On May 16, The New York Times struck click-bait gold with an excerpt from Wednesday Martin’s forthcoming memoir, provocatively titled “Primates of Park Avenue.” The headline was “Poor little rich women,” and it revealed that some rich women living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan do not hold office jobs. Instead, these “mostly 30-somethings with advanced degrees from prestigious universities and business schools” pour their time and talents into “intensive mothering,” obsessive exercising and competitive shopping. They depend wholly on their husbands for financial support, and some even receive a “wife bonus” for their troubles. One of these wives, Polly Phillips, argued in a recent New York Post essay that her wife bonus is her husband’s way of acknowledging that her homemaking is as valuable as his work as an oil company executive. But she refers to him as her “boss,” implying a distressingly unequal relationship, and she is clearly less interested in arguing seriously that she is “empowered” by her husband’s munificence than she is in bragging about her designer clothing. In the U.S., the land of the free, dependence is usually interpreted as weakness — but who gets to be dependent is largely a function of gender and class. Spousal dependence is still socially acceptable in some settings and for some women, i.e., those in the middle and upper classes. Poor women with children, on the other hand, are seen as irresponsible breeders in need of the “dignity” of soul-sucking low-wage work. Dependence has never been seen as widely acceptable for men either. There is still little social incentive for and considerable stigma attached to being a stay-at-home dad. But whether you call it pin money, an allowance or a wife bonus, if you can’t buy things without your husband, you are by definition dependent on him. Just how dependent is another question. As Martin noted, these women have advanced degrees from prestigious universities; it wouldn’t be easy, and they would almost certainly earn less than they would had they remained in the workforce, but there’s no doubt in my mind that these women could support themselves and their children if they had to.

The truth is the “poor little rich women” of the Upper East Side are no better or worse than any of the rest of us; they’re just luckier in the short term and, absent an exhaustive prenup, more vulnerable in the event of a divorce.

Park princesses

Unsurprisingly, the question of who “gets to” or “should” stay at home is politically charged. When prospective first lady Hillary Clinton snarked at a reporter in 1992, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do was fulfill my profession,” the backlash was so intense that she was made to atone by submitting a cookie recipe in a Family Circle magazine–sponsored bake-off. In 2012, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen was forced to apologize for saying that first lady hopeful and stay-at-home mom Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life.” Contrast this with the majority of Americans who admire first lady Michelle Obama. She holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton and a law degree from Harvard. She left a lucrative, high-status career for the Miss America–like occupation of fighting childhood obesity and running the White House garden.

Why disdain Ann Romney and the ladies of Park Avenue but give Michelle Obama a pass?

Why disdain Romney and the ladies of Park Avenue but give Obama a pass? You could argue that Obama’s are worthier pursuits than exercising and shopping, but the ladies of Park Avenue also invest time and money in charitable causes, and Obama also exercises and shops for clothes. I’ve heard women complain that the Park Avenue set isn’t really staying home to raise their children; they have nannies to do that. But Obama also has help with child care, as do most educated women of means. Very few women who have the money (or family) required to avoid it choose to spend every waking second with their children — and those who do would rather perfect their offspring than maintain relationships with husbands and friends. Whether this kind of intensive mothering is good for children is an entirely different question.

Novel choices