bitch thinks he held his own with a rather serious crowd. Congrats to the winners and all that jazz.The best moment for me was getting to see the fantabulous Lauren Bacall. A bitch simply adores Betty! Her voice is a scandal…washes over you like a cold shower on a hot day.
Sigh.
Fantabulous!
2 cups coffee with Splenda and 1% organic milk yumminess, 2 Excedrin, 1 Claritin and cigs…
A bitch is attempting to kick my Sudafed habit. The Man is determined to outlaw my decongestant of choice and this bitch might as well begin the physical adjustment. Lawd, my sinuses are in full rebellion!
By request…The Mommy Wars…
A certain Ann from Detroit has requested a bitch’s thoughts on the Mommy Wars. Okay…you asked for it…
ABB is a single no child having bitch…just thought my ass would clarify the perspective up front.
A bitch hangs with the broke masses and really doesn’t know very many people who can even entertain the notion of staying at home. My mother was the only one of my many aunts to be a stay at home parent…and, for the record, she was a fucking mess and not a good representation of the genre. So, a bitch has never connected 'staying at home' with providing better parenting. My ass thinks it would be healthier to approach this issue on a case by case basis. If a person can stay at home…and if staying at home is in the best interest of the chil’ren…then go with Gawd, stay at home and a bitch thanks you in advance for not raising a heathen.
If you can’t afford to stay at home or are a single parent, then you are making the same decision. Providing for your family is in their best interest. Stop freaking the fuck out, be thankful to be in a position to even take that task on and go with Gawd. A bitch is, once again, thankful that someone is attempting to rear a non-heathen.
If you are in a coupled situation with chil’ren and want to work…work, for the love of all that is holy! Be happy and fulfilled and you will demonstrate to your chil’ren that adults should aspire to be happy and fulfilled. Stop living a life by comparison and remember that people lie. You have no idea if Becky’s kids are really stable, do you? They could be complete heathens! Shit, for all you know Becky has to stay home because her chil’ren require…well, a lot of supervision if you know what a bitch means. Exhale, release and get about the business of living.
If you are in a coupled situation and want to stay at home…then do it! Jesus, do you need a motherfucking cookie to go and do what the hell you want to do? No? A bitch didn't think so! A bitch is happy as long as people don’t unleash 18 year old heathens on the world. How you accomplish that is beyond me.
If this parenting debate produced a better product…err, child (wink)…a bitch would be thrilled. But all it seems to produce are bitter assed people trying to win a debate on the superiority of apples to oranges.
Much of this boils down to society's concept of what women want. This latest Mommy War has erupted due to the increased numbers of women who are leaving their careers to become stay at home parents, right? This bitch is just young enough to fear the repercussions…the knowing glances that seem to say 'you may talk about wanting advancement, but that’s just because your hormones haven’t kicked in’.
Lawd knows the last thing women need is The Man being able to quote a fucking statistic to justify keeping his boot on our necks.
And there it is…the brick wall. The actions of others being used to justify the limitations put on us all.
And a bitch can’t stop thinking that this shit begins and ends with The Man.
Some say the real debate is over whether women are making an 'informed choice' or simply succumbing to societal pressure. But a bitch can’t help but find that sort of logic insulting…just as my ass finds the resurrection of the Mommy Wars extremely alarming.
So, is this Mommy War to be fought on multiple fronts until women litter the battlefield? And who benefits from that?
Lawd, a bitch is getting all JFK on this shit!
But really...
...who does benefit from this Mommy War?
18 comments:
A same-sex-married no-child auntie-bitch says it's the MEN who benefit from the home-schooling, mommy-breaking female breeders of wahtever sexualk preference whose extended leave of absence ALWAYS costs them on the career ladder, no matter what The Man says!
Bitch, you are SO right. Have to take it on a case-by-case basis. What gets my bitch on far worse, though, are parents who accessorize with children!!! No family is complete without them, they think--and of course these overgrown zygotes with legs and attitude are all the next Einstein-DiMaggio-Yo Yo Ma! Which parenting style feeds the test-score-driven destruction of rational thought and pedagogy from K to Ph.D.!!!! The result? Knickle-dragging, baboon-brained, coke-headed, prep-school flunking, chicken-hawk draft-dodging, slacker-ass troglodytes like the coup leader at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!!!
Makes a bitch wanna holla!
ok, I live in England, so what I will post applies to England.
Who profits from the mommy wars, you ask?
