Monday, April 16, 2012

Tiger Mom, Mormon Mom, Indian Chief,

French Mom, 
Working Mom, 
Georgia O'Keefe**


Dark Flower - Georgia O'Keefe

I'm bored and annoyed, again. And I've got a few more hates.

I'm loathe to even post about it here, knowing that I'm just contributing more muck to the overall muckiness of it, but a few people have asked, so I'll say a few words and then I'll desist.

I'm bored and annoyed by the latest mommy war -- you know, the one about Hillary Rosen taking a swipe at Ann Romney by saying she's never worked a day in her life and then Romney snapping back that she raised five children and that's work enough or something to that effect. And now all the blowhards have jumped in and everyone is freaking out on both sides, people are outraged and insulted, the Catholic Church is throwing a conniption that Rosen is a lesbian mother (horrors!) and therefore in no position to speak for mothers, and poor Ann Romney who has triumphed over breast cancer and struggles with multiple sclerosis, not to mention a complete Ken-doll of a husband is caught in her very first political crossfire. No one's even paying attention to the apparent fact that Secret Service agents have been frolicking with prostitutes in Columbia which has, apparently, affected the serious economic talks The President is supposed to be having, and once again the news that consumes Americans is -- well -- just plain dumb.

I've had short and terse tirades about most of the other mommy wars -- the Tiger Mother thing and then the French Mother thing, and I've always found the whole Working Mother versus Non-working Mother thing an enormous yawn. I get even more bored when the whiners step in and say something to the effect of why can't we all just get along? and expect that just because we share the same sex chromosome we're somehow irrevocably bonded as women and shouldn't argue but support one another, recognize what we have in common, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Don't get me wrong, Reader. I'm grateful to the legion of women who have paved the way to my equality, to my ability to speak my mind, vote, choose whether or not I will bear children and have a shot at doing a job that used to be denied to my sex. I guess the main reason why it all bores me to tears is because I'm a mother in an extra-special sub-category of mothers -- the extreme mothers -- and because I'm also a mother to some typical kids, I can justifiably say that the problems of the aforementioned (the Tigers, the French, the working, the non-working, the lesbians, the Mormons) are ridiculous in comparison. And for all you psycho-babblers out there, I'm perfectly aware that I could perhaps be projecting, except that I'm not.

I hate the word mommy except when it's used by very young children, and I hate even more the words mommy war.


I think it's all manufactured outrage, and I wish everyone would just shut up and move on (including myself).

**Just a little ditty that I sang to myself while I tapped out this post. O'Keefe was the only word I could think of to rhyme with chief, and then I remembered that she never had any children but painted a lot of vagina flowers, so it all seemed to fit. Humor me.

19 comments:

  1. Bitch, bitch, bitch ... I'm proud to be a mommy blogger. Even if O'Keefe paintings do something unexplainable to me ...

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  2. Oh honey. I know. Well, I sort of do. We sort of wrote on similar themes this morning.
    Sort of.

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  3. You rock my world Elizabeth.

    ps. WV: Lestat

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  4. And let me just say this- all of this stupid made-up bullshit controversy must seem to you like a third-world woman who has to tote her water from a mile away in a bucket listening to a conversation between two people in an argument on whether gold-plated or platinum-plated bathroom faucets are better.

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  5. It makes the soles of my feet itch, my toenails twitch, and my eyes roll. It's ridiculous. It's pitiful. And it's not going away.

    I'm glad you're so level headed. It's one of the reasons I like you so much. :)

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  6. Thank you, Elizabeth! I'm past the age of finding myself, a non-mother, in the middle of a bunch of mothers complaining about how hard it is. I never knew how to bring my own mother into those conversations - she who not only belonged to the sub-category you speak of, but had also lost a child to suicide, which put her in yet another sub-category and cordoned her off from most of the ordinary, daily talk among women about their ha'penny suffering as moms.

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  7. I agree. They should all shut up :)

    I think the Georgia O'Keefe vagina flower fits very well.

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  8. Manufactured drama, I couldn't agree more. I am thinking about the fact that patriarchy, as a system, benefits from this. From labeling us and ranking our worth and encouraging us to fight amongst ourselves. By doing so we surrender our true power. Not that all women should get along just because we're women, I don't believe that either. But I do believe that this ridiculous drama stunts our true potential.

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  9. maybe it's time to go back to that nice place in Yosemite, elizabeth. i loved your pictures, when you vacationed there.
    i am feeling that fed up to the eyeballs thing, too--like i desperately need to get away from everything for a little while.
    who gives a flying fuck about the mommy wars. how about a health care plan, folks?

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  10. It's the amount of un-news that gets into the news that gets me. You have to watch for the tiny gleam of real news in the crap of stuff that doesn't matter to work out what is actually going on in the world. The rest is just noise.

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  11. Ok, I won't say can't we all just get along but I will say I wish everyone would just sweep their own doorsteps. Yes, we need to stand up for what is right but so often people are just arguing over petty shit.

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  12. I work with dying people everyday, and living people, young people, old people, nice people and angry people. They all have cancer these people. One day I asked one of my patients how he deals with the pain and discomfort, every single day. He said, it's not like I have a choice. it's much the same with mothers of the not so typical.

    No offense Elizabeth but American politics is effing crazy.

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  13. You're the best. I love the term "Manufactured Outrage." Im filing that one.

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  14. I was completely unaware of this controversy. (And the prostitute thing, too.) Sometimes it's nice to live overseas. :)

    By the way, Georgia O'Keeffe always resisted the "vaginal" interpretation of her flower paintings. She said such interpretations said more about the viewers than her or the paintings. I suspect she was in a bit of denial. :)

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  15. I love your little ditty. And I, too, hate the 'mommy wars.' Enough, already. Get along or don't, but PLEASE stop blowing things out of proportion. Especially when they are uttered by people who really don't speak with any authority for anyone other than themselves.

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  16. I like your poem AND the painting.

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  17. I'm glad about these posts, else, how would I know about all these wars?! Obviously I read the wrong sites, because I'm way behind, I'm still in the times when the wars are forever fought for natural vs medicated/cesarean birth!

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  18. Women (and mothers especially) are hard on each other.

    It takes all kinds to raise all kinds. Nothing more to it, really.

    Nicki

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  19. All I'm going to say is that you're bad ass. Is that okay?

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