Perfect Madness

Zusatztext "Manifestoes blast their way into the popular consciousness on two kinds of fuel: recognition (we see ourselves in them) and rage (we can no longer tolerate the injustice they describe). Judith Warner's ' Perfect Madness ' brims with both." The New York Times Book Review "How did we become a nation of worry-wart! control-freak mothers? Warner does a superb job of succinctly tracing the societal evolution and parenting theories from the postwar! Dr. Spock '50s and '60s through the past three decades since the dawn of feminism...[ Perfect Madness ] is sure to stir controversy and emotions." San Francisco Chronicle " Perfect Madness has struck a chord among middle-class moms guilt-tripped into being time-martyrs and trying to micromanage their children's lives." People "[ Perfect Madness ] has struck a chord with moms across the country! who believe they're going crazy." Dallas Morning News "In the end [Warner] arrives at the controversial conclusion that mothers are not victims of outside forces but rather their own worst enemies. The bigger issue! Ms. Warner argues! is that whether working or not! moms are consumed by what she sees as a new 'soul-draining' perfectionism that's turned parentingfrom the first ultrasound to the last college applicationinto a competitive sport. Ms. Warner's observations inject new life into what has become a long! tired debate." New York Observer "In this polemic about contemporary motherhood! Warner argues that the gains of feminism are no match for the frenzied perfectionism of American parenting. In the absence of any meaningful health! child-care! or educational provisions! martyrdom appears to be the only feasible model for successful maternitywith destructive consequences for both mothers and children. Comparing this situation with her experiences of child-rearing in France! Warner finds American 'hyper-parenting'pre-school violin and Ritalin on demand'just plain crazy.' The trouble is a culture that! though it places enormous private value on children! neglects them in the arenas of public policy. She is concerned less with sexual politics than with the more persuasive effects of the 'winner take all' mentality! and makes an urgent case for more socially integrated parenthood." New Yorker "Modern motherhood is exacting costs . . . With Perfect Madness ! Warner convincingly shows the psychological damages." Washington Post Book World "[ Perfect Madness ] has struck a chord among middle-class moms guilt-tripped into being time-martyrs and trying to micromanage their children's lives." People "A sharply observed study of motherhood in today's culture." Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Warner argues for a saner society! where everyone would have access to a decent living and enough family time for themselves and their children." Publishers Weekly "[Judith Warner's] words have struck a nerve with modern mothers." Richmond Times Dispatch "Warner hasinspired the beginnings of debate about where neurotic motherhood leads." London Observer " Perfect Madness is the utter madness of life in a frenzy around the children. But it also hints at the madness that is inherent in women's attempts to be 'perfect mothers' and have 'perfect' children. As a result they give up everything that distinguished them as individual womenwith a variety of wishes! desires! and interestsbefore they became mothers." Ha'Aretz Informationen zum Autor Judith Warner Klappentext 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...

Autorentext
Judith Warner

Klappentext
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.

Leseprobe
From the Preface
“This Mess”This is a very personal book.It is a snapshot of motherhood - of parenthood, really - as I found it in Washington, D.C., and its suburbs from the fall of 2000 to the summer of 2004. And although in writing it I made every effort to take my research further--away from the big cities of the East Coast, back in time to the colonial roots of America's cultural history, then forward again to our day--I know that what I have written here is not an encyclopedic overview of Motherhood, Now and Forever.It's not a scholarly history.Neither is it a book of self-help.It's not a book about the work-family conflict.Nor is it about "balance," or the problems of working mothers, or the virtues of stay-at-home motherhood.It does not contain much by way of policy.It will not tell you how to raise your children.It is, rather, an exploration of a feeling. That caught-by-the-throat feeling so many mothers have today of always doing something wrong.And it's about a conviction I have that this feeling--this widespread, choking cocktail of guilt and anxiety and resentment and regret--is poisioning motherhood for American women today. Lowering our horizons and limiting our minds. Sapping energy that we should have for ourselves and our children. And drowning out thoughts that might lead us, collectively, to formulate solutions.The feeling has many faces but it doesn't really have a name. It's not depression. It's not oppression. It's a mix of things, a kind of too-muchness. An existential discomfort. A "mess," as one woman I interviewed called it, for lack of a better word.She wasn't a woman who normally lacked for words. She was a newspaper editor. A headline writer. A professional wordsmith. And yet, as she sat with me one night, half-buried in a sofa in a circle of moms, she struggled, and stumbled, as she tried to express what it was that made her life feel like it was always about to come apart.None of it made much sense, really, she said. She was a person lucky enough to have many choices. In the hope of finding "balance" she'd chosen to scale down her career--working part-time and at night, in order to spend as much time as possible with her nine-year-old daughter.This is the kind of arrangement that mothers are supposed to dream of. This mo…

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