Daphne and I must hang out in the same mommy neighborhood because I'm just not aware of this "Mommy Wars" phenomenon. Perhaps to be a part of them you have to perform some equivalent to joining the armed forces -- like watching morning t.v. talk shows. Plainly, it's a media construct, and plainly this is how the morning talk shows boost their ratings. My experience has been that the people who buy into this sort of media hype generally aren't the ones directly affected by it. (Several years ago, I wrote a humorous but painful little essay about trying to conceive at 39; Newsweek turned it into a sad little piece about how -- whine, whine -- I can't get pregnant because I waited too long. (Still steams me to be so mischaracterized.) The responses in the following issue's letters were all entirely unsympathetic and downright mean and quite obviously written by people who'd never been in my position. The support I received online from women who were in my position far outweighed the media crap.) The real kernel of what you guys were saying, I think, is that, as mothers, we have an inclination to judge others -- some to the extent of becoming those outlying hecklers. But, really, isn't what lies at the base of all judgment our own insecurities? And is there a single one of us who doesn't feel insecure about at least some of her parenting choices? Not because we're unsure of ourselves as mothers but because we need SOMETHING to judge ourselves for. In other words, it's all about me and my food issues, not about your choice to feed your child neon-colored goldfish snacks. And, puh-leeze, don't get me started on the Palin thing. As a disability rights advocate, I am sickened by the hero-status she got for actually, gasp, choosing to give birth to a child with a disability (especially since she is fervently anti-choice and presumably did it because god wouldn't let her do anything else). Okay, 'nuff. The less said about her the better.