TORN Contributor Darcy Mayers did a wonderful job fielding questions from Hoda and Kathie Lee on this morning’s Today Show on NBC (8/17/2011). The segment discussed a recent study out of the U.K. that showed that when moms work outside the house, kids turn out just fine. So, working moms, stop feeling guilty. The kids are all right.

Watch the segment here.

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TORN: True Stories of Modern Motherhood (Book Trailer)
Edited by Samantha Parent Walravens (buy on amazon)
www.samanthawalravens.com

Striking the right balance between career and motherhood is one of the most stressful, heart-wrenching tasks facing women today. In TORN: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood, 47 women examine the conflict between the need to nurture and the need to work, and reveal creative solutions for having the best of both worlds.

Their stories are remarkably honest, poignant and often hilarious vignettes about about the highs and lows of contemporary motherhood, written from the different perspectives of both working and stay-at-home moms. Some of the working moms do so because their finances require it, and some work to preserve their sanity. Among those who stay at home, some are fulfilled by motherhood and others long for the structure and tangible rewards of the working life. Along with these tales from the inner sanctum of motherhood, TORN also includes contributions from those on the outside: women whose personal and professional lives took precedence until the motherhood option was no longer open to them.

While offering hope and inspiration, TORN’s contributors do not shy away from the messy realities of modern motherhood and life’s inevitable crises, both small and large: from breast pump mishaps to battles with cancer; diaper blowouts to debilitating depression; competitive cupcake baking to coming home from war. In the end, the reader can take comfort in the knowledge that there is no perfect mother; nor is there a perfect balance when it comes to kids and career.

TORN is a treat for any working or stay-at-home mom who needs reassurance that her frustrations– as well as her joys– are universally shared. TORN is a must-read for young professionals contemplating motherhood, parents overwhelmed with the competing demands of work and family life, stay-at-home moms trying to “on ramp” back into a career, men trying to understand the plight of the women in their lives, and anyone wondering how women are faring in the professional world today. The perfect Mothers’ Day or baby shower gift, TORN should also be at the top of the reading list for book groups today.

As Catherine Clifford, Founder of www.youronramp.com, puts it, “If you have a mother, are a mother or know a mother, read this book!”

TORN is available for purchase on amazon.com and in select bookstores across the nation on May 1, 2011. Books may be ordered wholesale through Ingram.

To read more, go to www.samanthawalravens.com

Purchase at Amazon:

Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood

A military mother serving a year-long tour of duty in Iraq, apart from her 2 little girls…
A stay-at-home mother being forced back to work because of the current economic crisis…
A working mother shopping for dinner at a food bank…
A woman struggling with infertility after putting career before kids for too long….
A mother cursing Heidi Klum for making the rest of us feel bad about ourselves…

What do these women all have in common?

Their stories illustrate the REAL, and often unspoken, challenges facing women today as they attempt to juggle motherhood, career, marriage and more. I want to give a shout-out to my 47 contributors– the 47 women who were brave enough to share some of the most intimate details of their personal lives for my upcoming anthology, Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood (Coffeetown Press, May 2011). Their diverse collection of voices captures where American mothers find themselves today.

Thank you, Mom-writers, for sharing your wit, intelligence and candor. Let’s hope Torn tears it up out there!

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I opened my morning paper today and saw a headline about Mariah Carey’s bi-coastal baby nurseries, each replete with gold-gilted sconces and 800-thread Egyptian cotton crib sheets.

Lets face it: the “reality” and celeb moms we hear about in the media are far from real.

What may surprise you is that the “ordinary” moms we DON’T hear about in the media aren’t so ordinary, after all. What’s ordinary about Jessica Scott, an officer in the US Army serving a year tour of duty in Iraq, who Skypes her daughter on her 5th birthday to watch her blow out the candles on her cake? What’s ordinary about Katy Read, a journalist-turned-stay-at-home-mom, who lies awake at 3 a.m., agonizing about how she will put her 2 boys through college after a divorce leaves her in dire financial straits? What’s ordinary about Sabrina Parsons, CEO of a software company who watches her toddler (through glass doors) finger-paint the white dining room furniture red as she takes an important conference call– an episode that she refers to as “multi-tasking”?

This Mother’s Day, let’s give a shout out to all the “ordinary” moms out there. While they may not live the lavish and looney lifestyles of the rich and famous, their lives are FAR from boring.

