I remember, several years ago, a wealthy acquaintance of my parents' saying, about a housekeeper who'd unhappily enrolled her child in a sub-par day care, "I don't understand; why doesn't she just hire a nanny?" I've always wanted to believe that was an isolated bit of headdeskery, but reading this article in W, I'm not so sure. Ostensibly, the piece discusses the fact that a lot of women are not taking full maternity leave, instead choosing to return to work early. The reasons listed are legion, and nothing we haven't heard before in these debates: competition in the workplace, the economy, baby bonding versus a fulfilled mom, breastfeeding, the challenges of pumping at the office: the standard questions that each working mother addresses . As the article puts it,

In an era when France's justice minister recently gave birth on a Friday and attended a cabinet meeting the following Wednesday — and when, more famously, Sarah Palin took just three days off from her Alaskan gubernatorial duties after the birth of her fifth child-an increasing number of women are making childbirth look, if not like magic, certainly a lot easier than it was for their mothers by taking mere weeks, not months, off from work.

The issues the piece addresses may be typical; luckily, these moms are anything but! Finances do not seem to enter into the equation for any of them; while the economy is invoked to explain the necessity of staying present as a business-owner, nowhere is there a sense that the imperative is monetary necessity. The issue, for all of these women, seems to be whether or not to hire the nanny whom they can all obviously afford. Take this characteristic quote:

By hiring a nanny to help with her second child, Brooks realized how much more time she had for herself and for a job that she loved. "When Coco was born, I would never even have a babysitter on the weekend. I was really moral about it. And as joyous as those moments were, part of it was slightly miserable," she admits. "I was being too much of a martyr to the mom world."

Although some of the quoted moms deal with the typical new mother's issues that usually inspire sympathy, each one manages to work in some detail that makes it clear she has some pretty enviable advantages:

"I pumped everywhere," says Celerie Kemble, an interior designer who resumed work almost immediately after having each of her children, Rascal, two, and Zinnia, one, thanks in part to a baby nurse. "The UPS man [at my office] saw more boob in the last couple years than in his teenage heyday."

Or take this working mom's solution:

"I don't know anybody who is taking three months off anymore," says a high-profile Manhattan boutique owner who brought her two toddlers to market appointments when they were just weeks old. "You can be tired at home or tired at the Balenciaga showroom," she says.

Look, some people are fortunate enough to have material advantages, and that's great for them. And W, like Vogue, is a fashion magazine with a particular target demographic. But when the worlds of the "everyday woman" and the "aspirational" fashion mag focus converge, the results can feel oblivious. The author didn't say the article was about "wealthy working mothers," just "new moms." One gets the feeling that the author does not, in fact, know that others have it harder. For everyone's sake, including that dame from the dinner party, I do hope ignorance is bliss.

Born Yesterday [W]

My vulva oiled and massaged to keep my hips open and my vagina fluid, I was orgasmic at the end. Petit Pierre practically slid into the world at the height of my amazement, smiling serenely even before he opened his eyes.

"I feel the baby come down. The sensation is ecstatic. I had prepared somewhat for this being as painful as my last delivery had been. Yet this time the pulse of birth feels wonderful! I am building up to the birth climax after nine months of pleasurable foreplay. With one push the babe is in the canal. THE NEXT PUSH BRINGS HIM DOWN, DOWN INTO THAT SPACE JUST BEFORE ORGASM WHEN WE WOMEN KNOW HOW GOD MUST HAVE FELT CREATING THIS PLANET....HE COMES, AS DO I."

My mom just came in the kitchen.

Me: "I knew you could get an orgasm from being raped, but did you know you could get one from childbirth?"

Mom: "Yeah, I actually had heard of that." Pause. "I find it really difficult to believe."

Just check out the testimonials!

Orgasmic Childbirth [Unassisted Childbirth]

• Women like Victoria Beckham, Liz Hurley are being blamed for the obsession with rapid weight-loss after birth, which, researchers say, can put women at risk of giving birth prematurely the next time around. [Telegraph]
  
• No shit! (Literally!) Reuters reports that women who have close companions on hand during childbirth report being "more satisfied" with the experience, adding, "In fact, women with a companion on hand were about half as likely as unaccompanied women to have amniotic fluid stained with fetal stool — meconium — which can be dangerous to infants if it is inhaled." [Reuters]
  
• On the other hand, maybe women shouldn't be getting pregnant in the first place! French writer Corinne Maier has come out with a new book, No Kid: 40 Reasons Not To Have Children, which we think is kinda awesome. [Salon]

• Should female victims of domestic violence be allowed time off after being beaten to a pulp? A daycare in the South Bronx doesn't think so: After a new employee was beaten up by her husband and asked for time off in order not to scare the children, she was fired. [Salon]
• Something called the Economist Intelligence Unit has published a Global Peace Index that measures countries by their "absence of violence". Not included in the data used to measure a nation's commitment to nonviolence? Violence against women. [Feministing]