To the Editor:
While I agree with Conor Dugan's assertion that motherhood is a choice that should be available to all women ("Our Heroic Women"-9/21/99), I disagree with his implication that motherhood is of only one variety. That would be a stay-at-home mother who lives a life filled with "daily acts of courage through the drudgery and through the insults thrown at women." He adds that no "sundry activities man engages in" can "hold a candle to" motherhood.
First of all, those "sundry activities" that he listed are positions that are filled more and more by working women. Secondly, for many working mothers the "choice" to do both is one of economic necessity and not soley one of philosophy. Are these women not 'choosing motherhood'? And where would single mothers fit in Dugan's description? If Dugan is so concerned with women who do not 'choose motherhood' I suggest he put his energy into securing and upholding rights for lesbian mothers to remain or become mothers at all.
In conclusion, I am a mother. I have a career. I am really good at doing both of them. I am able to do this in part, because I have a partner who is not hampered by the definitions of fatherhood modeled for him as he was growing up. He is a father and he has a career. We both do both! What's heroic is our constant struggle to stand in the face of gender parenting stereotypes that people around us, sometimes much younger than we, insist we adhere to. What is heroic to me is the mother who holds fast to the biggest possible definition of herself so she can show her children how great one's life can be -- and does so in the face of societal pressure to conform to some other person's idea of what her definition should be.
