Slacker Mom

From Newsweek:

Last spring, Mead-Ferro published her manifesto, "Confessions of a Slacker Mom," which called on women everywhere to park the mini-van, bow out of the childrearing sweepstake and lighten up. With Confessions of a Slacker Wife (due out from DaCapo in April) she’s trying to bring some downtime to domestic life, too.

The problem, as Mead-Ferro sees it, is that too many well-heeled, well-educated and otherwise sensible women are driving themselves and each other crazy. After years of competing in the work force, they’re mistakenly bringing the same zeal to child rearing and housekeeping as they did to their jobs. Domestic standards popularized by women’s magazines and Madison Avenue, she argues, have gotten too high. It’s not enough to keep crumbs off the kitchen counters, these days you have to keep the counters bacteria free. “And you can’t just make a lemon pie like June Cleaver,” she says. “These days you have to use Meyer lemons.”

Great article. If you've got the time read all of it.

Hat tip: fellow stay-at-home dad James Lileks

Posted by Jack Lewis at February 18, 2005 08:50 AM