Oh yes. There's a little something for everyone!

Oh my.

There's this broad, named Amy Sohn, who, apparently, writes a column called "Mating" in New York magazine. Since she's successfully navigated the "mating" aspect, she's decided that what the world needs now, is no, not another folk singer (ten bonus points if you can Name! That! Tune!), but a fun little rant about how, SAHM, are...evil.

Seriously.

The snarky comments in italics are mine.

http://www.amysohn.com/askamy/2006/summer06.htm


Summer Â’06

Hey There,

I have updated this site at long last. Having a kid makes you neglect the most important things but now that my daughter is close to a YEAR, I am getting back into the swing of things again. It has been a hectic fall and spring – I have been off from New York magazine and instead writing TV pilots, which has been a pretty fun ride. Right now I am working on one for Lifetime, which I think would make an amazing show if it ever gets on the air. It’s based on a self-help/humor book and I’m coming up with characters and stories for it.

A YEAR? REALLY? NO KIDDING? A "pretty fun ride"? Your skill with words just sets me all a-tingle.

In the winter I wrote pilots for UPN and ABC, which was an amazing learning experience even though UPN merged with the WB and didnÂ’t make my pilot, and ABC instead shot a pilot for something with a very similar theme instead of mine. (They didn't pick that one up either.) It was exhausting doing all this while having a newborn but hey, they canÂ’t rearrange pitching season to coincide with my childbirth.

Well why not? Your obvious talent, not-withstanding.

I have been spending a lot of time talking about and practicing motherhood, which is variously entertaining and mind numbing. I mean, both talking about it and practicing it are both pretty mind numbing. Here in my neighborhood, Park Slope, I am constantly encountering insane stay at home moms (SAHMs). And I have come to the all too un-PC conclusion that stay-at-home motherhood, despite the way our culture lionizes it, is bad for the child and bad for the mom. And bad for society. ItÂ’s just plain bad.

Mind-numbing, just in case you missed that, in PROFESSIONAL-WRITER'S-WHO-LOVE CAPS-BUT-NOT-PUNCTUATION-SCHOOL. Bad mommas! Bad ladies, who are raising their own children! Bad! All the perks we throw at these chicks, who sit around all day, watching their maids clean up their house, while collecting Social Security checks, while booking appointments with their plastic surgeons, since it's covered until their health-care plans.

Most of the SAHMs I know are really miserable. The working moms I know hate their jobs and hate working but they’re not miserable in the kind of extreme and neurotic, soul crippling, Zoloft inducing Yellow Wallpaper-type way the SAHMs are. When you spend all day with a baby you go a little crazy and I don’t think the SAHMs realize how crazy they are. All these college-educated smart women who once had opinions about things and read the newspaper now can only talk about poop and pancakes with kale and Veggie Bootie and natural Cheerios versus regular ones. My husband and I go to this playground called the Tot Lot near our house and we nicknamed it “Compare and Despair” because all any of the mothers talk about is, “Is she crawling? Is she walking? Oh my goodness, she has so much hair/so many teeth. She’s so tall/long/verbal/expressive.” It starts with “How old?” and then from “How old?” they get into what their kid is doing versus what your kid is doing versus what all kids should be doing and after half an hour of this you’re ready to stay inside for the rest of the summer. They sit around all day watching other babies play and worrying about their own baby’s development. This is a lot like watching paint dry.

I can only assume, that a poll was taken? Now, were only SAHM's who actually have yellow wallpaper included in the study, or were those that had gone for the ivory, or the daring red, included as well? Now, if you're smart, but not college-educated, do they count? "How old is she?" as a conversation starter, anyone? It beats opening with " Damn your boobs are huge, are you breastfeeding?". I'm curious as to how long she actually eavesdrops on the conversation. How does she know it doesn't move on from, "Your daughter is bigger than mine", to "Girl, I'm beat! I was making porn movies all day yesterday, in the Motel 8 around the corner!"?

One day I went to the tot lot with my daughter. I took her out and had plopped her by a play structure when behind me I heard two women talking. “Some babies never crawl,” I heard the one say to the other reassuringly. I picked up my kid and we left. That was it. I just couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand to be near it even though neither of these women was talking to me.

That stupid bitch! Who does she think she is? A doctor? Fuck that woman with the slow ass baby. If I'd have been there, I'd have turned around and told her that her baby was a fucking retard, and that maybe, if she'd stop chit-chatting with other stupid-ass, well-meaning (note the hyphens, y'all), bad SAHM's at the local Tot Lot, she stop letting the little shithead eat paint chips, and just commit his drooling, good-for-nothing ass to a state home. Start over, I say!

