Ironically, an indifference to mothers' problems may be, in part, a byproduct of the women's movement. Douglas and Michaels point out in "The Mommy Myth" that 1970s feminists fought hard to improve day care and workplace flexibility. But others argue that, by encouraging women to snare paid jobs in traditionally male worlds -- arguably by necessity -- feminism helped downgrade the status, even among women, of unpaid, female-dominated child care. In the end, advocates have settled on diplomatically describing their issues as "the unfinished business of feminism."

The term resonates with women who, thanks to the women's movement, sailed through school, early careers and even romantic partnerships encountering relatively few barriers or inequities, only to find themselves crammed into unexpected pigeonholes as mothers.

"My husband and I got sucked into this time warp, it felt like, where all of a sudden we were both in these completely traditional roles that neither of us had ever planned," said Mothers and More president Kristin Maschka, 35, who managed the training department of an Internet service provider until quitting in 2000 to stay home with her daughter. "We'd look at each other and say, 'How did this happen to us?'"

The mothers' movement is still too low-profile to have attracted much direct criticism. But many of its ideas clearly make people uncomfortable, even irate. Some supporters of the "child-free movement" (people who don't want kids) and conservative groups oppose government or workplace benefits for parents.

"Can you imagine politicians using Father's Day ... to describe how they will take care of poor, helpless Dad?" writes Carrie L. Lukas, director of policy for the Independent Women's Forum, a free-market organization that opposes many feminist ideas. "Women deserve the same respect. Instead of caricaturing us as wards of the state, politicians should focus on getting government out of our lives."

Major publications, even left-leaning ones, aren't necessarily more sympathetic: The idea pops up regularly that American mothers, with all their privileges and options, don't have much to complain about.

"How worried should we be about what these women, which is to say ourselves, are feeling?" asked Elizabeth Kolbert, reviewing "The Mommy Myth" and another motherhood book, Daphne de Marneffe's "Maternal Desire," in the New Yorker in March. "If a woman wants to take time off from her career to raise a family, and if she can afford to do so, what more can she reasonably desire? That everyone else act only in ways that validate her decision? ... Choosing between work and home is, in the end, a problem only for those who have a choice. In this sense, it is, like so many 'problems' of twenty-first-century life, a problem of not having enough problems."

It's an intimidating argument: How dare the reasonably comfortable complain, in view of the world's suffering? But it assumes that lower-income women (to whose plight "The Mommy Myth" actually devotes a fair amount of space) do not share any of the same concerns. And it lets society off the hook, Tucker said, by suggesting "that the work of securing women's equality in the workplace is over and done with," and that "the average woman who is struggling to maintain a career and cope with more than her fair share of domestic responsibility is unhappy because she chooses a lifestyle that leads to unhappiness."

Discontented housewives back in the "Ozzie and Harriet" 1950s would have heard similar dismissals, Crittenden said. "People would say, 'What have you got to be unhappy about? What's your problem? You've got a nice house in the suburbs.' I think we are truly in another situation like that. People can't quite figure out what is wrong."

Amid the criticism, a gesture of approval recently came from an unexpected quarter. In a Mother's Day event of its own, the florist service FTD presented Mothers and More founder Brundage with an award that, sarcastic punch lines aside, you don't hear much about these days.

The company named her Mother of the Year.

"My 17-year-old son, Zach, fell down laughing and, when he recovered himself, he asked me how much it was worth it to me for him to keep his mouth shut," Brundage said. She laughed, too, but sounded pleased with the tribute.

"It wasn't that I have the smartest kids or that I've gone through the most tragedy -- it wasn't a Queen for a Day kind of thing. It really was focused on the work our organization was doing, and the work that all mothers do," Brundage said. "They recognize that mothers need more than flowers."

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