How to End the Mommy Wars, by Amy Tiemann:

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As I have written about motherhood on MojoMom.com for the past six years, I've grappled with the concept of "The Mommy Wars." Is this a real phenomenon? Media-fueled myth? Mass hallucination among all the nation's moms?

I have concluded that there is no full-out "war" as portrayed in the media, but many of us have taken a small sliver of conflict into our hearts, where it can do damage to all mothers. I believe this has happened because all mothers are under such pressure to "do it all" (whatever all means to each family) without enough support that we each start to feel defensive about our own lives. Then we project our own feelings of doubt onto other women who are doing things differently, as though their different life path threatens ours.

In Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising a Family I set out to bridge this conflict by highlighting the common concerns of all mothers. At the heart of it all, moms face many of the same challenges: all-or-nothing career choices, lack of social support, a Second Shift at home even if one has an "enlightened" partner, and a desire to support and care for our families.

The same constellation of pressures may lead one woman to go back to work six weeks after her baby is born, while another woman leaves her job to become a stay-at-home mom. We have mistakenly framed this discussion as one about women's "choices." In one sense I an understand this, because today's moms are strong women who want to claim their life paths and feel that they are in control of their destinies.

However, it's going to take social change to create the support systems we need: if we each had access to paid parental leave (as is the norm in the rest of the industrialized world), a job we could return to, genuine flexible work options as the norm, and secure health insurance, I believe a much smaller gulf would develop between mothers, and fathers, too.

In Mojo Mom I discuss these issues in detail. I have come up with a number of strategies that highlight the common ground that all moms can claim together. In today's economic crisis, it's more important than ever for women to be prepared to take their careers into their own hands. Employed moms may face layoffs, and stay-at-home moms may need to become breadwinners. The good news is that there are positive steps we can each take to secure our futures: investing in ourselves, developing financial independence, building a support network before it's needed, and becoming activists to support policies that help all families.

I am hopeful about the future. The revolution in the workforce that we need is around the corner. If we can just keep pushing to reform the broken model of work that operates on 1950's Ward and June Cleaver assumptions, I think we'll get where we need to go. And the fact is, if we end the "war" and join forces, we'll get there a whole lot faster.

Amy Tiemann, Mojo Mom, Gotham, Penguin Books