The Sexism of the 'Mommy Wars': Why It's Anti-Feminist to Belittle Parenting Disputes

Breastfeeding or formula? Crib or co-sleeping? Hospital birth or birth at home? Cry it out or attachment parenting? If you have an opinion on any of these issues and you're a woman, then you're part of what has been dismissively labeled the "Mommy Wars."

You know, because parenting is trivial, women are crazy, and whenever a woman has a strong opinion on anything it must be dismissed. So pervasive is the Mommy War narrative that, in many spaces, women cannot even discuss parenting philosophies without being criticized for participating in this "stupid" and "pointless" debate.

People fight about lots of things, and lots of things that matter significantly less than how we rear the next generation. Yet only disputes between women about something still viewed as women's work gets dismissed as a pointless debate unworthy of consideration. Want to endlessly compare Star Wars to Star Trek or devote your afternoon to analyzing whether unbaptized heathens get into Heaven? Completely valid. Dare to question whether the dominant parenting paradigm is healthy for children, though, and you've just crossed the line into trivial, empty blather.

Several years ago, a local municipality infuriated with me with a totally illegal breastfeeding ordinance that banned publicly feeding children over the age of one, labeling it as "public nudity" and "adult entertainment." With a couple of friends, I organized a nurse-in with hundreds of women who made the city regret its decision to ever offend me. The ordinance was quickly changed, freeing up all women to yet again feed their children as they saw fit.

In spite of the protest's success, media coverage of the event kept talking about the "mommy wars." The participants--almost half of whom were men--and I had no desire to vilify other women, including those who chose to formula-feed. In the popular imagination, though, any attempt by women to lobby for their rights as mothers is laughable.

We need to stop using language that refers to the "Mommy Wars" and start taking women's concerns as mothers seriously. Here's why it's sexist to do anything else.

The 'Mommy Wars' Narrative Trivializes Women's Opinions 
"Mommy Wars" is almost always a pejorative. Two women discuss their feeding choices and suddenly a guy chimes in. "Oh, no! Not the Mommy Wars again!" God forbid women have different opinions from one another and opt to discuss those opinions. In the Mommy Wars context, women need to either share the same opinions on everything--after all, they're women and women are all the same, right?--or keep their mouths shut. No one wants to hear women prattle on about something trivial like keeping babies alive. There are sports teams to fight about, celebrities to objectify, and fantasy football leagues to construct. You know, real opinions from real humans (read: men) about things that actually matter.

Dismissing Debates About Parenting Demeans Women's Work 
Most people now recognize that a strict dichotomy between what is male and what is female--men work and women raise children; women are emotional and men are logical--is deeply sexist, damaging both sexes.

Weirdly, the way our culture has collectively responded to this is by demeaning all that is female. Rather than telling boys and girls that they can have pink or blue rooms, feminist parents across the globe deride all uses of pink. Rather than embracing the notion that raising children is work, self-styled experts of all stripes instruct women that, if they're not working, they're not pulling their own weight. Also they're bad models for their little girls. They're probably stupid, too.

The "Mommy War" narrative is just one more example of this phenomenon. Raising children is one of the most important things we, as a species, do. It's certainly the only thing necessary for the survival and improvement of the human race. Women are still overwhelmingly responsible for children. Doubt this? Consider the fact that men who play any role at all are lauded as heroes, and that dad's time is routinely dismissed as "baby-sitting." Even when women work outside the home, data consistently shows that they spend substantially more time with their children than fathers. Worse still, working mothers tend to take career hits solely because they have children, even when all that extra work they do around the home doesn't undermine the quality of work they do.

Motherhood is hard work for which women receive almost no credit. When mothers talk about the work they do, debate the best way to do it, or demand more research on how to effectively raise a decent next generation for our species, we tell them they're engaged in a mindless debate. Men can spend years fighting with the guy at the office who steals everyone's lunch. That just makes sense. Try to keep your kid alive and thriving, and you're basically a monster.

Cultural and Social Pressures are Magically Washed Away 
It's easy to dismiss the Mommy Wars as mindless fighting between mindless women. What's harder to accept is that maybe there is a right way to raise children. And maybe our society makes that "right way" impossible. Or perhaps that "right way" demands so much of women that it's only fair for men to pick up the slack. We can't be having with that sort of thing, now, can we?

Consider the following:

• Most women want to breastfeed their babies. The evidence in favor of breastfeeding is overwhelming and undisputed, even though most moms don't reach their own breastfeeding goals. Why might this be? Dozens of reasons: women are often lambasted, and even asked to leave, when they feed their babies in public. This means that breastfeeding without facing judgment means never leaving the house. Inadequate or nonexistent maternity leave force women to pump, which is difficult and expensive. They may also find that their employers don't give them time to do so. Without adequate support, breastfeeding can be difficult and painful. It also requires quality nutrition and a significant time commitment. If dad's not willing to keep the house clean, help with the baby, feed mom nourishing meals, or massage an aching back, can we really blame women for turning to formula?
• Neither work nor staying at home are "luxuries." The cost of childcare is astronomical, which means that foregoing work is simply the more economical choice for some women. For others, it's simply not possible to quit working, or the risks of taking a few year out of a demanding career are too high. Almost all women make the decisions based on economics and the needs of their children--not the much-mythologized desire for personal "fulfillment."
• Every child is different, and the sleeping arrangements that work for one might fail miserably for another. Moreover, doctors and medical organizations have a long history of giving women misleading information. Even as recently as 30 years ago, they instructed women that holding a crying baby would "spoil" an already-manipulative child. Now, research points in two different directions regarding sleeping, with some saying it increases the risks of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and other studies suggesting it actually reduces SIDS risk. Women are left to sort through the mess, and to face judgment no matter what they do. 

The competing pressures, lack of reliable information, and endless judgment is a recurring theme with every Mommy War topic. Most women don't have the luxury of freely selecting from a range of equally accessible choices; their options are constrained by the support their partners provide, the flexibility they get at work, their willingness to stand up for themselves, the education to which they have access, their self-esteem, their social class, and so much more. 

Labeling different choices as a product of a nonexistent war between mothers does what society has been doing to women for centuries: it pits us against one another, distracting us from the very real oppression women as a group face. When we blame one another, we can't band together and fight for equal pay, active partners, family leave, breastfeeding rights, quality parenting research, an end to violence against women and children, and so much more. 

Men Are Excused From Any and All Responsibility 
If you take the notion of a Mommy War seriously, then you have completely negated the role of men in raising children. It's as if children just appear in and then tumble out of women, who then raise them completely alone. The reality is that men matter a lot, and the choices a man makes will affect his partner and child.

Men who do their fair share around the home make virtually every parenting choice easier. Equality in parenting frees up women's time to research the best options and pursue those that work best for the child.

We tell women that men can't be trusted to do these tasks. That's why we're supposed to just accept that we can't expect to come home to a well-groomed child, a sparkling clean home, and a delicious meal. Sadly, many of us believe it--probably because it's easier to do so than to accept the incredible male narcissism inherent in an unequal distribution of household labor. When women are left to do so much work, is it any wonder that they face such constrained choices? Is it surprising that they turn on the easiest of targets--other women?

The Mommy Wars are not real and have never been. Sexism, male entitlement, and the trivialization of women's work are the real culprits. There is nothing wrong with debating parenting strategies, but these debates can and should take into account the social pressures that constantly limit women's choices.