Remember The Hours, where Julianne Moore plays Laura Brown, depressed housewife? She’s the mother of future artist Richard Brown (played by Ed Harris), who as an adult, thinks about her abandonment right before he plunges to his death outside his Brooklyn apartment. Happy times, this movie.
Anyway, flash back to when Richard is nine. Laura, pregnant with her second child, really wants to be good, she really does, so she tries to make her husband a birthday cake.
It doesn’t work out so well.
Kitty, the neighbor (played by Toni Collette, who didn’t yet wear visible thongs and suffer from multiple-personality disorder) stops in to see Laura, and furrows her brow. “How can you mess up a cake?” She says. “It’s the easiest thing in the world!”
And then Laura tries to kiss her, and then Laura leaves her family. Laura had problems way beyond that little cake, to be honest. The cake is not the point.
And yet I keep thinking I should be making more cakes.
Every week, I get this stupid Food.com newsletter. I have no idea why I signed up. Usually when I get these things, I mark them as spam, c’est la vie. But for some reason, I can’t bear to delete these. I hold onto them in my inbox, assuming that one day, I may actually have the energy and will to make Peanut-Butter Pumpkins or Pizza-on-the-Fly or try out turkey recipes before Thanksgiving. That I’ll wear my sweet little apron and rub my hands together and sway through the kitchen in a pair of shiny heels. I have this idea that it’s what good moms do.
But you know what?
Fuck that.
We mothers are too damn hard on ourselves, whether in the 1950′s, when we thought we should be making award-winning cakes, or now, when we think our kids need to attend school in matching pairs of socks. Who cares about cakes and socks? Who cares about the Kittys, who have the nerve to suggest we are less than remarkable?
Actually, I was surprised to find that they’re hanging out in national public radio. On my commute from one job to another on Tuesday, I listened to the program Tell Me More. This 15 minute segment was called, “Too Much Drama Between Our Mamas?” and asked a panel of moms to vent about other moms who they didn’t think were doing a good enough job. What the hell? I thought. Really? And then my respect for the show plummeted.
One mom talked about how she hates when other moms give their kids weird names that she can’t pronounce. (That got her kicked out of a mom’s club.) Another said that she was pissed (this is not verbatim) that a mom sent her kids to school with lice which spread through the classroom. Still another complained how moms need to show up on time to soccer practice if they want to have any say in their kids’ participation.
Thank God for Leslie Morgan Steiner, editor of Mommy Wars, who at least acknowledged that this was a weird, let’s say, problematic discussion to be having. That maybe we shouldn’t revile other moms on public radio. That maybe we should try to support each other and understand where a mother is coming from. Because you know what? No one used the word, “dad.” Don’t dads have a say in their kids’ names, in their children’s punctuality, on whether their daughters have heads full of lice? Or are we just expecting all of this to be a mother’s job? Along with the cooking, the working, the laundry, the filling out of copious forms?
I’m tired of public evisceration of mothers. And if we think the feminist movement is over, we ought to be thinking about the undue emphasis on perfect parenting that’s popping up all over our inboxes, on our blogs, on the editorial pages of newspapers, on television and radio. Because we’re all doing our best, and when we’re not, there’s a reason. You never know what a person may be going through. Some kindness, some gentleness, less judgment goes a hell of a long way.
Oh, and um, Dads? They’re parents, too.
I happen to live with a pretty good one.
Image: “Cake” by SatAddict via Flickr.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I know I always felt completely inadequate when it came to making the ‘costumes’ for competitions or special days at school. I was useless.
I felt a little bad about buying my kids’ costumes. But only a little. I’m over it. (I pat myself on the back for the hour or so it took me to find them on e-bay.)
“Too Much Drama Between Our Mamas” sounds more like the name of an episode for a Jerry Springer Show. Blech.
I think you know very well where I stand on this issue.
Cathy recently posted..come visit me!
I love you, Jana.
Have you seen the show Louie? Louie CK (comedian) has a funny little bit about how much he gets praised (as a divorced father) when he takes his children out for a meal.
“What a great dad you are!” the waitress gushes at him.
