“Stop_Ironing_The_Diapers”

“Stop Ironing The Diapers” To assume that the times in which we live are more special and more momentous than any other times is human nature. This is particularly true of the generation of the baby boomers, trail blazers for civil liberties, and universal justice. In “Stop Ironing the Diapers,” Barbara Ehrenreich mocks the obsessions of all those 1980s mothers who worried about missing stages in their children’s lives, about “quality time,” future SAT scores and who pondered endlessly the possibility of raising children well and at the same time, having a career. Motherhood is not a job, it is a relationship, the author maintains and points out that anthropologically, in all of the world’s cultures, children were and are raised simultaneously with the work mothers do–be it weaving or farming or maintaining a household. On the basis of this anthropological information and her own experience as a mother, Ehrenreich believes that “full-time one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.” Thus, Ehreneich suggests a few pointers on good parenting§working skills. “Quality time” between mother and child is a big “don’t” according to Ehreneich. She suggests having “talks” while both are busy doing other activities. This brings nervousness and stress down a notch children, mothers, mother, time, ehreneich, trying, relationship, lives, good, ehrenreich, children’s, child, both, audience, about, women, turn, times, themselves, suggests, stop, should, question, quality, point, own, out, must, mom, men, little, involved, instead, healthy, having, find