Leslie Bennetts' new book "The Feminine Mistake" has generated a lot of controversy and discussion. I expected to be the last person to defend her, as I was personally offended by Bennetts' overly critical characterization of stay-at-home Moms. She operates with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, but her core message is unmistakably important: A man is not a financial plan. Every woman needs to wake up to this reality. The cost of being caught without a personally-constructed safety net is a stiff penalty. I am not surprised that a book as polarizing as "The Feminine Mistake" has generated a lot of love-it-or-hate-it reactions, but I have been taken aback by the willful financial denial voiced in some of the Amazon.com reader reviews. A woman calling herself Starbaby says....

A recent article in L.A. Parent Magazine ( www.laparent.com ) asked, Is Motherhood Depressing? The article’s title was meant to be provocative – questioning whether the mere act of being a mother – supposedly the world’s most rewarding (and yes, the real oldest) profession, could emotionally debilitate even the most well-balanced woman. In reality, the story was about the difficulties of parenting while dealing with a psychological disorder, profiling one woman’s struggle with clinical depression. It cited a study which suggests that a growing number of women and men are finding that child rearing has sent them into a Prozac dependency, needing daily medication to survive from school drop-off to bedtime and every dirty diaper-, temper tantrum- and homework-induced meltdown in between. My personal belief is whatever it takes to get through the day without blood being shed is, to quote my favorite ex-con Martha Stewart, “a good thing.” My husband recently received very sad news which brought the message home. He learned an acquaintance from college who was married, had kids and was depressed, killed herself and her children while her husband was away serving in Iraq. All this got me thinking about the many parents I know who are not saddled with lifetime depression issues or even survivors of postpartum depression, but who still wonder aloud and often, why they feel their lives as parents have left them so frustrated, sad and often angry. Is motherhood depressing? Maybe it is, yes, but for reasons that we can change.

Breaking news: A Family Leave Insurance bill just passed the Washington State Senate, and now is moving to the State House. MomsRising members in WA are calling their 2 State Representatives and posting what they learn about how their elected officials plan to vote here. The more YES votes we count, the more MOMentum we'll generate to pass this bill. *Ready to post what you've heard in Washington? Just click the blog title above, or click on the "Read full post" link below. Then scroll down to the end of web page--through all of the comments/blog text--to the "Post a Comment" section. Fill in the blanks with your text. Then when you are finished don't forget to click the "Post Comment" button at the very bottom of the page.

Today's New York Times features an important article: "Stop the Presses, Boys! Women claim space on Op-Ed Pages" profiles Catherine Orenstein, a writer and activist who teaches women the techniques of editorial opinion-piece writing. Orenstein says of editorial writing, "It's a teachable form. It's not like writing Hemingway. You show people the basics of a good argument, what constitutes good evidence, what's a news hook, what's the etiquette of a pitch." Many women are never taught these key structures and formulas, yet we need to learn them if our voices are to to be included in media coverage of all the key issues of the day. The Times feature shares enough of Orenstein's tips that you'll learn just from reading this piece.