, but the information. She provides a great deal of historical perspective on why things are the way they are (and also how they were beforehand). It was very informative.
The problem is, it's also repetitive. I know it's probably not; she's examining literally every aspect of society and how it came together to form a perfect storm of overachieving, dissatisfied, control-freaking Gen X mothers. But it still feels like every chapter is the same: go back to the Boomers, trace a phenomenon to the 90s, and show how it makes women dissatisfied and controlling. By the middle of the book I couldn't remember how this chapter was deeply different than the last.
The other thing is that by 2019 it feels a little dated. It's about Gen X, and I'm a Millennial. And we all grew up in a somewhat different environment and still have the same control-freaky issues, so it kind of makes me wonder about the book's thesis. Are Millennial Moms just adopting the zeitgeist created by Gen X? Or did society fundamentally change with working women, and this is the new normal? She hasn't acknowledged this by the book's halfway point, which makes it feel like a book for a specific time and place.
Finally, she comes to come conclusions that seem pre-fabricated. Like, she says that attachment parents claim their mothers were detached and therefore they have issues and will never ever do that to their kids by sending them to daycare. She declares that none of these women were ever in daycare, and actually, their mothers were detached because they hated their confined lives. She says that perception of choice -- namely, having chosen to be home or at work -- is what correlates with satisfaction, and that women are unhappy because they don't feel like they're really had a choice in their roles. That is: they need to be at home because the kids need them, or they need to work because they can't live on one income. They have to micromanage their kids' schedule because how else will they grow up happy and successful, etc. I am not 100% sure even her own long chapters support this conclusion. It felt like she had decided these things, and then worked backward to find the evidence for it, and the evidence wasn't always there.
If you like history and want to learn about (female) social phenomenon of the last 70 years, this is a great book. I definitely found it gripping for the first third. But somehow, the fascinating wore off and I'm not going to finish it.
The problem is, it's also repetitive. I know it's probably not; she's examining literally every aspect of society and how it came together to form a perfect storm of overachieving, dissatisfied, control-freaking Gen X mothers. But it still feels like every chapter is the same: go back to the Boomers, trace a phenomenon to the 90s, and show how it makes women dissatisfied and controlling. By the middle of the book I couldn't remember how this chapter was deeply different than the last.
The other thing is that by 2019 it feels a little dated. It's about Gen X, and I'm a Millennial. And we all grew up in a somewhat different environment and still have the same control-freaky issues, so it kind of makes me wonder about the book's thesis. Are Millennial Moms just adopting the zeitgeist created by Gen X? Or did society fundamentally change with working women, and this is the new normal? She hasn't acknowledged this by the book's halfway point, which makes it feel like a book for a specific time and place.
Finally, she comes to come conclusions that seem pre-fabricated. Like, she says that attachment parents claim their mothers were detached and therefore they have issues and will never ever do that to their kids by sending them to daycare. She declares that none of these women were ever in daycare, and actually, their mothers were detached because they hated their confined lives. She says that perception of choice -- namely, having chosen to be home or at work -- is what correlates with satisfaction, and that women are unhappy because they don't feel like they're really had a choice in their roles. That is: they need to be at home because the kids need them, or they need to work because they can't live on one income. They have to micromanage their kids' schedule because how else will they grow up happy and successful, etc. I am not 100% sure even her own long chapters support this conclusion. It felt like she had decided these things, and then worked backward to find the evidence for it, and the evidence wasn't always there.
If you like history and want to learn about (female) social phenomenon of the last 70 years, this is a great book. I definitely found it gripping for the first third. But somehow, the fascinating wore off and I'm not going to finish it.
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