MilfyCrazyCoolGroovySexyFunkyNasty HipWackyBootyliciousMomma
There are a lot of mom(my)/mother/mum blogs out there. This is pretty much one, I guess, although it doesn’t have a clear, fixed identity, much like its writer. And a lot of those mom(my)/mother/mum blogs make a point of implying just how funky, groovy and otherwise un-saggy bosomed and plastic apron-wearing the mother writing the blog is. This, the suggestion seems to be, makes the blog more readable, the writer more admirable and the whole blog package more desirable. And, possibly because I am a closet competitive lunatic, I’m getting pretty darn irate.
Frankly, I find it hard enough to be a mother. To do the business of the day, to be present, loving and available. To stay patient, calm and productive. If I have to be a slob, not shower for three days in a row and hardly ever get out my spandex and go-go boots, then fine. I am not going to add the pressure of having to be hip, pretty and cool to my list of what I need to get to in a day. And I’m thinking that all of us, parent or not, mother or not, hip or not, are doing the best we can do.
There’s also a really anti-feminist undertone to all this — don’t let the side down and be a dull mom, a mumsy mom, a cupcake and soccer mom. Tune in to [insert name of cool, little known band here] on your mp3 and sneak a fag out the bathroom window. Struggle in vain not to swear in front of those surprisingly precocious offspring who somehow invaded the house. This seems to reinforce the fear and dislike our maniacally youth-revering society has of mothers. The more we worship youth, the more that motherhood and mothers will be loathed, rebelled against, denied and ostrasized. We mothers too see our ability to hide our reproductive status as a measure of how successful we are as people. This is partly generated by how difficult it is to be a woman, and more so a mother, in the work world, but it is also because mothers are so often cast as the pre-feminist woman, the traditional role, the homemaker, helpmeet, self-denying little woman. To prove our sisterhood, we must deny our motherhood. This sets up the very sort of sisterhood destroying divisions among women that feminism was supposed to overcome. If we are really sisters, we will support women and their work, no matter what their work is, no matter how good they look doing it.
Salon magazine has a long-running column “Mothers Who Think.” The very title is offensive in its implication that there are mothers who think, and therefore mothers who don’t. We all think, every single damn one of us. Just not necessarily about the same things. Why are one set of thoughts more worthy, more printable, more (because this is how the worthiness of things is judged in this capitalist nightmare we inhabit) marketable.
Why can’t we all just be the mothers we are? There is no better style of adjusting to motherhood, of being a mother than any other (bar, you know, smoking crack while the children deal the drugs). We were different before we procreated and are – no, really? – different post-reproduction. We are none of us in a position to judge. We are none of us cooler. We are all, damn the damn development derby to Dante’s devil-ridden hell and back, damn cool every time we get through a day with our sanity relatively intact. Some of us were simply born to use glue-sticks and bake triple layer cakes. Others were meant to take their children on daily hikes. Some of us sing opera while others listen to Genesis and their children can sing every line of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Some of us think children are cute and love playing hide and seek and others are just waiting until they can talk about Brecht and feminist theatre with their angst-ridden teenagers. Some drink extra-caffeinated coffee while others sip lemon in hot water and do yoga. Some of us have running water and a room for each child while others have shacks or nothing. We are all still mothers.
We are all doing the most basic job in the world. We all rock.
YOU rock. It’s easy for me to feel like I’m not living up to the “cool mom” image. Thanks for reminding me that I don’t have to be a cool mom, dammit! I can just be the mom I am. Ah… and amen.
So so true. I always knew that “mothers who think” thing bugged me but I wasn’t sure why. And now I know. It’s all profound and yet dull and quotidian. But even if every day is the same we change everyday no matter what. Thank you for putting it so succintly.
Nicely said. Mothers – wonderful people. But they can worry too much about what they should do and forget to actually do what they can.
Stunts:
I can’t help but thank you for this post. Mothers who Think vs. Mothers who Bake vs. Mothers who starch their linens vs. Mothers who are cool/sexy/whatev…
Mothers are essential in every and any role they see fit. So, I say, be a mom, and just be the best mom you know how to be. A child could not ask for anything more.
