双语阅读：有钱的居家妈妈到底快不快乐

摘要：我有很多朋友有了孩子后都选择辞去原来不错的工作，那是因为她们想尽可能地做一个好妈妈。我也是这样。我们嫁给成功的男性，是因为他们和我们在智识上一拍即合，而不是傍大款。我们在孩子的学校做志愿活动是因为能在白天也看到孩子的笑脸。

Re “Poor Little Rich Women” (Sunday Review, May17):

本文是对《从老公手里领贤妻奖金的曼哈顿小妇人》(5月22日)一文的回应：

To the Editor:

致编辑：

While Wednesday Martin’s article makes fortantalizing reading, she makes sweepinggeneralizations about a very small subset of womenwhile implying that her observations apply to allwomen in a narrow slice of the Upper East Side. It’smore hype than truth. I say this as a longtime denizen of this particular fish pond, myself ahighly educated, high-achieving woman married to a successful man and now a SAHM (stay-at-home mom). Glam SAHM? I’ve seen them around, but many of us are not.

薇妮斯蒂·马丁(Wednesday Martin)的文章真的很吸引读者，但她的做法完全是以偏概全，用她所看到的一小部分女性的生活来暗示上东区一小片的女性的生活都是这样。这里头假想的成分远大于事实。我是以她所描述的那类人的身份来发表这些言论的，我自己就是一个受过高等教育，成就不错然后嫁给一个成功人士，最终成了居家妈妈(SAHM, stay-at-home mom)的女人。光鲜的居家妈妈们(Glam SAHM)?我周围确实有这种人，但大多数都并非如此。

有钱的居家妈妈到底快不快乐

Many of my friends here chose to step out of their high-profile jobs once they started havingchildren because they wanted to be the best moms they could be. Me, too. We marriedsuccessful men because they are our intellectual peers, not sugar daddies. And we volunteerat our kids’ schools because it gives us a chance to see their smiling faces during the day. Dowe run our homes like C.E.O.’s? Yep. But so did my mom in Ohio, with three kids and no help.So did my grandmother in Pennsylvania, with 10 kids and no money.

我有很多朋友有了孩子后都选择辞去原来不错的工作，那是因为她们想尽可能地做一个好妈妈。我也是这样。我们嫁给成功的男性，是因为他们和我们在智识上一拍即合，而不是傍大款。我们在孩子的学校做志愿活动是因为能在白天也看到孩子的笑脸。我们像CEO一样经营我们的家庭?没错。但我在俄亥俄州的妈妈也这样，她有三个孩子，而且没人帮她。我在宾夕法尼亚州的外婆也这样，她有十个孩子而且身陷贫困。

Women-only nights out? Yes, we have them. We share parenting questions and advice fromour uniquely mom perspective. We laugh, too, because between the appendectomies, brokenarms, stomach viruses and miscellaneous other brush fires we’re always extinguishing, we needto share laughter with our mom friends. Hardly the gender segregation that Ms. Martin darklysuggests.

闺蜜之夜?没错，我们的确会举行这样的活动。我们在一起分享抚养子女时遇到的问题，并用母亲的独特视角提出建议。我们也会大笑，因为在阑尾切除术、骨折的胳膊、胃部病毒和其他各种各样需要我们出场的小麻烦里，我们需要和同为母亲的朋友们分享欢笑。这恐怕不是作者马丁所说的性别隔离。

Wife bonuses? In all my years on the Upper East Side, this is news to me. I’m not saying itdoesn’t happen, I’m just suggesting that it is likely far more rare than Ms. Martin would haveyou believe.

贤妻奖金?我在上东区这么多年还从没听说过这种奖金。我不是说肯定没有，只是想提醒一下，贤妻奖金可能比马丁告诉你们的要少见得多。

So it appears that she has allowed a very small sample group to skew her conclusions.Moreover, she has missed out on the rich friendships of the smart, funny, caring neighborhoodmoms I have been blessed to know.

所以，她的结论似乎是被一小部分样本人群带偏了。更重要的是，她没感受到我所享有的与那些聪明、幽默、友爱的邻里妈妈间深厚的友情。

LINDA VESTER GREENBERG

New York

琳达·韦斯特·格林伯格(Linda Vester Greenberg)

纽约

To the Editor:

致编辑：

Bravo to these women! They have figured out that being there for their kids and runningcharities is more valuable to them than being a chief executive, working 12 hours a day andhiring nannies as their replacement. (They are the other moms we love to hate.)

我要为这些女性喝彩!她们已经发现陪着孩子、做慈善要比担任行政主管，每天工作12个小时，然后雇一个保姆替她们照顾孩子要好得多(我们比较讨厌这样的母亲)。

The most upsetting truth is that we women continue to be our own worst enemies —constantly judging what other mothers choose in order to affirm our own decisions. I realizenow that every mother has difference circumstances, options, demands, resources and limits.And we make our choices the best we can for ourselves and the people we love within thoseparameters. My grandmother used to say, “Your way is not their way.” Women should standproud of their own choices to construct the lives they want for themselves and their familieswithout judgment or apology. That is the new feminism!

