by Janna Malamud Smith: a review of a book by a colleague of mine: Sharing the Burdens of Motherhood:

“Children’s security — and women’s equality — will be assured, (Janna Smith argues), only when mothers dare demand that nurturing labors be more fairly supported by society as a whole. What has long held mothers back, Smith worries, is all the protective worry. It will never go away, she says again and again, and no one should hope — or fear — that it will. But for that very reason, it should not be exploited the way it has been. Smith’s mission is to show how that ”visceral, powerful” sense of alarm has been ”continually manipulated, overtly and subtly,” wittingly and unwittingly, by ”experts and authorities of many timbres” — all in the name of helping mothers stay calm. The effect has been to keep them hovering (”metaphorically and often literally”) by the cradle, shouldering more than their share of accountability for children’s fates, when what parents and kids alike really need are more family-friendly policies and public attitudes. By exposing the uses and abuses of maternal anxiety, Smith hopes to help inspire a social movement to rock the boat.” NY Times