On Perfection (once more)

Geeky Mom has linked to an interesting Newsweek article entitled, Mommy Madness which deals with the strive for parental perfection. While you are there you could also read the relatively shorter article, Slacker Mom (go on you’ll like it!)
The overall point of the article seems to be that we are not doing ourselves or our children any favours by nearly killing ourselves trying to be perfect. Naturally I couldn’t agree more, but don’t we also owe it to others too? Geeky Mom admits that the main culprit to her feelings of inadequacy is peer pressure. In that case then by being the first to lower our standards, we could be breaking that cycle of 'keeping up with the Jones’.
My main frustration with the article is that age-old problem of class. I couldn’t help but to feel a little irritated when I read,

‘Yet as mothers many women face "choices" on the order of: You can continue to pursue your professional dreams at the cost of abandoning your children to long hours of inadequate child care. Or: You can stay at home with your baby and live in a state of virtual, crazy-making isolation because you can't afford a nanny, because there is no such thing as part-time day care, and because your husband doesn't come home until 8:30 at night.’

Of course Judith Warner fails to address the issue of those who have no choice but to work. I’m not talking of mothers who ‘pursue their professional dreams’ but those who cannot pay the bills, cannot afford child care and are limited to some mind-numbing, soul-destroying, dead-end job that can be done when the kids are in bed and the husband gets home. Or worse what of the single mother I know who three nights a week leaves her fifteen year old daughter in charge of the roost while she works behind the bar in the pub a couple of doors down the street? I’m not really sure where she fits in to this extract.
As a result of this omission whilst I wholeheartedly agree with the solutions put forward by Warner, and would like nothing more than to see these policies applied both sides of the Atlantic, I feel they don’t go far enough. I personally would like to see more financial help for single parents, and working class families, so that they too have the choice mentioned in the above extract. I particularly liked Warner’s third suggestion;

‘We need flexible, affordable, locally available, high-quality part-time day care so that stay-at-home moms can get a life of their own. This shouldn't, these days, be such a pipe dream…’

But on top of this I would like to see more affordable drop-in day care, in local shopping centres, libraries etc. Places where parents do not have to commit themselves over a period of time, but can wake in the morning feeling isolated and highly strung, knowing there is somewhere safe where the kids can play whilst they gather themselves together.
Geeky Mom links to a couple of blogs who address the class issue somewhat by arguing that the descriptions of the mothers staying up all night painting paper plates, only applies to one side of the socio-economic divide. In my predominantly working class area of Cambridge, the paraphernalia may differ but the strive for perfection still exists. Here outside the school gates, I do not hear discussions of ‘the right ballet class’ but I do hear concerns about overcrowding, fresh air, healthy food and that old chestnut, ‘quality time’
As parents our basic underlying problems are surprisingly similar, whether we are male or female; stay at home or working; rich or poor; etc etc, and I would like to see policies and articles that address these issues in a more unifying manner.
Update; Just noticed that Elizabeth at Half Changed World has an interesting take on the Newsweek article. Also she links to some other aticles by the same woman/ Argh! More reading to do!