Anonymous wrote:I'm a lawyer who has worked part-time since my oldest was 2. Obviously, I made a different choice than Bazelon, but I'm willing to stipulate that she's a good enough mother. That said, though, what really annoyed me about this piece was her statement that she's never coached a team or chaperoned a field trip or organized a school event. Assuming her kids participate in these activities, it seems like the height of irresponsibility and arrogance for her to punk out and expect other parents (most of whom probably WOHM or have other significant time commitments) to do all the grunt work.
Another working mom. Nope. I have never done any of these things. DH does them for our family.
It doesn't mean neither parent participates and I do a lot of other stuff for us as a unit. Also, what on earth am I going to coach? I don't know the first thing about sports. I once did a presentation on birds for the Boy Scouts, that's pretty much the extent of my relevance to school events.
Being PTA mom is not a requirement. I am there for them in so many different ways you will never understand. Life is about more than school which in my school community is well-staffed by the many SAHMs. They don't need me there.