“[Judith Warner:] Our neurotic quest to perfect the mechanics of mothering can be interpreted as an effort to do on an individual level what we’ve stopped trying to do on a society-wide one.”

“If you're not at least a tiny bit jealous at this point, you might want to check for your own pulse.”

“American culture at large has failed working mothers.”

“Now let's make Virginia Heffernan a man. Can you imagine the same kind of spittle-flecked rage directed at a busy working father who admits to feeding his kids Annie's Organic Mac & Cheese?”

“Her conclusion: "You just have to follow your own heart" when it comes to medical decision-making.”

“Attachment parenting, Sears writes, "immunizes children against many of the social and emotional diseases which plague our society," producing children who are "compassionate," "caring," "admirable," "affectionate," "confident," and "accomplished" ("faster than a speeding bullet," "more powerful than a locomotive," and "able to leap tall buildings in a single bound" seem to have been left off the list!).”

“[Judith Warner:] Our neurotic quest to perfect the mechanics of mothering can be interpreted as an effort to do on an individual level what we’ve stopped trying to do on a society-wide one.”

“Golden sees parental uninterest in collective solutions as part of a larger “decline in the social contract”… "As a scholar, I'm very disturbed that we have more [media] articles about toxins in the home than the fact that we don’t have universal prenatal care, she says. “We’ve moved from collective concern about infant and child welfare into this very privatized focus on “my child” and this intensive child-rearing.”

“[Joan C. Williams] Food has always been a class code, and since Alice Waters, the way to give an upper-middle class act is with food that is fresh and local...The class code of the upper-middle class literally links morality and political virtue with certain forms of high-intensity food-preparation activities.”

“When we combine very real workplace inequalities with these romantic opt-out stories, the idea that "having it all" is a laughable goal becomes enshrined as immutable truth. And when we portray opting out as a simple matter of "choice," we ignore the systematic problems that make combining work and motherhood so difficult.”

“The problem is that the media rarely discusses the real reasons behind why women leave their jobs. We hear a lot about the desire to be closer to the children, the love of crafting and gardening, and making food from scratch. But reasons like lack of maternity leave, lack of affordable day care, lack of job training, and unhappiness with the 24/7 work culture-well, those aren't getting very much airtime.”