A primary caretaker of children is "just getting hammered, whatever social class you're in, at any income level," Crittenden said. "The workplace is set up for people with no private life."

Advocates generally don't take a position on whether moms "should" stay home with their children; they point out that many mothers move back and forth between work and home, or combine the two. Mothers and More -- about a third of whose members hold paying jobs -- officially (and publicly, when contacted by journalists seeking to feed the controversy) denounces the concept of a "mommy wars" conflict between working and at-home mothers, insisting it's largely a media construct that pits mothers against one another.

Despite similar-sounding terms, the mothers' movement should not be confused with the "opt-out revolution," as a New York Times Magazine piece dubbed the phenomenon of high-powered women ditching careers to stay home with their children. When that article ran last fall (followed by a similar Time magazine cover story in March), some welcomed the media spotlight on mothers' concerns, while others joined the ensuing chorus slamming the story for focusing on women with the financial wherewithal to give up paychecks. But a few saw that criticism as almost beside the point. The problem, said "Mommy Myth" author Douglas, was that the stories downplayed workplace demands that prodded the decision to quit (once again, fathers were hardly mentioned), and which often are at least as hard on women who can't afford to stay home.

"The choices that women have are not good choices," said Linda Lisi Juergens, executive director of the National Association of Mothers' Centers, a 29-year-old network of programs for mothers that is planning a panel discussion on the mothers' movement for its national conference in November. "So you make the choice that makes the most sense for you given your circumstances and then you live with the guilt."

While some pro-mother organizations work to "valorize motherhood as a sacrificial duty, a higher calling," said Tucker, of Mothers Movement Online, the movement's perspective is considerably less romantic. It sees moms getting stuck with the bulk of caregiving mainly by default. And though they agree on the need for more support, they don't claim an exalted status for mothering -- indeed, they reject a pedestal whose flip side, they say, too often entails blame and unfair accountability.

Advocates also object to overly narrow definitions of good parenting, and resist being pressured to follow a prescribed set of child-rearing guidelines governing anything from breast-feeding to discipline to after-school activities.

"I have a different personality than you do. Your child has a different personality than mine. Your family may have different values than mine. Something may work perfectly for you, but I may have different results," Juergens said. "You are trying to do your best, and having somebody come along and make you feel bad or guilty is not helpful."

And unlike organizations that stress children as the ultimate beneficiaries of pro-mother initiatives, the mothers' movement acknowledges that mothers' interests are sometimes at odds with those of their kids.

"Sometimes it sounds very heartless to say that because of how well we've been indoctrinated," Tucker said. "But it doesn't mean that mothers are unfeeling or uncaring, it means they're normal and human."

That idea, at one time rarely vocalized, is becoming more familiar: a flurry of recent novels have detailed darker aspects of the role -- drudgery, guilt, isolation, boredom -- that don't get mentioned in Hallmark cards. Motherhood zines and Web sites, like the 4-year-old Brain, Child and the 10-year-old Hip Mama, publish viewpoints conspicuously absent from traditional parenting magazines. Web sites and e-mail loops bring together mothers who feel "powerless, disenfranchised, misunderstood and voiceless" in mainstream culture, said Kim Lane, 39, editor of AustinMama.com, a Web site for mothers in Austin, Texas.

"The overall message I've gotten from this project is that mothers are hungry for justice," Lane said. "We are dog tired of trying to fit into neat little boxes with a smile ... We've become livid at commercial portrayal of mothers and their roles."

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