By virtue of what these mothers do all day, they become obsessed with baby care. They don't "have time" to read the paper or read a book. They don't "have time" to go out and see a movie alone or see friends or go to a museum or have an original thought. So instead they talk about what obsesses them: baby shit, the Britax Boulevard versus the Graco Snugride, the Techno XT versus the Volo, the flushable diapers versus cloth.

she stays home with her daugher, so she is aware of the ins-and-outs of being a SAHM...oh wait. That's right. I've been a SAHM for, oh...eleven years now. I've never had a nanny, or daycare, shit, not even a reliable sitter on a regular basis. Yet, somehow, someway...I've managed to have exactly 4, orginal thoughts. The latest one being, that I'd like to drive to NY, and drop in on a certain Tot Lot. I've managed to start a few business, though all are part-time, depending on what my week looks like. I've volunteered for the Green Party in my state, I've manned tables for NARAL at local festivals. I've even baked casseroles for a local soup kitchen. I read more than is probably healthy, and last summer, even made it all the way through a Karl Marx collection, thought I'm convinced that my brain tried to crawl it's way out of my head while I was sleeping, at one point, to avoid having to finish it. I was even a member of a local art gallery, and have visited other local galleries, without actually being on a field trip. However, when I'm at the park with my kid, and run across another mother, who seems like she might be cool, I don't generally open with, "So, you own guns, or do drugs?", even though it's information I'd like to have. Start with the easy shit, so that, if, a minute or two into the conversation, the other parent begins to prattle on, about how Dionne Warwick's psychics like, TOTALLY predicted that she was gonna have 3 boys, I can extricate myself, quickly. I'd also like to add, that even though, I've on occasion I've butterflied skin, removed splinters, and applied ice packs, I do not feel qualified, to make broad statements about how doctors, by virtue of what they do all day, must be disturbed. Because? I'M NOT ONE.

But the worst part of all of this is that the babies/children pick up on all of this neurotic energy and grow up to be really disturbed individuals, totally incapable of making decisions on their own. They donÂ’t play with other kids; they just play with Mom. They donÂ’t learn how to solve problems on their own or fall on their ass or all the things theyÂ’re supposed to learn because Mom is constantly shielding them from danger. Of course this is all a big generalization but in general, this is what I observe.

Oh, please tell me this means that her mother was a SAHM. It would explain so much. Neurotic energy? You mean, like having a kid, but not really wanting to be a parent? By viewing your child as a mind-numbing chore, that, like, totally cuts into your spa time? By shielding from danger, is that a reference to, keeping the sharp shiny things out of reach? Keeping them from skateboarding down the highway? If all the mothers are so busy, talking to the other mothers,Disposable virtues of cloth, vs. disposable diapers, how are they have time to be their child's only playmate? Are they playing legos, while passing notes back and forth to the other mothers, like in 6th period study hall, in middle school, so there will be no way that their children will be cross-contaminated with the other mother's offspring? Just curious.

As a result of all this danger shielding, Mom is exhausted and depleted and brain-dead, canÂ’t talk about anything but baby stuff with her husband, resents her husband for working even though heÂ’s got to do it to support her choice to be an SAHM, and then feels guilty if she considers going back to work because somebody drilled it into her brain-dead skull that working mothers are evil. I donÂ’t know who the somebody is. I really donÂ’t. These are not Republican women I am describing here. These are Park Slope women.

"Sorry honey. I had to stop the boys from playing in traffic again today, so I'm just exhausted, depleted and brain-dead. I totally resent you bringing home that paycheck, even though I know you hate your job, and resent ME for being the one on my ass, eating bonbons, I mean, stopping Timmy from drinking lye, I mean, whatever, what the fuck? You're the only bastard who gets ADULT time.". I especially love the part where the SAHM is brain-dead, but only in so far as it means that she views working women as evil. The part where, she mentions that the only conversations she manages to eavesdrop on, involve these mother's children, leaves me curious as to how she knows they're not republicans. Do they all have name tags, with their names, ages, children's pertinent info, and political affliation on them?

I suspect it is the husbands who discourage them from working. Because it’s the social equivalent of taking Viagra. “What does your wife do for a living?” asks Jeff, the squash partner at the Racquet Club.

“Oh, she’s at home with our son,” says Michael, and then boasts.

If a man can afford to have a non-working wife, he must be making really good money. So his wife wins him status. It also makes her much more fuckable. It conjures an image of a sexy, yoga-butted (to quote Ralph GardnerÂ’s New York article on the topic a few years ago), domestic diva who serves him a martini every night, keeps a clean house, and still has time to do Pilates.

Seriously? The more I read, the angier I get. Which is really saying something, as we've established, in earlier postings, I'm rather angry to begin with, LOL. I know quite a few SAHM, and none of their husbands play squash, or belong to a country club. Because, if he did, we'd have to kill him, then serve him to the police officer, investigating his disapearance, as meatballs.

If you are a college-educated woman with a child, you should outsource your child care. Childcare is not really as hard as it’s cracked up to be. Hand him a pot and spoon and the kid is happy. Childcare should be the province of immigrant women trying to get a leg up. I do not believe it is not “better for the child” to be with his mother. I believe it is better for the child to have a mother with some modicum of a life – whether it’s volunteering, graduate degree, or part-time work.


