Rocket Mom Author Carolina Fernandez is Panelist for Suburban New York Moms Marching towards Mothers Day

April 30, 2005 -- Carolina Fernandez, author of the parenting best-seller, "Rocket Mom!" Seven Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance will be serving as a panelist for the pre-Mother's Day Event: "What do I want to be now that the kids are growing up" Lively discussion addressing various options available for highly educated, highly successful moms in the suburban New York City area (Westchester and Fairfield Counties)will provide the venue.

Controversy about motherhood is nothing new. Thousands of books, articles and commentaries have been written about our dilemmas ad nauseam. As if forty-and fifty something moms haven't wrestled long enough with their career-parenting decisions, young moms get additional fuel for their fires with glaring mainstream media headlines-just in time for Mother's Day. Throw in a new poll or two-as well as more advice and analysis by traditional parenting "experts"-M.D.'s and Ph.D.'s-and you have more psychobabble than the baby-burble running down these sleep-deprived mommy's sleeves!

Articles like the New York Times "The Opt-Out Revolution"; best-sellers like Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety; and critics calling motherhood everything from a "trap" to a "cult" to a "myth" to a "mess," turn notions about our role upside down and leave moms everywhere confused and conflicted.

- Author/journalist Judith Warner of Perfect Madness fame claims that: "a substantial number of GenX moms (are) too focused on perfection, too focused on their children, too competitive with one another, and that it's driving all moms crazy and providing their kids with no benefits." She asserts that there's an "oppressive culture of 'total motherhood' that "leaves no room for mothers' own interests" with "suffocation" the direct result.
- Sumru Erkut of the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College, asserts that: societal expectations for moms have been "racheted up by professional moms who've 'upgraded motherhood to a bigger job than it used to be'" and views these moms as having "misplaced vigor."
- New York Times book critic Judith Shulevitz, commenting on Warner (who said that motherhood has gone from "art" to "cult") calls the job a "mess" and motherhood a "trap powered by fear of a loss of face."

Hold onto your pantyhose. These journalists didn't finish their homework. "Rocket Mom!" author Fernandez examined the evidence and boldly challenges their assertions:

- A brand new poll (April 25) by ClubMom reveals that 63% of moms admit to feeling no pressure to live up to a "society-driven version of the 'perfect mom.'"
- 51% of those GenXer's they're talking about have traded super careers for motherhood because when they viewed the trade-offs required to "gun" their own careers (and through direct observation of their own working moms), they decided that the sacrifices required just weren't worth it.
- 79% of moms overall rate their own sense of well-being an "A" or "B"; 84% believe they are able to keep their minds sharp and active; and 76% rate their overall health (mental and physical) as high.
- In stark contrast to the "trap" or "mess" that these experts call motherhood, polls find that only 10% of working moms would choose to work full-time if money were no object.
- Of Harvard Business School's women graduates of '81, '85, and '91-women currently in the fortysomething crowd-only 38% are working full-time.
- 26% of women at the cusp of the most senior levels of management do not want that next promotion, choosing more time at home with family over career advancement.

The job is huge, it is vitally important, and those of us on the frontlines know it. Moms at home raising children today are there because we view our job as the most important one ever invented. Fernandez coined the phrase "Rocket Mom" in an effort to "put motherhood with excellence back on the map." Immediately after every media interview, emails pour in from moms acknowledging not only the depth and breadth of the job; they affirm appreciation for her fresh, bold voice which upholds with unapologetic optimism the distinct role we mothers play in shaping human destiny. If that's called "over parenting" or a "myth" or a "cult" or a "trap" or a "mess," than somebody better wake up and flip the pancakes. Fernandez will use this panel opportunity to help New York moms celebrate motherhood. Just in time for May 8th.

Join Fernandez on Tuesday, May 3, 7-9 PM at St. Stephen's Church, Rector Hall, 351 Main St., Ridgefield, CT 06877. Carolina Fernandez is available for media interviews by arrangement. "Rocket Mom!" Has already been featured on: Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" and dozens of radio stations across the U.S.

To schedule an interview with Carolina Fernandez, please call 203.942.8282 or email: e-mail protected from spam bots. Online press kit: www.rocketmom.com.




Rocket Mom Author Carolina Fernandez is Panelist for Suburban New York Moms Marching towards Mothers Day

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