motherhood

Ranting Mamas


UPDATE: This post got me unfriended on Facebook by one of the mommies who inspired it. I’ll leave you to guess which one.

There is so much about the mommy blogosphere that I am out of step with. I don’t worship at the Buddha bellies of my offspring (who are too old to be Gerber baby round and Downy fresh anyway). I don’t believe motherhood fulfilled me in a Frodo-esque LOTR’s type of way. I am not terribly concerned about how much time other women put in or out of their homes. Blogging for the trinkets of the marketplace doesn’t interest me and, generally speaking, my husband is for snuggling, bragging about and thanking God for (if I inclined in that direction and mostly I don’t anymore).

I can rant with the best of them. I have ranted. My dear readers will happily step up and attest to it, but I will disclaim for honesty’s sake anyway.

But  there are some places that the mommies go that I just don’t get or can’t follow along with like these recent examples.

The woman who greatly embellished her recent TSA encounter for instance. Being no fan of heightened security in any of its forms in the United States, I feel her frustration, but she didn’t really tell the truth. In fact she was so over the top that the TSA actually deigned to defend itself in the form of releasing the actual footage of the incident the woman, Nic White, ranted about on her blog.

And there was the woman who went ballistic because her honor student daughter’s feelings were hurt when she was correctly busted for a dress code violation. While I agree that the VP in question needed schooling in bedside manner – and for the record not being polite is almost a prerequisite for being a VP in most of my experience – her child was in the wrong, and the fact that schools have big issues to take care of these days doesn’t mean they should ignore things like dress code violations even when the offender is a good kid with excellent grades. It’s really beside the point.

In my experience, far too many “good” kids are taught that their academics and overall nice personalities somehow put them above the rules that lesser children/students are held to. That’s simply not real world. What is real world are superiors who blow up at you for minor things out of the clear blue even though you are a good employee. Or being pulled over for being 5 miles over the legal limit even though you were being passed right and left and are an exemplary driver. And generally not being immune from the occasional self-esteem ding even though it’s widely acknowledged that you are so incredibly wonderful.

The first rant example apparently backfired to the point that Ms.White had to close comments. The second resulted in a disturbing yet typical hen-fest of sympathy where almost no one bothered to point out that perhaps being an honor student did not exempt a child from the rules that the trailer park set are subject to and on a common sense level, no one held forth with the radical idea that summer wear is as inappropriate to the school setting as it is in the workplace because the way things are going economically most of our kids are going to be wearing some version of a work smock anyway.

“I don’t get it,” I said to Rob. “When I venture into the mom’s realm, I read about women who find motherhood so overwhelming and under-stimulating that they need to drink daily, shop excessively, pop antidepressants and Xanax like Pez and believe that husbands are snark targets for the enjoyment of their readers.”

He didn’t comment. He didn’t have to. As I have noted before, I am not a mommy-blogger and therefore I don’t understand.

Mommy Wars: This is Why Women aren’t Equal


Dr.Phil pimped the never-ending, though completely effective tool in the continuing subtle subjugation of women, working mom versus stay at home mom “discussion” on yesterday’s episode.

I didn’t see the episode but for this clip. I didn’t follow the Tweetie skirmish. I did follow a bit of the conversation at Jessica Gottlieb’s blog. Yes, the Jessica in the clip. I didn’t learn anything new. I didn’t hear anything I haven’t heard for a decade or more. The argument is tired and ultimately pointless. Why? Because women are idiots. We let ourselves be diverted and distracted like Homer Simpson and with a sprinkled donut.

Watching this Dr. Phil clip and reading the comments on Jessica’s blog just adds to my conviction that women will never be equal on any playing field with men as long as we willingly divide ourselves. Men don’t have to use sexist practices against us. We do it ourselves.

Stay at Home or Work? Diet/exercise or accept fat? Age gracefully or wage war against every wrinkle, peeling them off with our teeth in our en suite if necessary.

Women don’t have the skill set to be a coherent group working towards a common goal. We are mommies or not. Marrieds or singles. Straight or lesbian. White or Black or Asian or Hispanic or Aboriginal. We simply cannot accept that women come in a variety of flavors and leave it at that.

“This mommy war thing is another example of why men rule and women are forever second class,” I said to Rob. “I mean, would men argue about what makes one man a better father than another?”

