Mother Love Does Not Extend to Other Mothers

There’s nothing like motherhood to set women at each others’ throats. A survey by Baby Talk documents a remarkable level of ill will between stay-at-home mothers (a.k.a. SAHMs) and those in the paid labor force. (Most of the magazine’s respondents had kids under age 2.) For starters, a majority of mothers in each camp said “they’ve been told outright by someone from the other side that their choice was the wrong one.” Forty percent of working mothers said SAHMs have “made them feel guilty about having a job”; one-quarter have been made to feel “selfish” for working.