327 The Mommy Myth Reprinted by permission of The Free Press a Division of Simon Schuster Adult Publishing Group from The Mommy Myth The Idealization 0 Motheilood and How It Has Undermined Women by Susan J Douglas and Meredith W Michaels Copyright 2004 by Susan Douglas and Meredith W Michaels All rights reserved SUSAN J DOUGLAS AND MEREDITH W MICHAELS Many people feel that women have many more choices today than in the past They can earn a college degree forge rewarding careers and successfully juggle work and domestic responsibilities In contrast Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels contend that the media s obsession with celebrity moms and mythical images of motherhood make most mothers feel inadequate and unsure of themselves It s 5 22 P M You re in the grocery checkout line Your three year old is writhing on the floor screaming because you have refused to buy her a Teletubby pinwheel Your six year old is whining repeatedly in a voice that could saw through cement But mommy puleeze puleeze because you have not bought him the latest Lunchables which features as the four food groups Cheetos a Snickers Cheez Whiz and Twizzlers our teenager who has not spoken a single word in the past four days except you ve ruined my life followed by everyone else has one is out in the car sulking with the new rap metal band Piss on the Parentals blasting through the headphones of a Discman To distract yourself and to avoid the glares of other shoppers who have already deemed you the worst mother in America you leaf through People magazine Inside Uma Thurman gushes Motherhood is sexy 1 Moving on to Good Housekeeping Vanna White says of her child When hear his cry at six thirty in the morning I have a smile on my face and I m not an early riser 2 Another unexpected source of earth mother wisdom the newly maternal Pamela Lee also confides to People I just love getting up with him in the middle of the night to feed him or soothe him 3 Brought back to reality by stereophonic whining you feel as sexy as Rush Limbaugh in a thong You drag your sorry ass home Now if you were a good mom you d joyfully empty the shopping bags and transform the process of putting the groceries away into a fun game your kids love to play upbeat Raffi songs would provide a lilting soundtrack Then while you steamed the broccoli and poached the chicken breasts in Vouvray and Evian water you and the kids would also be doing jigsaw puzzles in the shape of the United Arab Emirates so they learned some geography Your cheerful teenager would say Gee Mom you gave me the best advice on that last homework assignment 1 People September 21 1998 2 Good Housekeeping January 1995 3 People July 8 1996 328 When your husband arrives he is so overcome with admiration for how well you do it all that he looks lovingly into your eyes kisses you and presents you with a diamond anniversary bracelet He then announces that he has gone on flex time for the next two years so that he can split childcare duties with you fifty fifty The children chattering away happily help set the table and then eat their broccoli After dinner you all go out and stencil the driveway with autumn leaves But maybe this sounds slightly more familiar I won t unpack the groceries You can t make me bellows your child as he runs to his room knocking down a lamp on the way Eewee gross out he yells and you discover that the cat has barfed on his bed You have fifteen minutes to make dinner because there s a school play in half an hour While the children fight over whether to watch Hot Couples or people eating larvae on Fear Factor you zap some Prego spaghetti sauce in the microwave and boil some pasta You set the table Mommy Mommy Sam losted my hamster your daughter wails You ex husband calls to say he won t be taking the kids this weekend after all because his new wife Buffy twenty three has to go on a modeling shoot in Virgin Gorda for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and she really needs me with her You go to the TV room to discover the kids watching transvestites punching each other out on Jerry Springer If you re like us mothers with an attitude problem you may be getting increasingly irritable about this chasm between the ridiculous honey hued ideals of perfect motherhood in the mass media and the reality of mothers everyday lives And you may also be worn down by media images that suggest that however much you do for and love your kids it is never enough The love we feel for our kids the joyful times we have with them are repackaged into unattainable images of infinite patience and constant adoration so that we fear as Kristin van Ogtrop put it movingly in The Bitch in the House I will love my children but my love for them will always be imperfect 4 From the moment we get up until the moment we collapse in bed at night the media are out there calling to us yelling Hey you Yeah you Are you really raising your kids right Whether it s the cover of Redbook of Parents demanding Are You a Sensitive Mother Is Your Child Eating Enough Is you Baby Normal and exhorting us to enter its pages and have great sex at 25 35 or 85 the nightly news warning us about missing children a movie trailer hyping a film about a cross dressing dad who s way more fun than his stinky careerist wife Mrs Doubtfire Dr Laura telling some poor mother who works forty hours a week that she s neglectful the siren song blending seduction and accusation is there all the time Mothers are subjected to an onslaught of beatific imagery romantic fantasies self righteous sermons psychological warnings terrifying movies about losing their children even more terrifying news stories about abducted and abused children and totally unrealistic advice about how to be the most perfect and revered mom in the neighborhood maybe even in the whole country Even Working Mother which should have known better had a Working Mother of the Year Contest When Jill Kirschenbaum became the editor in 2001 one of the first things she did was 4 Kristin van Ogtrop Attila the Honey I m Home The Bitch In The House New York William Morrow 2002 P 169 329 dump this feature noting that motherhood should not be a competitive sport We are urged to be fun loving spontaneous and relaxed yet at the same time scared out of our minds that our kids could be killed at any moment No wonder 81 percent of women in a recent poll said it s harder to be a mother now than it was twenty or thirty years ago and 56 percent felt mothers were doing a worse job today