Divisions and Precisions

Thanks for the link!

I don't even know what to say because it looks like so much clap-trap. : ( Oh no, you're not Mother Martha Steward?! Egad! That MUST mean you're screaming bitch mom with the sullen teenager and 10 year old who runs up to his room rather than help around the house! Prego pasta sauce is for the weak!

If you're not perfect, you're a failure! And this book will tell you all about why it's a terrible idea to try and do better tomorrow than you did today; looking to improve yourself and your relationship with your children is just a media hoax. It's better to be mediocre and make sure YOUR happy then those lives you brought into the world receiving a solid foundation for their own adult lives.

Jesus, but I'm sorry. I would have hoped you'd have seen beyond the reverse justification for a terrible case of the moody mommys. It's not that I can't budget my time to my emotional needs to the needs of my children, it's that it's ALL A MYTH PUT OUT BY THE MEDIA. Give me a break. You're just trading in one sensationalist view for another at that point.

(Ps: I'm not sure how MT works with HTML, but in the LJ feed, your link is broken. It doesn't look like you opened the tag. It reads: Wow. Thanks, a href="http://www.merriehaskell.com/journal/">Mer ... I see that it works fine here, though.)

First off, with the HTML problem... I typoed the entry the first time, and the feed had already picked it up before I edited it. It should be correct on LJ by now. Or soon. I hope. :)

Second... did we read the same article? I didn't get that at all. The authors seemed to me to be using a worst-case scenario that really, based on what I've seen among my friends with kids, isn't so far from reality (family insanely busy, shortcuts abounding in the kitchen, etc). They were contrasting that with the image of perfection that does get perpetuated by the media.

Can you clarify where you saw them discouraging women from trying to be better? I guess I saw a distinct difference between the message "don't kill yourself trying to achieve a perfection that doesn't exist" and "don't try to improve". I definitely didn't get the message "be lazy, don't worry about your kids". I got the message of "love your kids, do your best, but don't beat yourself up if you're not a soccer mom-version of June Cleaver, because no one is." And having seen young moms beat themselves up for just that reason, this is a message that needs to be out there.

There is absolutely nothing -positive- about that excerpt. Anything and everything is diminishing the role of the mother as trite, overblown and media-induced.

But it pales in comparison to the new momism. After all, a dad who knows the name of his kids’ pediatrician and reads them stories at night is still regarded as a saint; a mother who doesn’t is a sinner.

The hell? Since when? Did I just miss the memo? Or do I just know too many well rounded and responsible men where this isn't even the case.

Or there's this gem:

These profiles always insist that celebs all love being “moms” much, much more than they do their work, let alone being rich and famous, and that they’d spend every second with their kids if they didn’t have that pesky blockbuster movie to finish.

I'm... sorry? Yes. Yes, I'm going to have to agree that GIVING LIFE TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING AND THEN BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT LIFE I HELPED BRING INTO THE WORLD is going to be the most important "job" I'll ever have. They never mention that it's okay to have more than one "job", or even that it's okay to enjoy both. It's just easier to sneer down their noses at "super star moms" for being predictable and buying into the "media momism" since they have all the money in the world. Having money does not make you responsible. Being responsible makes you responsible. Responsibility doesn't exactly come with a price tag.

Then there’s the Martha Stewartization of America, in which we are meant to sculpt the carrots we put in our kids’ lunches into the shape of peonies and build funhouses for them in the backyard.

If you're sculpting carrots? You have MUCH bigger problems than Soccer-Momitius. But there's no middle ground with this author; no gray. It's either Black (You Are Buying Into The Super Mom Myth! Ha, you fool!) or there's White (You're hip and cool -- just like me! Isn't it fun to sneer down at those losers?!) and that's it. There's absolutely no gray. So you don't sculpt the carrots -- but you gave them carrots, right? This is better than a candy bar, and if you've done any "good parenting", you've made vegetables a regular enough part of their diet that they're not "weird" or "gross" but just "oh hey, carrots". But, you know, apparently being aware of good nutrition is buying into the media myth, because EVERY household in America is running around like it's caught up in a tornado, and all anyone has time for is a microwaved pizza, and we're all beating ourselves up inside for not being better.

I guess... yeah. I just must know A LOT of super star moms (and dads, but they don't get to count it would seem).

So the real question is how did the new momism — especially in the wake of the women’s movement — become part of our national common sense? Why have mothers — who have entered the workforce in droves at exactly the same time that intensive mothering conquered notions of parenting — bought into it? Are there millions of us who conform to the ideals of the new momism on the outside, while also harboring powerful desires for rebellion that simply can’t be satisfied by a ten-minute aromatherapy soak in the bathtub?

The only REAL response I can give to this is: because you're weak and pliable and apparently can't think for yourself? You can't evaluate your own strengths, weaknesses and resources to know where you as an individual stand? You have to have someone else do it for you? And when you *realize* you've been letting someone else think for you, you throw the baby out with the bath water and destroy the entire institution by claiming it as a "myth of the media". Which, if you'll take a look around you, is incredibly in vouge right now. Nothing is every our fault, it was the Media for making us think we had to do X when REALLY we should have been doing Y all along.

So, yeah. Sensationalist clap-trap trying to cash in on a very hot topic by attacking.

I'm not denying that there's a Cult of Baby in this day and age, I'm just saying that this book (seems too, by the excerpt) take that ideology and run as FAR away from it as it can, because it can, so it can stand high on its mountain top far far away and claim 'See?!? We're nothing like that!!' Because, again? Absolutely no gray area represented. Only black and white, right and wrong, her way - the smart way - and everyone else, the dummies.

Okay. I think I can see how you read it, I just disagree with that interpretation of what they're saying. Sorry it didn't give you the same positive message that I received. You know me well enough to know that I am definitely not behind people neglecting their kids in any way.

Well, I have read the book, and I have to say, it's a far cry (IMHO) from anything noted above. Actually, she doesn't waste a whole lot of time judging mothers at all, or giving advice, etc. The book is mostly hard facts about how the media and goverment have approached parenting in tandem for the past three decades. Yeah, she's unhappy with the media and government, but doesn't really talk much about "secular" mothering. I strongly felt she was giving us permission to go right on being whatever type of mom suits us best, even if that means we DON'T always get the chance to put carrots in our kid's lunch. The kid's not going to be blind by age 20.

The excerpts you get on web sites and in news articles aren't gonna give you the whole picture. Pick up a copy of the book before you judge it lock, stock and barrel.

Asha