The strange Ro-Sham-Bo of Parenthood, Personhood and Sisterhood

It's Smackdown action in the steamy ring of parental-correctness as dogmas duke it out.  It sizzles.  But what does it really signify?

Is there really a Motherhood Gap between parents of disparate ideology? And if so, is the division really so impassable? 

Personalized Parenting originators Linda Cohen and Joan Bechtel chant a harmonious "No!" Yet ten years ago they might have whimpered, "Absolutely." That was when motherhood was tearing them apart.  Their 180 degree opposite parenting choices were quickly loosing the ties that bind.

    Isn't Motherhood supposed to

unite women in a secret sisterhood?

More often than not, it drives them apart. 

She breastfeeds, you bottle-feed, she goes back to work in three weeks, you stay home for fourteen years.

But that fear that divides women lurks in a deeper chasm. The psychological rift inside every mother. The gap between who she thinks she's "supposed to be" and who she really is.

The personhood/parenthood gap. The real war is on the inside.  Clash of the Subliminal Titans.

When parenthood tears women apart,

there's usually a Big Mother behind it.

The Big Mother of Shoulds, Shouldn'ts and Shame.