Apparently, the more “progressive” the community, the more intense the inducements to do it all “naturally”—once again, nature and women locked in some sort of master-slave dialectic. I listen, I ponder, and in my darkest heart, I think that motherhood today is no less deforming than when Betty Friedan detailed maternal malaise in 1960; it just takes updated forms. Women are still angry about feeling duped and undervalued, but instead of ignoring their kids and downing cocktails all day, as in Friedan’s time, now we have the angry overdrive child-rearing style: motherhood as a competitive
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