What Was I Made For?
Fuck Mother's Day. 2025 Edition.
Before we roast some shitty ads, as my Mother’s Day (or Fuck Mother’s Day) gift to YOU, I’m offering a flash sale on all paid subscriptions. This means a monthly subscription will be $4 a month (forever), and an annual subscription will be $40 a year (also forever). Sale ends Sunday!
Paid subscribers get:
The weekly Friday post
Paywalled essays (past favorites include these pieces on tradwives’ hatred of Taylor Swift, Rudy Jude, the Ballerina Farm Evie mag profile, prairie-chic in White Lotus, and of course, raw milkmaids.
Commenting privileges
Weekly chats
Occasional Lives (like this one with
on Ruby Franke), book giveaways, and other extra goodies!
Thank you for sharing my pet obsessions and making room in your inboxes for me every week. I’m so grateful to be making sense of tradwives and everything else alongside you! Ok. Onto the ads.
Every year since I started this newsletter I’ve compiled a roundup of the most infantilizing, misogynistic, and gender essentialist Mother’s Day ads I can find. Usually I take great pleasure in providing satirical responses to each little offending campaign. It’s a great time!
But this year, I thought I’d comb through ads to get a clearer sense of who Mom is. At least, according to American consumerism. Mom’s labor (both unpaid and paid) sure as hell doesn’t matter in the US, nor does her wellbeing. But her ability to spend money is sacrosanct. In a country fueled by a potent combination of extractive capitalism, unpaid carework, and white supremacist patriarchy, it’s really a lot easier to understand Mom’s needs and desires through shopping AM I RIGHT.
One of the most important things to know about marketing to moms (or marketing to people buying shit for moms) is that Mom is exactly one type of person. She reliably enjoys domestic arts, household chores, the chore of staying skinny, the chore of staying pretty, and of course, investing every ounce of her one wild and precious life into the labor of love that is caring for everyone else but herself.
The only deviation from my Grand Unified Mom theory is when a brand carves out little specialty mommy personalities as a treat. This isn’t to say that Mom can define herself outside of the above qualities, but she can ALSO be a “sporty mom,” a “cosmopolitan mom,” a “cozy mom,” a “sophisticated mom,” or a “outdoorsy mom.” When Mom is granted an accessory personality, you see, she can be a more specific kind of consumer. Everyone wins!
So let’s meet Mom, shall we? Let’s find out what she’s good for.
Mom is meant to joyfully clean. Even if her deep joy in cleaning is grammatically incorrect.
Mom is trad.
Mom is happily overworked.
Mom “gives endlessly.”
Mom cooks. Mom enjoys cooking.
Mom is a mental health practitioner.
Mom has . . . a tween who’s into skincare?
Mom “makes beauty from the everyday.”
Mom removes her pubic hair.
Mom is cool. Mom “stays connected” not through interpersonal relationships but through AI SUNGLASSES.
Mom feel grateful when brands are thoughtful and caring friends who only have their best interests at heart.
Mom believes that a kid activity is a gift for HER.
Mom utilizes the tools of capitalism if she’s burnt out because she knows she lives in a country with no social safety net and she’s totally fine with that because see above note about mom being joyfully overworked.
Mom ALWAYS PRIORITIZES PROTEIN. Even [especially] in her cookies.
Mom has a personality that is neatly expressed by a carry-on suitcase.
"mom removes her pubic hair." 🤮
The algorithm knows me well enough to know that I'm not a mom so I'm not subject to these ads most of the time, but I just realized this morning that for the last few weeks I've been pummeled with IVF ads and that feels SO gross and predatory!