Mummy wars are not a choice use of words

So, are the mummy wars real? Modern mothers really are under pressure, struggling to balance increasingly demanding lives. But calling the dilemmas they face "choices" simply sharpens their sense of personal responsibility, and so too their consciousness of guilt. If some of my peers get defensive or resentful when confronted by women who have made different "choices", I suspect they're responding to this prevailing public discourse.

It sometimes seems we've lost a way of talking about these issues without falling into the simplistic rhetoric of choice. But an alternative vocabulary does exist - the language of rights and entitlements. By returning to this unfashionable way of thinking we would focus the onus of responsibility away from the mother as an individual and back onto society as a whole. We would also give women a way of speaking less defensively about their decisions, and the considerations that constrain them.

The truth is, most mothers make the same choice - they choose to do the best that they can, under the circumstances in which they find themselves. By entrenching a right to adequate maternity leave, for example, we are taking a small step towards improving those circumstances. But this minimal legislative change is just one part of a broad cultural revision that is needed, an adjustment not just in how we treat mothers, but in how we think about them and how they think about themselves.

Unlike other workers, mothers can't walk off the job. But they can equip themselves with a robust sense of entitlement, and articulate their demands accordingly - not just for their own sakes, but for their children. As times get tougher and the range of real choices narrows, it becomes even more important that mothers exercise this power, and that we all take their demands seriously.