I’ve been so annoyed to see Chappel Roan getting roasted for this and I should’ve known we could count on you to write about the idiocy of the response to her OPINION. I’m a mom - and there are days - months - even years- when it is absolutely HELL. My kids are 9 and 7 and I still feel like I am not entitled to be my own person most days because I have to ‘set an example’ for the kids, be available for the kids, am the default caregiver and therapist to the kids, god forbid I want to pursue a career and life that is actually fulfilling to me and I am villainized for being selfish and a bad mother. I hate the ‘right’ and specifically I hate the US which bought into the ads of the 50s that in order for capitalism to succeed you needed to buy into this unreal ideal of a mother at home that takes care of everything else so dad can work and provide the money to keep the capitalist machine running. And I just wish that moms would quit feeling like they have to defend their choices one way or another - men don’t have to defend shit and we are just as entitled to our own SELVES as they are theirs.
Yupppp - and honestly, as one of the first people in my peer group to have kids, I would feel SEEN if my friend Chappell had examined my new reality as a mom and found it rather shocking. Because it is!
What no one seems to talk about is that Chappell Roan is from MAGA country, and the friends she is talking about presumably still live there. Does Chappell ask if they have childcare options? Are their husbands/partners doing their fair share? Or is she just like "this is what motherhood seems to be" and leaves it at that?
I don't look to a 20 something celeb for life advice, but I think that Chappell thinks she's a great thinker (I may have already said this in another comment section, lol) but she didn't dive too deeply on this one.
I hadn't seen the interview with Evie's Hugoboom, and now I'm outraged by her comments about most women not being cut out for careers. But now I'm wondering if that make me as bad as everyone else who is annoyed with Roan for expressing her (accurate, in my view) perception of motherhood? Both are opinions, right?
Yes and no. Hugoboom’s “opinion” has a little (lot) more consequence to it. Because of what she is selling (professionally!) and the potential harm it can cause. There is something more sneaky and sinister to it—like she needs people to buy into the tradwife idea of motherhood, while she, herself, works incredibly hard at her jobs but pretends she isn’t? I can’t fully form my thoughts here, but I do think there is a fundamental difference between those two opinions and who is sharing them, what they are trying to accomplish by sharing them, and the potential harm caused by sharing them.
Yes, I agree. Roan doesn't have anything to gain or lose by sharing her perception, while Hugoboom's whole business is based on people following her "opinion." Thanks for making me feel better - ha!
well you've now inspired me to finally read that nyt piece about evie magazine and hugaboom...but also to write a piece titled "Brittany Hugaboom is a hypocrite."
I am not remotely surprised at the outrage towards Chappell Roan. People enjoy hating on her. I also think whenever someone makes any sort of statement about motherhood (bold or offhand, it doesn't matter), the internet will have an opinion.
I think it keeps coming back to the both/and about motherhood that both sides (tradwives/conservatives and progressive moms alike) refuse to address. I can love my kids and hate motherhood. the first 8 years of motherhood were absolutely brutal. Many days I did feel like I was in hell. That doesn't mean there weren't also bright, beautiful spots. Or that I'm a bad mom.
The binary around what characteristics define a good mother is the problem, not what Chappell Roan says about it.
The Declaration of Independence names three unalienable rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It never says we have a right TO happiness, just the pursuit of it. And I think this is a key to one of the problems we have relentlessly used capitalism to try and solve; happiness is a fleeting thing.
I said this on Cait's piece and I'll say it here-- We live in a world that fetishizes "happiness" and individual self-fulfillment as the end all be all and is something that can be bought in capitalism. Fun! All! The! Time! This means marriage, family, and child-rearing really smack you right in the face with a 180-degree difference in how things are. Life is filled with struggle and can be very difficult at various points.
This is not to say there isn't great and deep emotional satisfaction in what comes from the work of communal living, family, and community, only that we are not prepared for the work itself.
I'm 56 and have two adult kids who often struggle as young kids do, and a husband with terminal cancer all while living in today's American Tmp. situation. Am I "happy?" No, not really. At least not all the time. Sometimes I'm very said. Shit is very very hard right now.
Am I satisfied that I have lived a very full and loving life with people who have helped me create that full and loving life? Yes. "Are you happy" is probably the wrong question right now. Or a question that sets you up, ironically, for chasing a thing that is fleeting, vs connection and community which is, frankly, harder to practice. But may be the thing that saves us.
And as a side note, being an artist is not a recipe for "happiness." The creative act takes time, dedication, hard work, and a lot of trial and error. And often means feeling on the outside of culture. In the case of Chappell, it also means long tours, exhausting schedules, weird interactions with rude interviewers, managing staff and agents and managers, and dealing with complex finances.
What is happiness is my question? And if culture tells you one thing is, vs another, where do we determine our own agency in that?
All these pieces are spot on when it comes to how very very little support parents (especially mothers) get in raising children. It's highly individualistic and leaves the parents feeling alone, isolated and yes, unhappy. Its a huge issue. But one of the issues not talked about is how we frame our entire culture and lives in this pursuit of something so ephemeral and fleeting, happiness. Much like countertops they are not long clean before something productive and creative and satisfying happens on (in) them.
