The worst thing about modern motherhood
Obviously it's the couch covers
Welcome to new subscribers! There are a bunch of you! I’m assuming you found me from Momfluenced coverage, and I’m so psyched you’re here. The Weekly WTF is one of my favorite parts of this newsletter. It’s a safe place where snark is welcome, rage is expressed, and absurdity is king. Get cozy and prepare for what’s typically an analysis of something deliciously silly yet often quietly pernicious!
As a Busy Mom™ in 2023, there are a lot of things to feel frustrated about.
Sure, there’s the fact that I live in the United States, the only wealthy western nation in the world without a national paid leave policy. And yes, it’s also the only country in the world to accept school shootings as a part of daily life (all thoughts and prayers notwithstanding). And yeahhhhh reproductive healthcare is a mess (particularly for Black birthing people), the attack on bodily autonomy persists, and most mothers are still doing the bulk of domestic labor despite many of us being primary earners outside of the home.
But the thing that really gets my goat as a Busy Mom™ in 2023?
REGULAR COUCH COVERS.
Let’s get real, mama. Who hasn’t bemoaned how ugly and unwieldy Regular Sofa Covers are? Who hasn’t spent countless precious hours adjusting, tugging, washing, and drying cumbersome Regular Sofa Covers? Who hasn’t wished someone would invent a sofa cover that would inspire guests to finally say, “Your couch looks great.”
Who hasn’t struggled to balance mothering, professional work, and domestic labor, and found themselves longing not for accessible, affordable childcare, but for a vagely-cable-knit patterned Magic Sofa Cover in a unique shade of pukey-tan?
The Busy Mom™ in the above ad bought FOUR for her house, and I challenge you to buy a single cover less. Gone are the “nightmare” days of Regular Sofa Covers!
Welcome to the land of plenty with Magic Sofa Covers! Which, unlike Regular Sofa Covers, you can buy on the worldwide web!
Magic Sofa Covers are not only a “gamechanger,” they’re also “super soft and stretchy.” What’s not to love?
I’m still very much coming down from the wonderful wildness of last week, but ICYMI, Momfluenced was featured in a slew of places, for which I’m so grateful.
I feel so incredibly seen after reading
' beautiful review of Momfluenced in Glamour.I talked about the parasocial power of momfluencer culture in this Salon piece.
I talked about the power of aesthetics in this Elle piece.
Considerations of whiteness undergird much of Momfluenced, and in this excerpt featured in Lithub, I explore the dark rabbit hole of QAnon momfluencers and openly white supremacist momfluencers.
Amanda Montei of
wrote a gorgeous essay about "goodness," Momfluenced, and Claire Dederer's Monsters (which I can’t wait to read) here.Shondaland featured an essay pegged to Momfluenced here.
You can read up on my Mother’s Day rec in this edition of Gloria.
Psyched to see Momfluenced getting some love from Book Riot and
's unparalleled newsletter, The Unpublishable.You can listen to me on this ep of the What Fresh Hell podcast.
If you can’t make any Momfluenced tour events, come say hi at a virtual Women and Children’s First event moderated by Kate Baer! Today at 1PM EST.
"I'm not a regular couch cover, I'm a COOL couch cover!"
I laughed so much about these fucking couch covers!!! It made me want to order 7 of them so my cat could have an entire week of fun shredding them, but then I remembered I was broke ;) Have I told you lately how much better my life is now that I have your newsletter to read? MUCH, MUCH BETTER. Thank you, and I love you! xo