Let's see:
1. The Man. If women are divided, they cannot fight against him properly.
2. The Man. If women are held to impossible standards, they will be too busy to worry about those standards to actually do something about them. You know how it goes: the stay at home mommy is considered a leech, and the working mommy is a bad mommy because she is not there for the baby 24/7.
3. The husband. He gets to be a daddy for most of the time, except for the 9-5, when it is worse. He also gets the right to moan and bitch.
4. All of the big fat companies that make money out of the mommies' insecurities and problems balancing their lives.
However, if you ask teh reverse question: who is this mommy war thing hurting the most?
Guess what: it's the mommies.
Being a working single mother, I suffered early on when my son's father WANTED me to stay at home - actually he expected me to stay at home (that wasn't what *I* thought we'd agreed on). This despite the fact that he had demonstrated a frightening inability to hold any sort of long term job of his own (oh, don't ask me why I had my son with him, THAT'S another story).
I love what I do, love the people I work with, and love the daycare my son goes to. He, in turn, likes the fact that I have money to see to his needs (and wants), that we live in a house (not a cramped apartment), and that I'm a happy mommy. When we are home, we hang together, and that works. I suffered a bit in my choice. Everywhere I went there was this attitude about my being a single parent and working that seemed to say "well, your child won't turn out as well but it can't be helped". I say 'whatev'.
The situation is what it is and my son is well adjusted, mannerly, and happy. I have yet to be called to the principal's office for behavior problems. Meanwhile, down the street, Stay-At-Home Sally has trouble with her son who is the same age. Already her child has been suspended... and this is only third grade.
I hate culural bias that only has right-wing justification for its foundation. If the parent is happy and well adjusted, the child will be happy and well adjusted, whether that parent works or stays at home. Case by case, as you say.
Oooh... makes me angy!
Seems like Bitch PhD, or maybe Echinde of the Snakes, not sure which, mentioned that the thing about more women choosing to stay home might be a perception, more than a reality, and that just as many, if not more, women are working nowadays. Of course, that doesn't matter much, because like you said, ABB, it's the perception that's dangerous, and The Man doesn't care about facts or reality.
I just want the women involved to stop criticizing each other. It's like mentioning bottle feeding a child on a mommy blog. You get slammed for not breast feeding your child. Like that's the only way.
Seems to me that many people have done this parenting thing in many different ways, and some of us turn out OK, and some of us don't, and if we would stop looking at factors that don't matter, and look at factors that DO, like healthy, happy parents, decent childcare should they need it, and healthcare for all, we would all be better off.
what is funny is that no one asked "what is best for the children"?? You know, since everyone is pretending that the mommy wars are all about the wee lil babies.
here is something. babies need:
love
food
roof over heads.
They need all of these three things, and that is that.
However, the mommy war have little to do with babies. They do ahve a lot to do with controlling them wimminfolk.
I agree with pretty much everything that's been posted so far... I've found that most things that aren't being radically fought against tend to benefit men (or at least the MAN, or corporations).
I also completely agree with the case-by-case thing. My dad actually stayed home with me because it was "easier" than getting a job... when my brother and sister were born, he got out of there as soon as he could. My mom never had a choice, and I think we all turned out remarkably well.
I know plenty of assholes who had stay -at-home moms, and plenty of assholes who didn't. (And vice versa.)
The one thing that bothers me are the society women who feel that they're not "complete" without a child, but pawn it off on a nanny as soon as the poor thing is born. Face it, not everyone should have kids. It's not a requirement. Period.
May be the broke masses but they sure put out the sweet momas!
This married working my-husband-stay-home-with-the-kid-thank-you-very-much bitch loves you, ABB, and would willingly have your babies and promise to raise them not to be terrible little heathens.
I'm of the not a good SAHM breed; my mothering skills improve drastically if I'm allowed to leave the house and be gainfully employed. That said, I do think The Man is to blame for the Mommy Wars, somehow somewhere there must be a link back to a Man. I hope so anway, because the level of nastiness women are slinging over this issue is not a good reflection on anyones mothering skills.
Finally, something I can weigh in on with new firsthand knowledge, since I am now a mom, on top of all my other labels. So, prior to becoming a mother, I used to always say I would marry someone who wanted to stay home with the kids, and I would be happy to be the sole provider. Now that this is the situation I find myself in, I have to be honest, I want to stay home with my daughter as much as possible. I am constantly trying to figure out how I can work from home or better yet, not work at all and just pursue racial and social justice on my own time while being a full time mom. I cannot say that I want to stay home and only stay home to raise my kids, I still have some other contributions to make to society. However, I would never want anyone to minimize the importance of raising kids- particularly the first few years 0-5.. The shaping of their minds, personalities, and behaviors form during this crucial time.
