I picked up The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women the other day at the library. I decided I finally had the mental stamina to tackle the thing and I sat down determined to read it thoroughly and thoughtfully.
My determination was undermined, however, by two things—by the proliferation of statistics in the book and by an overwhelmingly snide, sarcastic tone which I know was supposed to be hip, witty and whipsmart, but didn’t quite hit its mark with me. I have to chalk that up to a small generation gap. I’m GenX instead of Baby-Boomer and there’s a significant difference in Weltanschauung going on. And if you don’t believe me, a recent article in the New York Times reiterates the point: The Way We Live Now 7-4-04: Look Who's Parenting. (The Slackers!) See also this piece from USAToday on slacker moms.
Still, The Mommy Myth was interesting to read, in fits and starts, as a sort of historical document, focused as it was on episodes of Roseanne, thirtysomething and celebrity moms like Kathy Lee Gifford.
It purported to expose the hidden and not-so-hidden messages in magazine articles, movies, government policy, and in the agenda of Dr. Laura (“the Mussolini of the New Momism”).
I’m not saying the book is not a valuable document. It's a substantial piece of work and I admire any women involved in projects of their own conception. It's just that I was put off by its tone. The authors were clearly Pissed Off that women had been sold such a shabby cultural bill of goods (i.e. the new momism) in the 80’s and 90’s. But it makes me want to say, like the true capitalist I am, “Hey, caveat emptor. If you’re shopping for zeitgeist via women’s magazines and television shows, you’re going to get what you pay for; if you’re looking to celebrities as role models, you’re going to get what you deserve.” Am I being naïve in thinking you don’t have to pay so much attention to these sorts of cultural messages, that it’s better to listen to your own heart? Or is the heart poisoned almost from the moment of birth by cultural backwash?
What I do think undermines women is the authors’ own underlying assumption that all women are such passive media-fed cows.
The book provoked a few subjects for further inquiry. It paid a lot of attention to competition among women, for example, in the Mommy Wars trumped up by the media in the early 90’s and it even ventured onto the current battleground of the Mommy Wars: the Internet, where Stay-at-Home-Moms can bash Work-Outside-the-Home-Moms with anonymous gusto and vice versa. But The Mommy Myth never ventured to mention, much less analyze, why it is that humans are so competitive in this ludicrous way.
Nor did it tackle, from a philosophical perspective, the nature of ideals. Do ideals, in general, undermine us all?
12:43:22 PM 
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