All the scams!
scams, scams, scammity scams
Welcome to any new subscribers who found me thanks to Raena Boston’s (totally enlightening and validating) interview. One of my favorite parts of my conversation with Raena was underscoring the many scams of motherhood. Mom guilt, mom perfection, “good momming,” motherhood as proof of worthiness, ALL OF IT.
Sunday was my birthday and I have only two days of childcare this week, so I’m taking the week off, as one part necessity and one part self-care. I’ll be back next week to excoriate something ridiculous or enraging found in the mamasphere (friendly reminder - I’m always open to WTF nominations - just reply to this email!) but in the meantime, here are some of yours and my favorite pieces highlighting various motherhood scams.
My first few months of motherhood did not fulfill my expectations. I did not feel like Gwyneth Paltrow. I felt like a stranger to myself. I felt like I was wearing an ill-fitting costume. I eventually got a prescription for Zoloft which helped a LOT, but the first year of motherhood mostly made me think that I was a victim to a culture-wide scam.
I also did an interview with Rachel Yoder about her beautiful, searing novel, Nightbitch in which we discussed American motherhood being - you guessed it - a scam, and I wrote this piece for Refinery29 about MLMs being another scam often sold to mothers and I wrote about a particular version of maternal nostalgia being a scam here. Scams, scams, so many scams!
Is there a particular maternal scam you think needs being ripped to shreds? This could be something silly (“the one lip balm a busy mom will ever need”), something enraging (ZERO FEDERAL PAID LEAVE), or something assumed to be a truth but which is actually a fucking scam (“breastfeeding is free”). GIMME YOUR SCAMS.
Clean houses are a SCAM.
I kind of feel like feeding your kids is a scam...I feel like I was tricked into thinking that if you just followed all the "rules" and gave your baby/toddler slow-roasted fresh-from-the-farmers market heritage squash with free-range salt that my offspring would just gobble it up. If I start off the "right" way with entirely homemade purees introduced in the correct order, interspersed with the ideal baby-led-weaning foods cut in perfect proportions in ideal serving sizes at the exact right time of day, then my toddler with request broccoli for his birthday dinner and blissfully never know what a french fry tastes like.
I have 2 kids, my first kid likes eating about 6 different things. I felt like somehow I had failed all the food rules and caused his pickiness. Then I had a second kid. She eats almost everything and I barely put in half as much effort into custom made baby food with her. Made me feel like I actually don't have a tonne of influence over their food preferences.