A Mother's Day Kiss-Off By Leslie Bennett

In the article, “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off,” author Leslie Bennetts claims that men often leave women with the responsibilities of children and the home to manage on their own. Bennetts believes that this is why American mothers are so angry with their situations in life. She argues that while American culture praises stay-at-home mothers, one income is often not enough to sustain a family. Bennetts also believes that women sacrifice their livelihoods too much in order to fill the role of a mother. While Bennetts strongly justifies the reason for women’s indignation, her overuse of emotional language invalidates much of the article with generalizations and unreliable facts. Bennetts begins her article with multiple generalizations about
the treatment of women. The author states “Most husbands still view child care and household chores as women’s work, even when those women are working full time,” (Bennetts 42). The authors words imply that men only care about themselves and not their family. Her generalizations also insinuate that, as a mother, the author feels that she is taken advantage of because she has to do household chores, run errands for her children, and still keep a full time job. Therefore, a plausible communication problem has clearly built up in her family structure as she never talks about having a civil conversation with her husband to express her feelings. This inner anger creates a negative tone for the article and easily allows for Bennetts to assume generalizations to justify her feelings. As she uses so many generalizations instead of actual evidence, Bennetts is biased throughout the article because her own anger alludes that as a woman she feels that she is not respected in the manner that she should be and then umbrellas all American mothers under this same belief. While Bennetts tries to support her argument with factual evidence, she falls short in providing evidence that is both credible and fully supports her claim. She gives statistics in paragraphs sixteen and seventeen of her article which include the statements “childless women earn 10% less than their male counterparts” (Bennetts, 43) and “women’s standard of living drops by 36% after divorce” (Bennetts, 43). This evidence, or lack of, suggests that actual or current statistics may not support Bennetts claim. The statistics she uses have no source of reference and therefore are invalid to her argument. Also, they do not correlate to the author’s main claim, but rather other inequalities women face. Stronger statistics would have been related to Bennetts claim about the anger women have and would have been related to the satisfaction women feel with their marriages and families. The final tactic Bennetts uses to sway her audience is that of emotional language in which she pulls at the heartstrings of the reader. In paragraph fourteen of her article, Bennetts includes a firsthand statement about the bullying she experienced after publishing her book (Bennetts 43). This statement implies that the author may be insecure about her abilities as both a mother and an author. Bennetts’ use of personal anecdotes and other poignant inputs is clearly just for emotional emphasis to make the reader side with her opinion but again does not support her claim as her claim has to do with explaining the anger that mothers have. Talking about the negativity she received moreso points the attention of the article to herself and the issues she is facing, rather than the issues all mothers are facing. Failing to recognize any other circumstances regarding family life, Bennetts claims that women are not treated fairly for the sacrifices they make to take on the responsibilities of motherhood. Overall, Bennetts use of emotional language is her strongest tactic in persuading her audience, but her personal standpoint from which she generated the article does not fully support her claim and is weakened by her overuse of generalizations and invalid facts.