Mothers of America, it's time to get a grip.

Over the past few years, we've been snatching up an alarming number of books about the miseries of motherhood -- books such as "Misconceptions," "The Mommy Myth" and the latest tirade, "Perfect Madness," by Judith Warner.

OK, I'm guilty, too. I've read a lot of this stuff. Like so many women, I struggle with making it all happen, much less making it work. Books about how other mothers are coping fascinate me. It's like walking around your neighborhood at night and not being able to resist looking into lighted windows.

But then I read Warner's take on some upper-middle-class mothers in Washington, D.C., who feel pressured to parent to perfection. Who, if they've left or curtailed top-notch careers, apparently believe they're obligated to turn out top-notch children, and to do so with insufficient support from society or their "wonderful" husbands. Who are described as suffering from "an existential discomfort," a "choking cocktail of guilt and anxiety and resentment and regret."

And I thought: Wow, what's wrong with me that I haven't driven myself insane over preschool admissions, soccer leagues and color-coded party goods?

No, seriously, what I thought was: No one's going to believe this existential discomfort bunk. Until the book got coverage all over the media. Even "Nightline." Then I thought: Yikes! Is this how we want our children to view motherhood?

I sure don't.

I pretty much fit into the "Perfect Madness" demographic and face many of the same issues the author's neighbors do.

I'm a tail-end baby boomer with a part-time-by-choice career and a full-time working husband, who, like most men, doesn't seem to be wired to multi-task. I live in a leafy D.C. suburb full of ambitious parents, the vast majority of whom are more accomplished, more well-off and far more fit than I. I have two adorable daughters with lots of activities, who sometimes get more homework in a night than I used to get in a week and who, being, well, children, occasionally talk back and act entitled. So by rights, I, too, should be wretched.

But somebody has to say it: Motherhood is not so bad!

Of course I've felt overwhelmed. I have an endless, looping soundtrack in my mind that goes something like "laundry, birthday party present, basketball game, dinner, overdue doctor's appointment, prescription refill, laundry ...," and no matter what I do, I can't make anyone else in my family hear it. I alternate between exhilaration and exhaustion, with occasional fits of concern about my scaled-back career. I've been bored and frustrated with the best of them.

Yet most of the time, I think motherhood's a kick. (Come on, I know you've had those moments, too.)

Where did we late boomers and early X-ers ever get the idea that parenting was going to be easy? Trying to work and raise children at the same time, and in a more egalitarian relationship, is a new frontier. But we've turned out to be about the sorriest bunch of pioneers I've ever seen. We haven't blazed a trail any girl would want to follow. If we'd shown up on the prairie, we would have spent all our time complaining about how cold, empty and boring it was. Our kids would probably have been picked off by wolves.

I'm not saying women shouldn't talk about their concerns, or pretend that everything's wonderful. But most of the unhappy realities of motherhood have been outlined before, sometimes even with humor. Doesn't anyone remember Roseanne Barr's "domestic goddess" routine?

It's time to move on. It's time to make our choices and make them work.

I don't want my girls to grow up thinking their mother and her friends were all swigging cocktails of guilt and resentment. If we run into problems and disappointments, I want them to see us doing our best to overcome them. Most of all, I want them to know that they don't have to buy into society's pressure, meted out in book after whiny book, to be unhappy mothers. That really would be perfect madness.

And it might mean I'd never have any grandchildren.