The "Mom Job"? When I first saw this headline, I thought, "Oh, Tupperware sales, or part-time 'Mystery Shopping' right?" Then I kept reading. Didn't know whether to scream or start saving.

I was raised by a mother who simply never allowed me to entertain the idea that there was something I couldn't do because I was female. I ended up at a women's college in New England and absorbed many valuable life lessons about body image and patriarchy and yadda yadda yadda. And for many years, I have taken the position (with varying degrees of smugness) that elective cosmetic surgery was a waste of time and money. If you can afford cheek implants and collagen lips, and haven't been disfigured in an auto accident, you would do much better giving that money to charity. Cosmetic surgery, I thought, is just another way of pummeling the self-esteem of otherwise intelligent people (male and female) by forcing them to comply with artificial standards of physical beauty. Let's face it, a large bottom will get you ostracized in Los Angeles, but admired in West Africa. Why subject yourself to needles and knives? Surely, I thought, I would never be so vain or shallow.

Then I bore and breast-fed two children.

The feminist (and sensible person my mother raised me to be) knows jolly well that my reshaped body parts are badges of honor, my patches proclaiming membership in the Mommy Gang.

The part of me that wants my old clothes to fit properly, and resents having to spend half a paycheck on new foundation garments, wistfully looks at the possibilities of having my old body back, but new and improved.

Then I realize that needles and knives are involved, and oh yeah, money that would be better spent on college tuition, and I come to my senses.

Thanks Mom. Good job.