| 2005-04-20 - 10:25 p.m.
Soccer mom rampage
One of the things tivo gets for me every day is Oprah. I am watching today's Oprah. Appalled. Disgusted. Agog. The topic is moms and their relationships with their kids. Apparently, writer Ayelet Waldman wrote a column/article in the NY Times in which she said {gasp} that she is "not in love with her children" and that the relationship with her husband is the central relationship in the family. Well. Figuratively speaking, there is a mob of angry mommy villagers ready to burn poor Ayelet at the stake. Maybe it's because I don't have kids. And that I CHOOSE not to have them. So maybe this is coming from a place of bitter, unnatural, failure as a woman place. (but I don't think so) But I think Ayelet is right. The obsessive focus many moms have on their kids these days is something I find.....creepy. And competitive moming is just outta control. These moms are saying the kids are the center of their universe. They refer to having sex with their husbands as him "doing his business". They devote all their energy to their kids. They "overmother". When did this happen? Seriously. When I was young, back in the pleistocene age, my sister and I knew we were loved. We also knew we were NOT the center of the family. The parental team was the lead team, and we were governed by a benevolent (most of the time) dictatorship. Husband remembers the same thing. And here's what I want to know....WHAT are these center of the universe kids going to be like when they are unleashed on the world? good god. Who wants to be in a relationship with someone who has been the sole obsessive focus of mommy? Eeuw. Just eeuw. Isn't it good for kids to see an example of a loving marriage between partners? Isn't it good for them to NOT be treated like the sun around which everything else revolves? Isn't it good for kids to see their moms as multifaceted, well rounded people who are capable of many things, including but not limited to caring for the kids? Look. I firmly believe if one chooses to have kids, what is best for those kids needs to come first. I guess I just differ with today's mom culture in that I don't think overmothering is necessarily "best".
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