And he’s thinking, “I’m great because I’m feeding my children? Um, yeah. In four hours, I’ll be feeding them again, if you’re interested…”
TheKitchenWitch recently posted..Old-Fashioned Colorado Green Chile
It is uncanny, isn’t it, how we gush when we see a man alone with his kids? What’s that about? (I think I know what it’s about–that could be a few posts–but still.)
I love this post! And I enjoy reading Leslie Morgan Steiner too.
This is a topic I have been talking about for several months with other parents and you are spot on with your observations and opinions. Everyone is CRITICAL of each other and I am a little sick of it. In fact, I am sure I am now labelled as a loose cannon in some social circles b/c instead of adding to the judgment, I am trying more than ever to UPLIFT. I lived my life being critical of others for too long and now that I am a parent, this useless conversation I have with other moms about not living up to some imaginary standard has me hot under the collar.
I don’t create elaborate goodie bags for my kids birthday treat. Does that make me a lazy parent? I didn’t make their costume for Halloween! Do I love them less? We do not have cable TV in our home. Are my kids lacking in “culture” from not watching crap on television?
Here is what I am noticing, though. I am not an outcast for standing up for people who have messy houses (or whatever might be judged at the time). My kids are not being uninvited from parties. I think other women are sick of the judgment too and instead of standing up for themselves for fear of looking like a loose cannon, they go with flow and add to the complaining/judgment. The women who are the ringleaders of this negative talk are not powerful. They are weak with their own insecurities. And I am ready to take them down and change their mindset, one minivan at a time.
Sweet Lord, you have me riled up and I’ve only had 2 cups of coffee! :) Great, great post. Down with the haters.
Elizabeth Rago recently posted..Ode to my third labor…
I get upset when people are willing to talk to others about me, but not approach me. I’d always rather someone complain to my face than behind my back. Seriously. (And I think because I’ve complain/giggled directly to others’ faces, I’ve lost friends from time to time. C’est la vie.)
Amen!
I’m lucky to have a community of pretty supportive mom friends so I’m pretty shielded from the kind of nonsense that seemed to be going down on the NPR show you mentioned. (I’ve never heard that program and now I guess I’m glad…) Ultimately, I think it’s human nature to try to prop yourself up by pushing someone else down, but I wish it weren’t. If only we moms could take a break from it, if for no other reason than we’re setting a terrible example for our kids.
Kristen @ Motherese recently posted..Piles
So much of entertainment, news and opinion seems to find its way through poking sticks at people and throwing salt in wounds. That’s not intelligent, it’s cheap. It’s relying on pre-existing conflict to get attention. I call BS.
How about daring to talk about things we admire, things we’ve failed at and found a new way to approach? Or maybe we could just talk about how balance and accomplishment are more aptly described as balancing and accomplishing, an active process.
Gah.
Also, sloppy internet girl crush kiss sent your way.
Amanda recently posted..Longing
Well, usually NPR does do all that good news stuff. Tell Me More (in the Philly area NPR realm) is hurting, clearly. Oh, and thanks for the internet affection!
Amen! I think most of us are trying our best and that should be good enough. My Mom never made cakes or did crafts and she was a wonderful mother!
Tiffany recently posted..Scary
I love this post. I am a Mom who doesn’t like to cook, can’t stand to bake, and never liked doing crafts even when I was little. But I am still a great Mom and I am proud of the job I am doing in raising my kids, in partnership with their Dad. I think we are all freaking heroes.
When I first read this post I wanted to print it out and hang a poster-size version of it on my living room wall. Amen. I am so sick of women being pinned against eachother and of the crazy notion that there is only one way to correctly parent children. The comment about the dads being parents too – thank you!! I want to gag every time my in-laws praise their son for changing a diaper or taking the kids with him on a trip to the grocery, while they simultaneously roll their eyes at me for working full time and not measuring up to their standards as a Betty Crocker wife. Whatever happened to the idea that we’re all in this together and we’re trying to do the best we can?!? I think the feminist movement still has a long way to go…
Absolutely agree! Imagine if we all started supporting each other, no matter what our choices and respecting the fact that most of us (dads included, of course) are doing the best damn job we are able. How about a little positivity for a change? Imagine! Excellent post, you’ve basically said what I’ve often felt but couldn’t articulate. Thank you.