When Mayim Bialik announced her divorce last week, everyone, it seemed, had an opinion.
The actress announced the split in a statement, which she posted on her Kveller blog.
Writer Ayelet Waldman tweeted, “Attachment parenting wingnut who spent entire marriage w/kid hanging from nipple getting divorced. #shocking” though she followed up soon after with a caveat of sorts. “OK, OK I apologize Ms. Bialik. I’m sorry your marriage collapsed. I still think you probably made harder on yourself w/ the AP craziness…”
Writing in Haaretz, Allison Kaplan Sommer said that the split, in some ways at least, has vidicated moms everywhere, who felt berated by Bialik’s attachment parenting philsophy.
“And while I’m sorry to violate Bialik’s wishes by linking attachment parenting and the split, I have to point out that for those of us who were made to feel like lesser parents because of our inability or unwillingness to devote all of our waking and sleeping hours to our babies, it really does feel a bit like a measure of turnabout,” she wrote.
“Divorce is a choice that will subject Bialik and her husband to accusations of putting their own needs and happiness as adults ahead of what’s best for their children – that’s not the Attachment Parenting way. And so maybe she can understand that even formula-feeding stroller-pushing working moms wanted a close emotional connection to our kids as much as she did – we just also felt, as she does now, that a very imperfect balance must be struck between our happiness and theirs.”
Bialik, best known as the star of the 90s sitcom Blossom and more recently as the Emmy-nominated star of The Big Bang Theory, was back on Kveller today with a post about the Women of the Wall.