– Samantha Walravens

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Spend every moment with your child? Make your own baby food and use cloth diapers? Erica Jong wonders how motherhood became such a prison for modern women. This article in the Wall Street Journal (November 6, 2010) is a must-read!

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Great article on Slate.com entitled “Parents Are Junkies.”

A study conduced by Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, Nobel Laureate, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, concluded that spending time with children makes mothers about as happy as vacuuming. The daily work of parenting is a grind, whether it comes with poopy diapers, whiny toddlers or defiant teenagers. So why is it that when parents talk about their little progenies that their faces light up and they recount mostly the happy, silly moments ? According to this article, “Parenting is a series of intensely high highs, followed by long periods of frustration and stress, during which you go to great lengths to find your way back to that sofa and that kiss.” The name for “people who pursue rare moments of bliss at the expense of their wallets and their social and professional relationships”? Addicts.

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I’m fascinated by how quickly moms are to judge other moms and the choices they make. As if we aren’t overwhelmed with advice every way we turn: there’s Dr. Sears preaching “attachment parenting” on Oprah; the Holistic Moms Network pushing for green, organic parenting on the Internet; the Lactation Mommy Movement and their sadistic decree to have women breastfeed for a full year. Everywhere we look, there is somebody telling us what we SHOULD be doing. And what does such advice do, other than suggest to us changes we should make? It tells us what we’ve been doing wrong all along.

My generation of mothers — those raised to chase grades, then diplomas, then awards, then promotions, and then raises — is unsure how to proceed with something as squishy as mothering, something whose success cannot be monitored and quantified. We take that greed for success and we turn on it: See, we say with our methods and our philosophies, I can do it slower. I can do it greener. I can do it better.

Aren’t we better than this? What if, instead of behind-the-back barbs that criticized each other, or nasty outbursts via a comments section, we decided to remove the hostile judgment of each other’s methods, and looked to each other for camaraderie, to learn from each other and help each other to be happier moms, and, as a result, better parents?

And this is exactly where my book comes in. “Torn” offers mothers the camaraderie that they don’t get from their fellow bloggers, neighbors, even their friends. The stories reveal that no mother is perfect; that we are all in this messy business together; and that whatever choices we make, we are doing the best we can. We are here to support each other, to laugh with each other, and to stop judging each other. Pre-order a copy on amazon.com today!

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Consider this a warning to new mothers: Fourteen years ago, I “opted out” to focus on my family. Now I’m broke.

This is taken from a must-read article on Salon.com. With the recession forcing many stay-at-home moms back to work, one woman questions her decision fourteen years ago to forego career ambitions to stay home and raise her children. Her prediction for future generations of mothers: “the current economic crisis will erode women’s interest in ‘opting out’ to care for children, heightening awareness that giving up financial independence — quitting work altogether or even, as I did, going part-time — leaves one frighteningly vulnerable.”

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One recurring theme of my upcoming book, Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & Modern Motherhood, is the reality that many women, although they love their children, do not necessarily love the job of motherhood. Let’s face it, it’s not the most glamorous or well-paid job out there.  Even those women who are stay-at-home moms need time for themselves, whether it’s pursuing a vocation or hobby, or working on an entrepreneurial endeavor. Although most of us don’t like to admit it, being with our children 24/7 can be a recipe for a nervous breakdown.

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto made the decision to leave her family– her husband and two young children– when she was offered a 6-month fellowship in Japan to do research for her book, Hiroshima in the Morning. While she is away, Rizzuto sees her marriage begin to crumble as she questions her role as a wife and mother. She discussed her memoir, and her decision to leave her husband and children, in an interview with Meredith Vieira on the Today Show this morning.

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In 2000, the Center for Work/Life Policy did a series of reports on the “Parent Vote” and found that “50% percent of fathers and 54% of mothers – 52% of all parents – say that being a parent is one of the top two factors they consider when they vote, compared to only 13% who said gender and 6% who said race.”  They found that “issues that could galvanize parents include easing work-family time pressures, stemming the violence threatening their kids, and improving public education.”

In New York, the Working Families Party “fights to hold politicians accountable on the issues working- and middle-class families care about, like good jobs, fair taxes, good schools, reliable public transportation, affordable housing, and universal healthcare.”  Click here to read about some of the key issues that parents may want to consider as they make their final decisions about which candidate to vote for today.

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