A recent NY Times article, Mommy Books: More Buzz than Buyers, discusses how books on working vs. stay-at-home mothers aren’t selling as well as their blog attention and media publicity would lead everyone to believe they would.
Why I don’t buy mommy books:
* I don’t buy one concept books any more. For this post, I read a blog post and a Huffington Post article (”Stay at Home Mom: A Sucker?” and “Women Who Stay at Home May Be Making a Big Mistake”) about the book and got the gist.
* Stay at home vs work is old news. It is a matter of circumstance, necessity, creativity, choice, one’s own nature, economics, on and on, and it’s all changing all the time. What we need are better design skills so that we can consciously create our own lives in our own unique ways in response to our own natures and circumstances.
* Buy a book that just describes my life? I know my life. It’s not that interesting. I share enough with my friends both in person and virtually to know I’m not alone. Unless the author’s as funny as Irma Bombeck (my mother’s generation’s wise comic relief–where’s our Irma Bombeck?!), no thanks.
But the real reason I won’t buy the book: It doesn’t get to the essence of the problem.
Working or not working, child or childless, single or married, life is a design space. I hope that instead of just discussing issues like working/staying home, women begin to talk about the process of and skills for creating a life where tradition is gone.
Our chaotic transitional society requires skills and ways of thinking that we can’t get from our parents or our expensive universities. As Robert Kegan says in In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life, “The curriculum is under development and the qualifications for expertise are questionable.”
The Great Turning has begun. A shiff from using up the world to sustaining the world is required. Work and life that’s not focused at least in part on those values is beginning to feel very wrong.
Discussions about working vs. staying at home seem off the mark. The discussion really is: Am I driven by need or driven by my highest values? How can I make sure, in my life, that the answer is the second?
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