Contextualizing "mommy wars"

Here I want to post some links to other "mama blogs" that I read some time ago and that taught me about "mommy wars".

I had never heard of the term until less than two months ago when I came across first these posts (on "mommy wars" and "Mommy drive-bys") in the midlife mama blog, which in turn led me to the Chez Miscarriage Blog, where I was amazed by the viciousness of mothers against other mothers in the guest bloggers' "testimonials" here.

These are all more or less related to Judith Warner's book Perfect Madness. Of course, I haven't read the book, just an Elle Magazine (sounds strange, right?) article about it I found a link to in the Expat Mama blog.

OK, enough links. Now that I've proven to myself that even not knowing any html I can still get some links going, I can continue...

I found it extremely interesting to learn about all this. My previous exposure to some aspects of this discussion had started with Naomi Wolf's book Misconceptions : Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood which I read and re-read in my second pregnancy (03-04). I had no idea about the changes that had taken place within the context of giving birth in this country in the past 20 years, and I felt privileged that my experiences were wonderful, very unlike those of Wolf's. I have also read/ heard some of the criticisms Wolf's book received, but I enjoyed it very much.

(on a side note, this whole thing with seemingly controversial books that elicit lots of responses, then the interest dies down, or moves on to other books, seems very "American" to me. In a country like Brasil, not many people read books, and there's not a lot of meaningful "bookish" discussion among people)

Anyway... I continue being an outsider, yes, definitely "the other" I studied about in literary theory. Nevertheless, I understand what goes on, but do not feel very affected. These "mommy wars" do not bother me much because I live a life "out of context" in a sense. Even if I go back to Brasil now, my life will still be "out of context" there as well. Yes, I'm a "SAHM" (stay at home mom), and supposedly a student. And maybe someday I will be working and mothering as well, but right now I'm happy. I mean, I'm an expatriate, yes, but have never ever felt any limitations in terms of language and culture. Of course right now I feel sad that my son does not know English yet, but that will come with time - I'm giving him the "gift" of Portuguese, his parents', grandparents', aunts', uncles', etc, language.

But I digress, of course I do... Having done so, I will finish with two more links. I recently found out there's a new book out, The Truth Behind the Mommy Wars, and the author is from here, Philadelphia, this is her blog. Well, I'll see if I can check out Warner's and Peskowitz' books from a library, unfortunately, I have no money to buy books right now :( (only Catherine Newman's, I'm that big of a fan :)