"We joke about having it all," says working mother Stephanie Triplett. Thanks to the Internet, "a lot of us are lucky enough to be able to juggle it all from within our own household."
Triplett says the Internet not only allows moms to work from their homes, but it is also "an amazing resource for moms to find information" and a tool that helps them connect with other moms.
What the Internet and other technologies have failed to provide is more leisure time for moms. . "We have in all these time-saving things in our houses -- appliances, technology, the Internet and cell phones -- that are supposed to save us time, but it seems that moms today are just busier than ever," says Sara Ellington, who, with Triplett, wrote The Mommy Chronicles.
As a result of trying to have it all, today's moms don't have enough time for themselves. In fact, Ellington says, moms in the 1960s "actually took time out of their day for themselves, whereas modern moms today say they rarely get any time for themselves."
It isn't that dads aren't helping out. They are. "Two times more dads are involved in raising their children today than they were in the 1960s," says Triplett. But mothers remain the primary caregivers.
The top concerns of mothers have changed, Ellington says. "Back in the 1960s, moms were concerned with manners and physical development. Nowadays, moms are really concerned with nutrition and education."
In spite of what has changed over the last 40 years, authors Sara Ellington and Stephanie Triplett, who also co-host an on-line radio show about motherhood and childcare, say one thing at least remains unchanging. That's the exciting and unexpected nature of motherhood. No matter how prepared women are to be mothers, they say, they will always face surprises and challenges as they raise their children.
