Clueless Caitlin Flanagan

Susan Salter Reynolds reviews eight books about the mommy wars in the Los Angeles Times. She aptly skewers author Caitlin Flanagan, who gets a flattering profile elsewhere in the same edition of the paper

"But when Flanagan shifts focus to hiring a nanny, her writing becomes so whiny, self-indulgent and frankly bizarre that it capsizes the book entirely. There is almost nothing to be learned from her love-hate relationship with her nanny Paloma ('I was becoming quite the Latinophile!' she writes), as Flanagan bestows gifts and shares secrets and cups of tea and even Social Security set-asides, only to be shocked when Paloma wants to join a citywide strike of Central American workers in Los Angeles. It gets worse: 'De-cluttering a household,' she writes in an egregiously arrogant passage, 'is a task that appeals strongly to today's professional-class woman…. Scrubbing the toilet bowl is a bit of nastiness that can be fobbed off on anyone poor and luckless enough to qualify for no better employment. But only the woman of the house can determine which finger paintings ought to be saved for posterity, which expensive possessions ought to be jettisoned in the name of sleekness and efficiency."