Writing Wrongs

February 28, 2005

So I missed the whole online frenzy, totally, about Judith Warner�s new book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. Apparently I�ve been under a rock.

For a recap, for those who want one, I can recommend the entry at Making Light along with the complete entry at Chez Miscarriage. Although I do have to say that the next daycare question I get will be answered with this (courtesy of Chez Miscarriage):

"I don't know how you can put that baby in day care. Why did you even have a child if you weren't going to raise her yourself?"
"We needed someone who could fetch the TV remote when we were too drunk to get off the couch and find it."

Call them mother drive-bys or the bad mommy brigade, but they�re everywhere it seems. A couple weeks ago, a local radio station (hosted by two single people, I might add), had a controversy going about a child, who at fourteen, still slept with a baby blanket. Now it wasn�t the mom who called in wanting to know what to do, but her boyfriend.

And I�m thinking, okay, divorce. Not to mention mom dating a weirdo boyfriend who feels the need to call radio stations about matters that aren�t any of his business.

Yeah, I�d need my baby blanket too.

But it spawned more mommy drive-bys than I ever thought possible. You name it, if you were doing it, you were a bad mommy. Pacifier after age {insert any age, didn�t matter, it was bad}. Breastfeeding {either way, you were in trouble, either for too long, or not enough, or at all}, and so on.

I finally wised up and switched stations.

And I�m not totally innocent. I did complain about Andrew drinking Mountain Dew at a birthday party. If he had known about the caffeine content, he would�ve asked for water or something else, so I�m not really blaming the parents, although I am a little amazed. I was thinking of the parents� sanity and self-preservation.

I mean, I�ve had this group of boys over for birthday parties and I�ve seen them in action at cub scouts. Half the time they�re two sharpened sticks and a pig�s head away from Lord of the Flies. (I exaggerate. Sort of.)

I was going to turn this around and write about another drive-by phenomenon, the writer drive-by, but I guess I�ll leave that for another day.

Charity Tahmaseb wrote at 11:36 a.m.

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