You're not overvaluing Sotomajor's mother at all, in the encouragement she gave her daughter and the ambition she instilled ... or in the role she potentially would have played if Sotomajor had had children. The support system behind a working mother makes all the difference in career success. Bella Abzug and plenty of other women pursuing careers may have "the world's most suppportive husbands," but I like to think that the best support (because it's the most attuned to all the needs of the situation) is the "mother behind the mother." Here's to Marian Robinson and all those mothers and mothers-in-law out there who are content being the childcare and the emergency backups so that their daughters can continue doing what they're doing in the world.
You're not overvaluing Sotomajor's mother at all, in the encouragement she gave her daughter and the ambition she instilled ... or in the role she potentially would have played if Sotomajor had had children. The support system behind a working mother makes all the difference in career success. Bella Abzug and plenty of other women pursuing careers may have "the world's most suppportive husbands," but I like to think that the best support (because it's the most attuned to all the needs of the situation) is the "mother behind the mother." Here's to Marian Robinson and all those mothers and mothers-in-law out there who are content being the childcare and the emergency backups so that their daughters can continue doing what they're doing in the world.