HOME ALONE

By MARGARET CARLSON

Remember the horror movie The Hand that Rocks the Cradle? Most mothers do. A real-life sequel played out in Massachusetts last week, when a mild-mannered British au pair was convicted of murdering Matthew Eappen, an eight-month-old left in her care. As it turns out, there was another woman in the docket: the Working Mother. A banner outside the courthouse read DON'T BLAME THE NANNY, BLAME THE MOTHER. And observers of the trial who wrote, called talk radio and clogged the Internet did indeed blame the mother, ophthalmologist Deborah Eappen. Eappen became the embodiment of yuppie scum, a single-minded careerist pursuing psychic rewards and a grander house while leaving her newborn with an inexperienced teenager with a taste for Boston nightlife.

On display was society's massive ambivalence toward mothers who work (little was said about father Dr. Sunil Eappen). In truth, Eappen was hardly striving to become chief of surgery and mother of the year at the same time. To the contrary, she saw patients only three days a week and came home for lunch most days. To find day care, she went to E.F. Au Pair, one of only eight agencies licensed by the U.S. government to bring au pairs to this country. Surely most mothers could picture themselves hiring Woodward, and feeling lucky to get her. In an interview televised the night before the verdict, Eappen made her own plea for mercy: "What if I was a stay-at-home mom and went to the movies and this happened?" But Eappen is looking for rationality where there is little. Consider this irony: no doubt many of the people jamming the airwaves condemning Eappen for going to work and leaving a small child at home are the same ones demanding that welfare mothers do exactly that. There oughta be a law, folks clamored, and now there is: the 1995 Welfare Reform Act, which requires welfare mothers to get a job, any job--cleaning houses, flipping burgers or, most ironic, watching other people's children--or lose their benefits.

This is not to say that welfare mothers shouldn't learn how to work. But the double standard shows a tremendous disconnect. As the trial was unfolding, the President and First Lady convened a Conference on Child Care. Mostly, the Clintons clucked over the dismal hodgepodge of day care in this country, the worst in the industrialized world. It's not just that we aren't soft and indulgent, like Sweden. It's that the average pay for caregivers is $12,000 annually; the average training is nil; and there are few standards to speak of. There is massive burnout and turnover. Day care at the work site is rare. And although most juvenile crime occurs between the hours of 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.--as do many teenage pregnancies, I'd wager--programs to keep kids occupied after school have been drastically cut. Whether we like it or not, two-thirds of women with children under six work outside the home. What an odd society it is that requires more training and licensing of the person who cuts your hair than the person to whom you entrust your most precious possession.