In our family, we have a Tibetan nanny 2 full days a week and Jake and I split the rest. Our kid is adaptable because sheÂ’s around lots of different people. There is nothing that only I can do for her. When sheÂ’s sick and upset we hire our sitter for an extra night and by the time she leaves our kid is better. ThatÂ’s how good she is. We pay up the wazoo for the child care, especially since itÂ’s only part time. We love our sitter so much we just bought her cable. But I believe this is a far better option than having one of us (Jake or me) commit to being a full-time stay-at-home parent. Our brains would explode. We would resent the other one no matter what. Our kid would be seriously screwed up and we would go into a financial sinkhole.

Yes. Because she has such a good chance of becoming a well-adjusted adult.


So am I angry and defensive because I am the primary wage earner in my family? I don’t think so. Do I secretly envy these women who can wile away their day in the playground without worrying about money? Maybe a little. I envy their leisure. And there is leisure in there, even if they will all tell you it’s nonstop work. It’s leisure when you can take a 2-hour nap with your baby every day. It’s leisure when you can sit an outdoor café with other mothers having a 2-hour lunch.

I have time to "wile away" my day, without worrying about money? Leisure? Chick, you've got no idea. Seriously. I offer, if you've got the clit for it, come spend a day with me. I haven't had a two hour lunch...ever. What's the point? If you're going to spend two hours sitting around a table, at least spend it drinking, not eating. My baby takes a two hour nap? My baby is five. I couldn't get him to take a two-hour nap, if I had my Tibetian nanny duct-tape him to his bed.

But give me a week to live the way they do (which IÂ’ve done from time to time) and by the end I am thanking my lucky stars that I work. You can only eat at Moutarde so many times, propping an infant on your knee and eating with one hand before you think, IÂ’d rather be on the roof of Soho House alone getting a tan. Speaking of which, how about this idea: Brooklyn House? IÂ’m thinking of taking over the Montauk Club and turning it into a private club for Brooklyn Bohos. Indie rock concerts, a sun deck, and ON-SITE CHILD CARE staffed solely by Tibetans.

I have tried to find others who are against stay-at-home motherhood but I feel I am alone in my disdain for choice feminism. I do not believe stay-at-home mothers are feminists. They are sending us way, way back. They are the reason all these kids are on Ritalin. They are the reason young adults are depressed. The reason the average college student talks to his parents 20 times a week.

Or, alternately, they're the ones who talk down the kid on the roof of her college dorm, who is fucking strangers, and ingesting drugs, in an attempt to get her parents to notice that she's successon. Not an obstruction on her mother's highway ramp to sucess. What kind of message does that send a kid? "Sorry baby, but momma's gFeminism a tan, fuck your recital, let the nanny take you". Feminisim, is about CHOICE. It's not an excuse to judge others life choices. I think you're a worthless peice of shit, and a sorry excuse for a woman, let alone a criminally-negligent parent. However, I would not make a judgement on whether or not, your life, and your choices, make you a feminist, or not. How much does it say, that, in order for you to live your life, in the way you've chosen, you feel the need to not only denigrate other women's choices, but to attempt to recruit others to your side?

There are a few web sites like mothersmovement.org and some others but they seem to be devoted to validating the “work” of stay-at-home mothers, saying how important it is, yadda yadda yadda. Child care is an important job but it need not be done by the mother!! There is one woman who wrote an essay about this for the American Prospect, Linda Hirshman, but it is thin and a bit out of touch. I mean, quoting Heartburn? Come on.

Question: If you've no interest in raising a child, why bother giving birth to one? One of the advantages, to all those feminists, is that, women today, have a choice, to remain childless, if they so desire, and if they do want a child, or children, to chose the when/where of it. What give birth to a creature, you've no interest in? I'm baffled by it, truly, along with feeling heartily sorry for this chick's kid. Poor little thing. I think it was Jackie O, who said something to the effect of, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much." Children are actually children, for just a short amount of time. what kind of life-lessons are you teaching your child, I mean, is the nanny, teaching your child?

That is the end of my rant. I would turn this into a million-dollar book proposal if I could but I donÂ’t think thereÂ’s enough to sustain 500 pages. Still, I wouldnÂ’t mind going head to head on Fox with that twiglike evil shiksa Ann Coulter.

Darlin', something tells me that you and Coulter will get a chance to hang out. Karma, perhaps, or even hell, if that's what you belive in.

Keep your eye out for something by me in an upcoming issue of New York on a topic related to parenting. IÂ’ll post the link when itÂ’s up.

Oh, I'm sure you will, Amy. If nothing else, the little thing you squished out, gives you something to write about. Even if it is,how much you hate having to actually raise her.

Amy

Bring it, bitch. Drreid-blockston@cavtel.net