The secret lives of mothers: the difference between rich & poor.

When motherhood was the common and expected lot of most women, it was generally assumed that the experience was the same for all mothers. But if this assumption was true in the past, it isn't today, according to two recent books. Both set out to capture young women's attitudes toward motherhood but in vastly different settings--one in the upscale middle-class enclaves, and the other in the ravaged inner-city neighborhoods. Taken together, they reveal a striking disparity in the experiences of the privileged and the poor.

In Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety (Riverhead Books), Judith Warner offers a portrait of middle-class mothers in the affluent section of northwest Washington, D.C. Or, to be more precise, Warner describes how she and 150 similarly privileged women feel about motherhood. For the author and others, motherhood does not bring the expected joy and fulfillment. On the contrary, it is the source of painful conflict, self-doubt, and existential angst.

According to Warner, there is something about motherhood that provokes a psychological crisis in privileged women's lives. They suffer from what Warner describes as a "choking cocktail of guilt and anxiety and resentment and regret." They lose their sense of self. They worry about whether their children will turn out okay. They fear that their energies and sacrifices, however great, seem never to be enough. And they begin to feel estranged from their husbands who have stimulating professional work. Feeling unrewarded, unappreciated, and unfulfilled, they wonder what this "mess" of mothering adds up to. "I wished I believed that this game we all play actually had ... some higher purpose. Some meaning," Warner laments.

Only a hundred or so miles away, in the economically devastated neighbor-hoods of north Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey, sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas look at motherhood at the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage (University of California Press) reports on their five-year study of the lives of 162 young single mothers in the inner city.

Unlike the upscale mothers who spend their days with their kids at Gymboree or Baby Music Class, poor mothers spend their days pushing strollers along the desolate blocks of the inner city. They struggle to survive. But in lives that are chaotic and troubled, they see motherhood as redemptive--rescuing them from "going nowhere or going wrong." For them, motherhood is a way to prove themselves strong, competent, and resourceful in the face of daily adversity. They feel pride in showing that their kids are well dressed and well cared for. And they express no regret at having children at a young age and outside marriage. Indeed, they see their children as the source of enduring and faithful love in a world where romantic relationships are fragile and fleeting.

To a large degree, the differences in these mothers' inner lives are shaped by differences in their outward circumstances. The middle-class mothers belong to the first generation of women to reap the full benefits of baby-boom feminism. They have grown up in a society that opens doors for them, rewards their talent, and rejoices in their accomplishments. For them, motherhood competes with other ambitions and desires, including the undistracted pursuit of a career, the cultivation of a satisfying marital relationship, and the pursuit of personal interests and pleasures. Becoming a mother, therefore, means giving up other attractive "choices," or, to put it in the language of economics, upscale motherhood carries high opportunity costs.

But it's quite a different story for many poor girls who grew up in the inner city. Their choices have remained painfully limited; their chances for scintillating careers, slim to zero; their future economic prospects, bleak. Indeed, as Edin and Kefalas report, poor mothers give up almost nothing in future earnings by having children at a young age. For these women, there are almost no opportunity costs to early motherhood, no degrees forgone or careers put on hold.

In lives with so few other prospects for meaning and fulfillment, poor young women find hope, self-respect, and a higher purpose in motherhood. For them, motherhood doesn't bring a crisis in meaning. It is the source of all meaning in their lives. The problem is that the inner life of mothers is not a key determinant of the future prospects of their children. One can't but feel great admiration for the young women who find in early motherhood the source of everything that is good in their lives. At the same time, one can't but feel great sorrow that their emotional satisfaction in motherhood may not be enough to ensure a better life for their children.