I’ve been so annoyed to see Chappel Roan getting roasted for this and I should’ve known we could count on you to write about the idiocy of the response to her OPINION. I’m a mom - and there are days - months - even years- when it is absolutely HELL. My kids are 9 and 7 and I still feel like I am not entitled to be my own person most days because I have to ‘set an example’ for the kids, be available for the kids, am the default caregiver and therapist to the kids, god forbid I want to pursue a career and life that is actually fulfilling to me and I am villainized for being selfish and a bad mother. I hate the ‘right’ and specifically I hate the US which bought into the ads of the 50s that in order for capitalism to succeed you needed to buy into this unreal ideal of a mother at home that takes care of everything else so dad can work and provide the money to keep the capitalist machine running. And I just wish that moms would quit feeling like they have to defend their choices one way or another - men don’t have to defend shit and we are just as entitled to our own SELVES as they are theirs.
Yupppp - and honestly, as one of the first people in my peer group to have kids, I would feel SEEN if my friend Chappell had examined my new reality as a mom and found it rather shocking. Because it is!
What no one seems to talk about is that Chappell Roan is from MAGA country, and the friends she is talking about presumably still live there. Does Chappell ask if they have childcare options? Are their husbands/partners doing their fair share? Or is she just like "this is what motherhood seems to be" and leaves it at that?
I don't look to a 20 something celeb for life advice, but I think that Chappell thinks she's a great thinker (I may have already said this in another comment section, lol) but she didn't dive too deeply on this one.
I hadn't seen the interview with Evie's Hugoboom, and now I'm outraged by her comments about most women not being cut out for careers. But now I'm wondering if that make me as bad as everyone else who is annoyed with Roan for expressing her (accurate, in my view) perception of motherhood? Both are opinions, right?
Yes and no. Hugoboom’s “opinion” has a little (lot) more consequence to it. Because of what she is selling (professionally!) and the potential harm it can cause. There is something more sneaky and sinister to it—like she needs people to buy into the tradwife idea of motherhood, while she, herself, works incredibly hard at her jobs but pretends she isn’t? I can’t fully form my thoughts here, but I do think there is a fundamental difference between those two opinions and who is sharing them, what they are trying to accomplish by sharing them, and the potential harm caused by sharing them.
Yes, I agree. Roan doesn't have anything to gain or lose by sharing her perception, while Hugoboom's whole business is based on people following her "opinion." Thanks for making me feel better - ha!
well you've now inspired me to finally read that nyt piece about evie magazine and hugaboom...but also to write a piece titled "Brittany Hugaboom is a hypocrite."
I am not remotely surprised at the outrage towards Chappell Roan. People enjoy hating on her. I also think whenever someone makes any sort of statement about motherhood (bold or offhand, it doesn't matter), the internet will have an opinion.
I think it keeps coming back to the both/and about motherhood that both sides (tradwives/conservatives and progressive moms alike) refuse to address. I can love my kids and hate motherhood. the first 8 years of motherhood were absolutely brutal. Many days I did feel like I was in hell. That doesn't mean there weren't also bright, beautiful spots. Or that I'm a bad mom.
The binary around what characteristics define a good mother is the problem, not what Chappell Roan says about it.
The Declaration of Independence names three unalienable rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. It never says we have a right TO happiness, just the pursuit of it. And I think this is a key to one of the problems we have relentlessly used capitalism to try and solve; happiness is a fleeting thing.
I said this on Cait's piece and I'll say it here-- We live in a world that fetishizes "happiness" and individual self-fulfillment as the end all be all and is something that can be bought in capitalism. Fun! All! The! Time! This means marriage, family, and child-rearing really smack you right in the face with a 180-degree difference in how things are. Life is filled with struggle and can be very difficult at various points.
This is not to say there isn't great and deep emotional satisfaction in what comes from the work of communal living, family, and community, only that we are not prepared for the work itself.
I'm 56 and have two adult kids who often struggle as young kids do, and a husband with terminal cancer all while living in today's American Tmp. situation. Am I "happy?" No, not really. At least not all the time. Sometimes I'm very said. Shit is very very hard right now.
Am I satisfied that I have lived a very full and loving life with people who have helped me create that full and loving life? Yes. "Are you happy" is probably the wrong question right now. Or a question that sets you up, ironically, for chasing a thing that is fleeting, vs connection and community which is, frankly, harder to practice. But may be the thing that saves us.
And as a side note, being an artist is not a recipe for "happiness." The creative act takes time, dedication, hard work, and a lot of trial and error. And often means feeling on the outside of culture. In the case of Chappell, it also means long tours, exhausting schedules, weird interactions with rude interviewers, managing staff and agents and managers, and dealing with complex finances.
What is happiness is my question? And if culture tells you one thing is, vs another, where do we determine our own agency in that?
All these pieces are spot on when it comes to how very very little support parents (especially mothers) get in raising children. It's highly individualistic and leaves the parents feeling alone, isolated and yes, unhappy. Its a huge issue. But one of the issues not talked about is how we frame our entire culture and lives in this pursuit of something so ephemeral and fleeting, happiness. Much like countertops they are not long clean before something productive and creative and satisfying happens on (in) them.
Thank YOU!!