Emily Matchar quotes:

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.

American culture at large has failed working mothers.

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!).

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.

You have a teenager who desperately wants to separate...If you don't have a career, these New Domesticity types are likely to find themselves standing in the kitchen with all these domestic skills and no outlet for them, no way to earn a living.... [A]t that point your kids are not thanking you for having made the hand-pureed baby food and for giving them homemade cookies. They don't feel you've done them a big favor; they say, "Why didn't she ever grow up and take responsibility for her own life?"

It's not the nineteenth century; I'm not meant to be judged on how good a housekeeper I am. Getting down on the floor with a lemon and a bucket of vinegar does not make me a better person.