Books and
Cooks West
August 2004
The Mommy Myth
by Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels
The Mommy Myth: The
Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women
by Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels
Nate's place
Saturday, August 8 at 5:30 PM
Chinese take-out, wine
Our rating: 2.2 cups of tea!
Amazon.com
Does Martha Stewart make you feel like you never do enough for your
kids? Do "celebrity mom" profiles leave you feeling lumpen and
inadequate? That's because they're supposed to, say Susan Douglas and
Meredith Michaels, authors of The Mommy Myth
and self-professed "mothers with an attitude." Both scathing and
self-deprecating, their pop-culture critique takes on "the new momism,"
the media's obsession with motherhood and the impossible standards
which that obsession promotes. Today's ideal mom makes June Cleaver
seem like a layabout: she may work outside the home, but never too
much, always looks at the world through her children's eyes, makes sure
to buy only educational, age-appropriate toys, and includes a loving
note with each hand-prepared lunch. Meanwhile, the news media hype
stories about child abduction, politicians excoriate so-called "welfare
queens," and parenting experts advocate wearing your child in a sling
until he moves out on his own. Romanticized, commercialized,
sensationalized, and demonized by turns, today's mothers are damned if
they work and damned if they don't; what’s more, the idea that the
government might do something to help their plight has come to seem
almost quaint. As a history of motherhood in the media from 1970 to the
present, The Mommy Myth makes a fun and thought-provoking read. Yet
close readings of episodes of thirtysomething don't create quite the
call to arms the authors seem to have in mind; no woman likes to think
of herself as a media dupe, particularly the kind of woman who will be
reading this book. Straightforward policy critiques like their chilling
chapter on childcare fare much better, illuminating a culture that
seems to have forgotten public institutions' power to correct social
ills.
