The Business of Motherhood

  The minute you enter Tango in Bryn Mawr, you know you've arrived at one of the the top Main Line LOL lunch spots. The noon hour brings a steady stream of middle-aged women, hair highlighted just so, all dressed to lunch in casual elegance. A few are accompanied by Lords of Leisure in blazers and open-collared shirts, faces sporting golf-course tans. The decor is dark and moody, capturing that Orient Express sensibility.
  I was there to meet another mom, a veteran of the LOL lifestyle. It was the LsOL equivalent of a business lunch. Talk was heavily focused on the children, deep analysis and short- and long-range strategies for school and life success -- all over broccoli rabe and roasted pear. Motherhood has become the profession for a new generation of well-educated women. My friend is a psychologist. Other LsOL are physicians, lawyers, marketing executives. Smart women who need to put all that intellect toward something. And that something is the family and the PTA.
  As an on-the-cusp Baby Boomer, I'm catching the tail end of the generational shift toward Pro Momhood. Now it's abundantly clear why those exercise classes are so necessary -- to keep us Pro Moms fit for the job. And, perhaps, to save us from smothering (interesting that it contains the word mothering) our children to death.