I wrote this article as a testimony to my life. As someone wrote into the Oklahoman said - most people got that the article was suppose to be funny. Nevertheless, I am aware there is a fine line between comedy and tragedy, and this dialogue is so very interesting and enlightening, even if I had no idea that admitting that I wipe down the side of the tub with a clorox wipe while I pee is setting an ideal so high that noone would want to meet it.

There is just so much wrong here, ladies. My article created a platform for those genuinely involved in the mommy wars to springboard their ideas and arguments. Oh, the beauty of free speech. But, I’m not in this war and I don’t want to be a part of something that pits women against each other. (Men laugh behind our backs about this, you know.)

When I said working moms know stay-at-home moms have the harder job, I was merely thinking about my dear friend, Deb, a doctor’s wife, who manages three children under 7, from sun up to sun down, all day, every day. The tradeoffs - tennis coaches and Louis Vuitton purses — aren’t worth it. I included that line for her — so she would know that someone in the world acknowledged how incredibly hard her life is, despite all the shopping sprees and trips to Paris. I love my friend, and I was reaching out to her and anyone else like her, who gets very little credit, if any, for having a tough job. I was also reaching out to May, the woman whose sun tangled a sucker in her hair on the way to work. She came to the office one morning crying and told me that her anger melted when her toddler looked up at her and said, “You know what mommy, I shooooore do love you.” I was reaching out to so many women, honoring them, which is why this diatribe initially amazed me.

Finally, after a painful divorce, I spent five years as a single mom *That* is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I should have written the article about that — about what it’s like to be sick and have a sick baby and no one to run to the 24-hour drug store at 3 a.m., so you must take both of you out, in the snow, in the ice, to get the medicine. You wonder, as a single mom, if you can call a taxi and ask them to just bring a gallon of milk and a bottle of children’s tylenol. (They won’t. They can’t.) You cry all the way home because you are cold and you are lonely. You linger over a pair of $8 pajamas for your little girl, wondering if you should buy them; wishing you could buy them. You tell yourself, she can wear your T-shirt another year.

You said it all, and then your commenters righteously applauded you, so there’s not much I can add. Except, perhaps, that I didn’t fully understand this paradigm until I divorced and then no matter what I did (stayed at home, worked in an office, worked at home) EVERYONE thought I was wrong. There is no “winning” in a situation that shouldn’t be a contest in the first place.

Loved this post. And y’all can picture me in my little black Jones New York number that I got at Goodwill for $12.