“No,” Rob said, “if fact it wouldn’t even occur to a man that this would be a topic needing discussion.”

Because when it gets down to it, mommy wars are really part of the larger debate on what it is to be a woman. What defines womanhood? The natural default – imposed on us by religion and culture – is vagina and uterine based.

Am I not more than an incubator with a cunt? This seems to be all that is truly required from my by society. That I continually service others and forget that God (or whoever) gave me a working brain too.

Men, by and large, accept that being a man takes on many forms and that at the end of the day they are united as one gender fighting for the greater advantage of themselves as a group. Of course, they don’t have to wage too strenuous a battle in the western world because women are obligingly taking each other out one subdivided group at a time.

I have played on both sides of the mommy street. The grass is the same shade of green though how green and lush is more dependent on the luck of the socio-economic draw than anything else.

I think what I object most to in this current debate is the fact that motherhood today is being perverted into a child worshipping thing that it was never intended to be. My mother lacked most of the modern conveniences of her day due to my Dad’s cheap nature and the fact that we were solidly lower-middle class descended from farmers. Mom worked. Hard. And she took care of us kids but she didn’t drool over us or think that she’d fulfilled some Lord of the Rings like quest by becoming a mother. I can only recall one mother on my block who parented from a child-centered view, and no one wanted to play with her daughter because she was entitled and had clearly spent too much time being treated as a mini-adult.

My grandmothers worked too. They were farmers. Kids were tended to until they could be tended by older siblings and elderly relatives, or could fend a bit for themselves, and the days were filled with chores. Work. Really hard work.

The idea that women have to choose between work and motherhood hasn’t really existed until the last few decades. And what a boon that has been for those determined to set the clock back on feminism and equal rights. They’ve barely had to lift a finger – just scream “stay at home or work” in a crowded Target (because here is our only touch point – shopping – and why isn’t that common ground enough for us to all just get along?)

I loved Dr. Phil’s comeback line for the beleaguered working mom,

“Step off.”

Because it gets right back to the heart of the matter. This isn’t an important issue. Health care is an important issue. The rising tide of fascism in America is an important issue. The fact that our daughters are being inoculated for HPV while our sons – the equal carriers of the virus are not – is a real issue. The fact that gays are still not afforded the right to marriage despite the fact that it is a state sanctioned function and clearly a violation of equal rights – that is an important issue. We are ramping up a war in Afghanistan to fight terrorists who aren’t there – big issue.

But women are notoriously shallow and unable to leave our high school musical days behind us, and so we glom onto any trivial issue to perpetuate the heated rivalry of days of yore.

We are idiots.

Things in the Night Pt. 2


…that pat your leg or sit in the backseat just the the right of your peripheral vision or that say,

“Hi, Ann.”

There are a lot of ways to meet your husband’s first wife but her disembodied greetings on the edge of sleep is probably not the preferred way.

On the drive home from the city, Rob admitted that what had woke him was the presence sitting on the end of the bed touching his legs. This has happened before. It’s usually associated with an anniversary for him.

“Even now, I can feel someone in the backseat,” he said. “I can almost see a dark figure just on the edge of my vision.”

“What do you think it’s about? Your birthday?”

But it could have been Edee. She’d been up all night the previous night with Pandora in her arms as the little cat alternated between struggle and a death like limpness.

I didn’t tell Rob until the next morning that as I was falling asleep Saturday night, I saw Shelley in the background of my waiting dreams. It’s not as odd as it sounds. Rob had a dream once where Will had given him a hug. And I have a half remembered dream of speaking with Shelley but I don’t recall what was said.

When I told Rob what had happened his reply was,

“So, you’ve been identified by name now.”

I was quite startled when it happened, but I’m not frightened. I am not at all sure what it means. I am sure that if I were to hear a recording of Shelley’s voice, it would be the same as the voice that greeted me. I’d like to think that she approved of my handling of the cat situation and Edee. I was quite worried I’d overstepped and been too motherly. It’s hard not to mother. I am a mother. It’s not something I can switch off. After Dee was born I found that my approach to children – of all ages – in general was more maternal. It made me a better teacher and was a liability all rolled up in a neat package.

The house has been quiet since early Sunday morning. Pandora recovered though it was a very close call. I spent Monday afternoon on my own for the first time since June and all was well. I am taking that as a good sign.