Dispatches from the Mommy Wars

Are full-time working moms losing the battle?

"The study, based on a survey of over 2000 people, found that only 21 percent of working mothers with children under 18 said that the ideal situation for them was to work full-time—an 11-point drop from 1997. While working mothers in 2007 were no more likely than a decade earlier to favor full-time motherhood (about one in five chose this as the ideal option), the percentage naming part-time employment as their top preference had risen from 48 percent in 1997 to 60 percent today. (In reality, only about a quarter of working mothers have part-time jobs.)"