Whenever I worry about being a working parent, I remind myself of 19th century factory workers who tethered their children to the bedposts before they headed to the mills for 10 to 12 hours. Then my son's six hours in grade school, followed by two hours on the playground at after-school care, give no cause for concern whatsoever.

-- Vicki Broach

Thank you, Noelle, for a sane article about motherhood. I am not a saint or a model mother, but the recent descriptions of the anxious modern mother left me feeling like a scold -- who are these women and their poor children? My particular beef is with parents who are always worried about children getting hurt and therefore avoid all risk. We have stripped our backyards of trampolines and homemade tree houses. We have eliminated diving boards from our pools and stopped letting our kids play at the local empty lot. How will they ever learn the skill of taking risks?

I hope that my own daughter will be better prepared for her adult life because I let her fall on pavement and let her climb old trees and explore caves. These experiences are practice for the larger world ahead of her -- where she will need to take many adult risks.

If we value initiative and boldness in our professional lives, we need to teach those skills to our kids. Childhood adventures let children experience a full range of emotions and are stories they will remember and retell again and again.

-- Milly Baker

Noelle Howey seems to have missed an important point in Judith Warner's book, and that is the origins of this new extreme mother-anxiety. Warner focuses on how this current generation of new mothers are experiencing increased anxiety because of their total lack of support systems. Whether it is a lack of affordable, quality part-time day care, lack of family-friendly employers and policies, or a lack of family members, friends or husbands who can help out -- it is the absence of any kind of "village" child-rearing ethic that these women mourn and which churns their unrealistic anxieties.

Mothers have always had anxiety about their children's well-being, but I think something more frightening is developing among current Gen X moms (myself included). Even if a mellow mama like Ms. Howey chooses to remain above the fray (and bravo to her for doing so), surely as a working mother herself she must have noticed that the reasons behind this unhealthy trend are very real, they are significant and (I fear) they are not going away.

-- Monica Bellenger

Noelle Howey's article is right on target. Kids can grow up to lead happy, fulfilled lives without parental meddling.

I find it sad that the contemporary child is so overburdened with structured activities that he or she has no time to daydream, contemplate and generally space out. Our current culture places too much emphasis on achieving lofty goals -- not all of which are accessible to everyone. Consequently, those who don't get into the exclusive private school or vacation in Costa Rica at age 6 feel like failures. All of this jockeying to purportedly provide for our children results in nothing but an inflated sense of entitlement. Believe me, someone else will always be smarter, faster and wealthier than your darling boo.

I am mother to a 16-month-old toddler and have a baby due in October. I am not a perfect parent by any stretch of the imagination. All I know is that my daughter and I share a good laugh and at least one hug every day.

-- Amy Pang

Thank goodness for a voice of sanity. I find that when reading articles about anxious mothers, I just keep thinking, "Get over yourselves."

And then I wonder what I missed -- raising two daughters, working full time and not stressing about much besides the normal making-it-through-the-day stuff.

My daughters are grown now: 28 and 25, one's a lawyer and the other is in medical school, so apparently my lax child raising didn't damage their chances at living a full life.

Most important, though, they both tell me they hope they can be as good at mothering as I was. Music to any mother's ears (the payoff for the "I hate you" you get when they're 13), and reinforcement for the idea that less is sometimes more when it comes to parenting.

By less, I don't mean less love or affection or discipline or boundaries, of course. Just less concern about the "right" schools, clothing, extracurricular activities and friends.

But then maybe that would be sensible for adults, as well as children.

-- Linda Picone

I applaud Ms. Howey's relaxed perspective on her maternal role and responsibilities. She's on the right track. I find it unsettling, however, that neither she nor most of the mothers described in her article saw fit to mention two issues that are far more important than birthday party favors and SAT scores.

First, where are the worries about rearing compassionate, ethical humans concerned about more than abs and income potential? Second, and far more critical: In their zeal to produce perfect children with safe and limitless futures, upward of 10 percent of these uber-moms are building their hopes and expectations on quicksand.

Until a year ago, our biggest worry was how we were going to pay for our son's education at Harvard. He's bright, intense, imaginative -- and bipolar, obsessive-compulsive. Today, our biggest worries are whether he will take his psych meds, whether (when) he will have to be hospitalized again, and whether he will ever live a normal life. Thanks to NAMI (National Alliance of the Mentally Ill), the one worry we do not have to face is that his illness is due to something we did or didn't do.

-- Victoria Wright

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