And this leads me to my problem with the so called "Mommy Wars"... I watched this issue on t.v. the other night, where the argument was a woman is not fulfilled and is shorting herself by staying home with the kids and not working. With the opposing side saying, essentially what I said above- and who better to provide that care than Mommy? Well I offer another perspective, that is not so friggin divisive. (Because after all, it seems as though Mommy wars are just another way to fracture a community ie: woman, who should be rallying around common causes like reproductive choices, equal pay, etc- and further divide and conquer. It is not some grand conspiracy- rather just the nature of the game- power). Couldn't it be that a woman raising her kids is fulfilled- if that is how she chooses to identify? And even if she is not fulfilled, Mothers are left few options. This applies in both cases. Many mothers have to work, just as many mothers feel that they have to stay home for the best interest of their children. So if that's the case, wouldn't our energies be better directed at trying to make this goal a reality for both? Fight for better rights for working moms, fight for better community involvement in child rearing- (it takes a village remember?).
Damn, I mean, there are better things to fight for- other than who is right or which side you choose in the "mommy wars"..
Nail on the head, my dear, nail on the head. As a single mother I can honestly say I don't give a fuck what anyone else is doing. It is not even close to being my job to judge the way other people parent. I'm sure, when my daughter is older, I'll be having some face to face time with other parents but that will probably be because of something their child (or my child, god knows I'm no saint!) has done - and I'm sure it will have nothing to do with whether or not their mommy stayed at home.
You're all totally right - this is just a big damn flash job to make people forget that daycare costs a trillion bucks a week, the majority of people don't have healthcare (because apparently poor people don't matter enough to fix!) and that our president is a damn moron.
It's the time you spend with the kids that matters anyway. I know stay at home moms that spend FAR less time with their kids than I do, and I work and go to school 50 hours a week.
yes, as you suggest, it is absoltively The Men who benefit from this. My proof? Weeell, we don't see a Daddy War going on, now do we?
Thank you, Raej! Bring on the Daddy War! Actually, I'd rather it be a discussion than a war (so ladylike of me, I know)... How do we go about supporting all the right-thinking men out there in drowning out their sofa-sitting, misogynistic brethren?
ABB, you are a daily inspiration.
As a gay man unlikely (but not opposed to the idea) to end up with children (at this point), I probably have no business commenting on this, but I thought about ABB's commentary while I was reading the following Op-Ed piece from the Sunday LA Times last night:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-allen5mar05,0,5753747.story
Hoo-Whee! Made this liberal boy's blood boil, and made me wish Betty was still around to kick Ms. Allen's ass into next week.
"...their spouses who slay dragons so the family can live in comfort..." (see last paragraph). What kind of Cinderella Disneywood fairyland is this woman living in??!
Not raising a heathen? What the hell is wrong with heathens? I'm one and NO sanctimonious right-wing nutbag christian mutha is better than me simply because they believe in some religious dogma. MY principles are good, just and right because THEY ARE and not because some windbag, bullshittin' religious a-hole says so. This is the second time you have referred to the non-religious as "heathens"--as though atheistic makes for a bad person. Truly, ABB, you disappoint me.
Shit, blogger done lost its head again, that anonymous post just above this was from me. Just making a grab for my credit here.
ABB, you rock my world. I would also have your babies, if we could figure out how to smoosh two eggs together to make a zygote,a nd if my partner (who may hope to donate a sperm or two to the enterprise) wouldn't object.
However, if I had your smoosh-baby I would still want to work. Or at least not spend all day with our delightfully cute little little bundle of smoosh, because this hunky-bitch has all kinds of things she'd like to do without dragging a diaper bag along to. Furthermore, a hunky-bitch remembers thinking that if she had to spend all day with her hunky-bitch mama it's even money which one of them would have come out alive at the end of the week.
While I'd truly love not to HAVE to work, all a hunky-bitch can say is that our little smoosh-baby would be much happier if she weren't being raised by a crazy lady.
Well you've got some pretty strong commentary going on here. I've been covering the Mommy Wars a bit, see here: http://motherpie.typepad.com/motherpie/2006/03/moms_bring_home.html
also elsewhere on my site.
Would love to see your two cents worth.
I'm planning to write a post about wonderful fabulous Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and her challenge to all women and mothers everywhere: For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for you and it tolls for me.
H.A.Page
www.Motherpie.com new media and motherhood
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