Tuesday, September 01, 2015

MIShandled

I perused the cover of Self and saw the lovely Ms. Washington and this caption:

Body, baby, kickass career, "It's handled."


Uh...I love me some Kerry-fabulosity as much as the next person, but, I think we're missing some full disclosure here.

I would like to suggest a more accurate caption:

Body, baby, kickass career, "It's handled...by my giant entourage of household help that includes a personal chef, personal trainer, stylist, day-time nanny, night nanny, and weekend nanny."

Inside, Kerry reveals that she likes to start her day with "stretching and meditation."

Uh, no mother of a 5 month old starts her day with stretching and meditation. It's more like, stretching (out my arms to reach my wailing baby) and lac-tation cuz every baby I've known demands to gulp down morning milk between 5:30 and 6:30 am.

But Ms. Washington's night nanny probably doesn't clock-out until 8 am so "it's handled."

But can we just stop??

Can we just stop with the fake baby-mama celebrity glorification? (I'm looking at all you uber-wealthy moms too, ahem, Sherly Sandberg and Marissa Meyer). Can we stop giving young women a distorted expectation that bodies, careers, and life in general will get handled smoothly along with a new baby?

Can we stop making real moms who are not part of the 1% feel crappy because it's NOT all handled? And maybe it never will be ever again?

How about some reality checks like:
--the horrible statistics on failing marriages when babies come in the picture
--the real nightmare costs of quality childcare
--the complete lack of meaningful jobs that don't demand 50+ hours per week
--the severe lack of sleep that verges on CIA torture technique territory
--the body and skin elasticity that will NEVER be the same again...without ahem, some "medical procedures"
--the overwhelming, crushing, unceasing, weight of it all

Can someone PLEASE just tell it like it IS about raising young kids in this world when you don't have a fleet of helpers (paid or unpaid)? Now that's an article that would actually do society some good.

Dear media world: please handle that.

5 comments:

Kindra said...

Agreed.

Tammy said...

Smug. She's smug. I find I do not like her.

Alice in Wonderland said...

@Tam - well, in all fairness to Ms. Washington, I didn't actually read the article. REAL moms don't have time to read non-essential fluff. Maybe she said some really insightful and self-aware things...but I guess my gripe is more with media portrayal of motherhood. Sham. T-o-t-a-l SHAM.

CP said...

They should put ppl like us on the cover of magazines! I'll show them some reality!

Alice in Wonderland said...

haha CP - actually you're way too hot and cute to be representative of the average mom. ;-)