Although I do secretly desire to be June Cleaver if I had a kid.
Shhhh.
i second the “you rock” response to this post! so well said. and i like the reminder of what our sisterhood is missing by not supporting eachother in our unique approaches to motherhood. thank you!
brilliantly written.
and i would like to say
that
you are a mother
that i wish lived closer to me.
what an excellent message.
Amazing post. You are one of the few who live and let live. You make me feel like I can just be me and not have to be a certain type of person or mom to fit in.
You are one of the few who live and let live. You make me (and all my personalities) feel like I can just be me without judgment.
Amazing post
I’ve read your post twice now, trying to digest it for I think I am one of the mother’s that you are angst at. My children are older now (and yes, I love that we can have philisophical discussions) but when they were little only part of me was a mom. There was still the part of me that liked what I have always like and that did not diminish with active reproductive organs.
In fact, I used to see red when the majority of people around me wanted to define me as only a mother. I didn’t give up my degree, my interests or my personal dreams when I had children. My priorities changed, but I didn’t.
My 17 year old thinks that I am a “cool” mom. I didn’t plan it that way, I just followed the beat of my own drummer and she digs who I am. She also admires that I have plans post child-rearing as it allows her to have hopes and dreams of her own.
Some women wnat to be mommies first and foremost, some women don’t and I totally agree with your conclusion, we do all rock.
Kendra, I think you may have missed the main thrust of Stuntmother’s post. As I read it (and the other commentators read it the same way, I think): insofar as she is experiencing angst, it is not towards any particular women or the choices they make/have made, but rather towards a discourse that frames some of those choices as worthier than others.
This discourse is associated, sadly, with a certain brand of liberal feminism that shares (not always consciously) some of the basic values of consumer capitalism – the fetishization of an individualistic conception of freedom and identity and privileging the monetary assessment of social value among them. I recommend socialist feminism as the way out of this trap: we have nothing to lose but our chains, mental as well as socio-economic.
Can we get a ‘hell yeah’ up in here for Stuntfather?
Stuntfather! Awesome to hear from you.
I read this post yesterday and didn’t quite know how to comment.
I get the the fetishization of an individualistic conception of freedom and identity. That part I understand.
I didn’t pick up on the “privileging the monetary assessment of social value” relating to the MilfyCrazyCoolGroovySexyFunkyNasty HipWackyBootyliciousMomma thing, and I am not quite sure how that fits into it.
Maybe you can tutor me Stuntfather?
On a personal note, when I was 19 and pregnant, scared out of my tree, I stumbled upon the Hip Mama parenting zine website. They had a section on their site called “girl-mom”
Had I not stumbled upon these message boards I am not sure I would have had my son. They were a beacon of light reminding me that I could still be “hip” I could still be “me” and have that baby.
So I get the irritation at the sentiment that some chioces are better than others, but I have to admit, it was the Hip Mama websites, that really inspired me and told me I could have a baby and not turn into some sort of mindless drone chasing a snotty nosed two year old and saying, “eat one more bite baby!”
Because those were the only visions of motherhood I had.
Stuntfather,
one thing I’ve learned on my path is that no matter what I do, there will be someone who thinks I am wrong. I work because I am a single mother (I also work because I enjoy working) there are those who applaud me for teaching my kids independence and a strong work ethic, there are those who have suggested that I need to collect welfare and be home to shape and mold my kids. I work out because I believe in being healthy and I do still want to be attractive and there are those that encourage my efforts then there are those that feel that I am trying to compete with my 17 year old daughter and that I am delustional about my age and my station in life (ugh….). I have clear cut goals and timelines for continuing my education and achieving goals that I’ve had since high-school but got derailed when I sucumbed to societal pressures of the definition of women and women’s roles (yes, even in the enlightened 80s there was at least one school administrator who didn’t believe that women were cut out to be archaeologists), some people hope that I achieve all the I desire while others are horrified that my possible grandchildren my never know a stereotypical grandmother.
I can’t please everyone, but I have the power to achieve my own happiness.
