Only losers in media's 'mommy wars'

Sometimes, meaning no harm, I think we, the media, give mothers the whim-whams.

One week we run a big story saying that mixing motherhood and full-time work is "losing favor." That the latest survey shows that fewer women find the "balancing act" of career and motherhood "ideal." (As if we needed the Pew Research folks to tell us that.)

We interview experts who say that the majority of mothers prefer to work part time. Oh, but we add that, of course, only a fraction actually can find those kinds of jobs, much less live on the income they provide.

The next week we run another big story saying that, in droves, moms are "opting back in" to full-time employment. We quote authors who say it's easy for women to pick up the threads of their careers after a few years at home, organizing play dates and teaching baby to count her toes. Then we quote other authors (with competing books to sell) who warn women not to buy it. That, while more than 90 percent of "highly qualified women" want to go back to work, only 40 percent are able to find full-time jobs.

It's a lot like the seesaw health-scare stories we seize upon. One week, the latest scientific bulletin warns women that hormone-replacement therapy (or coffee, red meat or wine) ups their risk of cancer or heart disease. The next week, a new study surfaces saying that low-dose HRT is safe, after all.

But the working-mother stories peppered with cutesy "mommy wars" phrases are the worst because nothing gets a mom where she lives like the so-called "choices" she made.

Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner -- co-founder of the burgeoning online organization MomsRising, and a co-author ("The Motherhood Manifesto") in her own right, thinks this "flavor of the month" approach to such crucial issues is just plain cruel. And so do I.

The group (120,000 members strong and growing by the hundreds each week) recently mailed 18,000 petitions to all major media executives asking them to drop the "mommy wars" angle and focus on real issues.

Then, in June, Rowe-Finkbeiner took her message to Capitol Hill, testifying before the work-force protection subcommittee of the House Committee on Education and Labor. The topic: "Balancing Work and Family: What Policies Best Support America's Families?" (You can YouTube it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzAsaW6MBmg.)

Look closely, she says, at this supposed divide between "full-time moms" and "full-time working mothers," and you'll find that most women, at some time, are both. It's not a line but a continuum.

"The media looks at one piece of the puzzle as if it's a whole," she said.

What the media -- and more importantly, Congress -- need to do is stop stirring defensiveness over what women "should" do and bear down on what "is." How to make it better with family-friendly policies. How to put real "family values" into practice.

Start with the facts that three-quarters of mothers work and most women are mothers.

Or the facts that women without children earn 90 cents to the male dollar, women with kids earn 73 cents, and single moms earn the least of all -- 60 cents to the male buck.

And the fact that family-friendly policies are not only fair, they help the economy.

Having a baby is the leading cause of the onset of a "poverty spell" -- a time when income dips below what is needed for food and rent. And a full one-fourth of kids under 6 in this country live in poverty.

Then add this cycle to the facts: Many women who have babies have no paid family leave. And, since child care costs so much (especially infant care), they have to quit badly needed jobs. But their health care coverage was job-connected. So it's a quick fall for many families, and not because women are greedy or because they "want it all."

Workers today must put in 500 more hours a year just to maintain a late 1970s income. We tend to salute (or at least give lip service to) the "choice" made by stay-at-home moms. But that "choice" often is a matter of luck and family income. In truth, families with one stay-home parent are seven times more likely to live in poverty than those in which both parents work.

And here's a corker. A recent New York Times study showed that the families that are the most likely to have a stay-at-home parent are male couples with a child. Second is a male-female couple. And least likely is a family made up of two females.

What about when women do go back to work? Moms are 79 percent less likely to be hired than non-mothers with the same résumé.

"Three-quarters of mothers work in 2007, but they're stuck with 1950s policies," Rowe-Finkbeiner says. That's why, knowing how busy moms already are, MomsRising offers ways to get involved in calling for change in only a minute or two. You can sign up for free, online, to find out how at www.momsrising.org.

It's time to lay down our arms in the bogus "mommy wars" and reach out for some answers.