最可悲的事情在于我们女性最恶毒的敌人依然是女性自己——不断地通过对其他妈妈们的选择品头论足来说明自己的选择是多么正确。我现在意识到了每个妈妈都面临着不同的境遇和选择，有着不同的需求、资源和限制。在这些因素的控制下，我们都尽可能地为自己和所爱做出最佳的选择。我的祖母过去常说，“你的方式不是他们的方式。”女性为了构建理想中的自己和家庭做出了选择，她们不该为这些选择受到评判或感到歉意，而应为这些选择感到骄傲。这是新一代的女性主义!

MICHELE HELOU

Hamden, Conn.

米歇尔·埃洛(Michele Helou)

康涅狄格州哈姆登

To the Editor:

致编辑：

As a fellow social scientist, I applaud Wednesday Martin for her insightful analysis of genderinequality among the elite tribe of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The rich and privileged usuallyescape the ethnographic eye, leaving them as the unstudied, unquestioned category whilethe poor and disempowered are subject to the scrutiny of the sociological lens.

作为一个社会科学家，我很赞赏薇妮斯蒂·马丁关于上东区精英阶层性别不平等现象的精辟分析。富人和特权阶层通常会逃过实地研究，使他们成为自然的、无可争议的那一群人，而穷人和被剥削者却要遭受社会学透镜的审查。

I have long argued that in the interest of fairness, the American Museum of Natural Historyshould add a diorama next to those for its other North American peoples — one depictingvarious modern tribes of the United States: “Wall Street man,” “West Coast bobo,” andperhaps now Ms. Martin’s tribe of glamorous, highly educated, nonworking Manhattan moms.

我一直认为，为了公平起见，美国自然历史博物馆(the American Museum of Natural History)应该在其他北美民族陈列室旁加一个陈列室——用来展示各种美国现代群体：“华尔街男性”、“西海岸中产群体”，或许现在应该加上马丁所说的“迷人的、受过高等教育的、没有工作的曼哈顿妈妈”群体。

DALTON CONLEY

New York

道尔顿·康利(Dalton Conley)

纽约

The writer is a professor of social sciences at New York University.

作者是纽约大学(New York University)社会科学教授。

To the Editor:

致编辑：

There is nothing “poor” about these women. Running a home — or two or three — is similar torunning a corporation. You must be organized and proactive and follow up on everything.These women have degrees and know they have a choice. They can be their own executive intheir home or outside the home. They choose to run their own empire in their home, whichrevolves around their children. They groom them and do their best to turn out an excellent“product.” They hire people, they fill out paperwork, they are alert about when to file forschools and camps, and they meet with many people to make it all happen.

这些女人并没有什么“可怜”的。经营一个家——或者两三个——跟运营一家公司很相似。你必须组织有序、积极地跟进一切。这些女人拥有学历，也有选择的权利。她们既能对内照料家庭也能在外呼风唤雨。她们自己选择了在家中经营自己以子女为中心的帝国。她们培养孩子，并尽全力使其成为一个优秀的“产品”。她们雇佣别人，填写文书，在申请学校和夏令营时变得机警，她们要接触很多人才能实现这一切。

I would say give it up for these women! They are honest about and know what they are doing.

我想说别再揪着这些女人不放了!她们知道自己在做什么而且并不会对此加以掩饰。

ZELDIE C. STUART

Delray Beach, Fla.

泽尔蒂·C·斯图尔特(Zeldie C. Stuart)

佛罗里达州德尔雷海滩

To the Editor:

致编辑：

I have no doubt that there are some women exactly as depicted in this article. However,relegating all of them to a “tribe” is an unsubstantiated generalization hardly befitting ananthropologist engaged in a scientific study. Even more unwarranted is Wednesday Martin’sultimate determination that all educated, wealthy SAHM mothers are “disempowered,” as isher suggestion that women are squandering their talents staying home with their children.

我丝毫不怀疑文中描述的这种女人的存在。然而，把他们全部贬为一个“群体”显然是毫无根据的归类，和作者在做科学研究的人类学家的身份极不搭调。更荒谬的是作者薇妮斯蒂·马丁的终极结论：所有受过教育且富有的居家妈妈们都是“没什么权力的”。她认为女人们在家里陪孩子就是对自己才华的暴殄天物。

Clout and cash are seemingly synonymous for Ms. Martin. Perhaps that should be the focus ofher next anthropological “work”: why people equate power with money. Clearly the women whomake the choice to stay at home with their children do not agree. For many of them, it is aprivilege to be with their children, and there are plenty of women who would give up all theearning potential in the world to have that opportunity.

马丁似乎将影响力和金钱混为一谈了。也许这应该作为她的下一项人类学“研究”：为什么人们会认为权力就是金钱。显然这些选择在家里陪孩子的女人并不这么想。对她们中的很多人来说，权力是能陪伴在孩子身边的机会，而且世界上有很多女人愿意为了这种机会放弃一切可能的收入。

TARA KANTOR

Scarsdale, N.Y.

塔拉·坎特(Tara Kantor)

纽约州斯卡斯代尔

To the Editor:

致编辑：

Thank goodness we don’t all have anthropologists following us around to document ourfoibles. I imagine that most of us wouldn’t come off looking much better than these Upper EastSide matrons.

谢天谢地，我们不都由人类学家来跟着记录我们的弱点。我想我们大部分人都不比这些上东区的主妇好到哪里去。

DANIEL REIFMAN

Yad Binyamin, Israel

丹尼尔·莱弗曼(Daniel Reifman)

以色列雅德本雅明