Forget “Having It All”: How America Messed Up Motherhood—and How to Fix It

Reporter Westervelt argues in this forceful call to arms that American mothers have long suffered from institutional sexism, and she proposes bold political and cultural shifts intended to put mothers on an equal footing with men. Based on conversations with hundreds of women (and some men), both parents and not, and a dive into relevant scholarship, Westervelt identified the “rotten foundation on which modern American parenting stress is built”: the idea that “children are the sole responsibility of their biological parents.” Fixing this, she maintains, requires a “rethinking of motherhood” drawing on traditions of community parenting from outside “Anglo-American” culture, a true valuing of caregiving and systems to support it, and an expansion of the definition of family beyond traditional marriage. She looks frequently to the example of Japan, which “has been slapping Scandinavian-style policies on a committedly patriarchal capitalist society” similar to the U.S.’s with mixed results; for example, merely strengthening maternity leave did not succeed in encouraging heterosexual Japanese women to have more children—their male partners’ lack of domestic involvement was a bigger barrier for them. Many of Westervelt’s ideas might be hard for traditionalists to swallow, but she writes with insight and posits inclusive solutions. [em](Nov.) [/em]