Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Truth in Advertising

In Alternet today is a piece about the mommy industrial complex -- the selling of motherhood, and the reality that doesn't measure up. The hot fashions, the cool strollers, the cute babies showcased on cuter celebrities all create a vision that the author says, can come crashing down to some deluded moms-to-be. Alternet's Janina Stajic writes:

Comments from these mothers include such thoughts as “children are mind-numbingly boring,” and “looking after children makes women depressed” to the slightly more disturbing: “I was an attractive, fulfilled career woman before these kids. Now I’m an overly-exhausted wreck who misses her job and sees very little of her husband,” and the even more disturbing: “It is no secret to my children that I consider myself to be carrying out a prison sentence and I'm counting the days 'til I am free."

Gee, if life decisions are made as easily as purchasing decisions, whose fault is that? One accomplishment of the women's movement, I think, is the acknowledgement of how major a life change to have kids is -- that it's not something done automatically, but with more thought than purchasing a good pair of shoes (even a really good pair).

Earth to fun-loving moms: care-giving is hard work. Note to editorial boards: perhaps a back story on how much help money can buy celebrity parents. Just as some women can't see past the airbrushed images of the perfect visions of scary skinny model/actresses on the cover of slick women's mags, there needs to be some truth in advertising the perfect celeb moms.

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