The Global Warming Debate

Lisa Norman

Indianapolis, Ind.

Kathleen Deveny is right that many of us don’t care about Yummy Mummies, Slummy Mummies, Alpha Mommies, etc. But these are just distracters, soft topics that derail our attention from the real issues of motherhood and mothers. Why is there a need for more talk about motherhood? Just to name a few reasons: there is a wage gap not only between men and women, but between women with and without children; child care is a serious problem for working mothers; family-friendly policies—such as maternity leave, workplace breast-feeding programs and flex time—are as rare as intelligent, insightful articles about motherhood; women who devote themselves to unpaid work through child rearing on a full-time basis receive no Social Security credits and are therefore at a significant disadvantage in terms of retirement and economic independence, and for the very simple reason that it is a basic and universal human experience that almost half of the world’s population has or will experience. Women with children have lives and experiences as diverse as any other broad group of people. Mothers, however, bear an unusual burden, responsibility and challenge within society as primary caregivers for the next generation. Let’s keep the conversation, books and articles coming, and maybe mothers will become a unified group with a voice strong enough to insist upon the necessary changes.

Gabriela Alcalde

Louisville, Ky.

As the author of a play about modern motherhood, “Mother Load,” currently touring the country, I read Kathleen Deveny’s “Yummy vs. Slummy” with some disappointment. The lively conversations I have had with parents all around this country belie Deveny’s assertion that we should all be “bored to death” with the topic. It is belittling to women to assume that everything mothers have to say about our lives is either uninteresting or, worse, narcissistic. “Slummy Mummy” and “The Feminine Mistake” hardly belong in the same category of literature, and to dismiss them both out of hand is unfair. It also seems ironic that Deveny claims to be tired of reading about motherhood after her own article on motherhood has been published in NEWSWEEK. Now that she’s had her chance, do you think she’d mind holding off on a ban on mommy lit until I get my own book draft in to my editor?