I’ve also learned that femisnism is not what it should be. Feminists, just like 90% of the rest of society can only see thier own path as truth and light. Anyone who chooses a path unlike their own definition of a liberated woman is, in their eyes, not a feminist. True feminism, IMO would embrase the live and let live philosophy. It would celebrate stay-at-home mothers and cookie backing grandmothers as well as CEOs, PhDs, it would celebrate the woman who nurturs her children as well as the woman who teaches by example. True feminism would not try to guilt anywoman to compromise her own desires to achieve a collective identity.
And I do apologise for the rant, but if it’s any consolation, my blog entry has just been written. (http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-kH5kZLs6fqiNeXqRiGPl_Js-?cq=1)
That’s the sort of feminism we embrace in this household — that lets every woman do what works for her, that celebrates every woman. Being hip, whatever that is, is not bad. That’s not what I’m saying AT ALL. I’m only saying that it’s not better than anything else. It just is. It’s just one choice. And those mothers doing it differently are equally worthy of celebration.
So, if I understand you, we agree with one another. I am in no way — in NO WAY – castigating any mother for being who she is, whatever she is. But being funky isn’t better on an absolute scale. It just might be better for you.
It’s just a choice. Just like being a person. In high school, we divided ourselves — the cool kids, the jocks, the nerds, whatever. I was so looking forward to being an adult so those artificial delinations could drop away. I was a nerd. I was also cool. I might not have feathered hair but I was cool. As an adult, I strongly believe we are all cool. Doing what you feel is right is cool. Living out your own life is cool.
I resent the divisions is what I’m saying. And feminism ought to strive to wipe out divisiveness. If women support one another, if we come together in solidarity (men and women) to believe that we are all worthy, whatever our choices, that is feminism.
No one in the Stunt household has anything but admiration for Kendra, Krista, C.Ella, gkgirl, tammara, stephanie or any other mother, no matter how you work your life out. What matters is that we are all trying — and not getting down on one another for doing it differently.
Stuntmother
yes, I see we do agree. I am no better nor any inferior to any other human, just different– sometimes way different.
It took me close to 40 years to get to the point where I was OK with my own internal desires as I fought with my own nature to try and conform for way too long. I hope one day non-conformity will be just as accepted as tradition.
Yo, sister. Solidarity.
Found you through SosKAL.
Just had my first 6 months ago. Can’t believe the disgusting amount of competition that takes place in mom circles. Have to try very very VERY hard to avoid falling into the “Andy can do such and such” trap. Sometimes I wonder why there is so much sabotage among the momclub (and it is kind of a club) instead of the solidarity necessary to make the world the better place it could be if we acheived solidarity…
This is Silent K’s post of the month. I came over to see what sparked her so much to state that.
I totally agree with you. I am a stay at home, like to bake, and do all the mom stuff. I like to think I am all funky, however I am fully aware that the true “hip” mothers may look down their noses at me.
I believe that every mother that makes their choices as a mom are doing what is best for her and her family, and that should be the end of it.
I try not to judge and criticize other women in general because I grew up believing in the sisterhood of women!
Great post! Totally worthy of the post of the month!
Hi. You say something very similar to what I was trying to say at the end my most recent post. Except you say it better.
Congrats on your perfect post award.
I’m late to the party because I just discovered you.
The perfect post indeed. You have said what I’ve been trying to say all along but you said it better.
I go back to the days of fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment (and before). Then we had few choices; now we have many.
I think that’s what I was fighting for.
Great post.
I find that some of my favorite mommybloggers are the “traditional” moms out there, who write as an aside and not as an attempt at coolness.
On the other hand, I believe that many, many moms who blog were the frustrated, oh-so-hip wanna be writers we all knew in school… and traditional motherhood cramps their style.
I think I’m caught somewhere in between, personally.
Anyway, congrats on a perfect post!
re:To prove our sisterhood, we must deny our motherhood.
Yes, that’s it exactly! I’m going to forward this entry to a few friends that I know it will resonate with.
Thank you.Too tired
to leave amusing haiku
(I laughed reading yours!)