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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Keep featuring crap like this and I won't be renewing.
cosmo-esque indeed.
The only Cosmo-esque thing about the article was that a forum was opened for someone named "Ric" to have an opinon.
Anyone remember this:
http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2005/05/03/ollivier/index.html
It's a salon story about how a woman with a nanny worries about the bonds formed between her kids and her nanny.
Sounds eerily a lot like Ms. Flanagan.
You know, Flanagan can dress up all of her activities in anyway she pleases, and anyone who chooses the autobiographical form should be aware that it is the trickiest--but what I have read of hers just makes me think that she started out as a spoiled brat and has never really changed. She likes good service and she likes to have things her way, and good thing for her she doesn't have any daughters. They would settle her hash in about a day.
Not that I question the validity of the author's criticism in this article, but I'd just like to point something out. Flanagan's self-righteousness is obviously enjoyed by someone, she wouldn't get work otherwise. Clearly she can't be writing for most of America, because most people in America who have children at home simply can't afford to pay for an adult staying at home as well, no matter the reason. Whether she's being read by women who agree, or men who take heart in her 'traditional' values, she's clearly being read (and noticed) by a minority. Thus, a retort like this, while I'm certain that it's correct if the characterization of the book is true, can only be applicable to those same people as well.
I assure you that while I might agree with some of what she says and disagree with other bits (and if the quotes in the article are any indication, I do both) none of that changes the fact that if I were aware of her book before I read this article I and just about everyone I know would dismiss it as complete and utter useless tripe. The very notion of the stay-at-home-mother (regardless of Flanagan's hypocrisy on the definition of it) is absurd, and will become even more and more rare in all practical experience because (sorry to get up on my own soapbox, here) the rich want everyone who can work out there working for them. The value of 'traditional Americana' isn't worth the percentage dip in their own fortunes that they'd have to take if the economy were to realign, so it's just not going to happen.
In the meantime, real wives and mothers out in the world have no reason to subject themselves to trash like Flanagan's self-righteous essays, any more than I'd like to read a book about the adventures of a man with a foot long penis and how much better he can please women than I can. Some people might enjoy torturing themselves like that, but I can't see how it's healthy.
Why is this cosmo-esque? I read it fairly closely, and I remember nothing about "10 ways to make your man moan." Oh wait, I know: it's about WOMEN. And issues that are presumed (wrongly) to affect only women. And about feminism, though that's a topic not often tackled in the glossy pages of Cosmopolitan.
I too am tired of articles about how hard it is to balance work and family. But that's because I'm also tired of the unequal distribution of the burden. Talk to me about high-quality, affordable child care, talk to me about reasonable working hours for both men AND women. Do not talk to me about nannies, hired help, or staying home full time being solutions; regardless of any ideological issues, they are NOT FEASIBLE for most families.
We can't let books like Flanagan's go unchallenged.
What I should have written is that the stay-at-home "traditional" moms as imagined by Caitlin Flanagan are hyper-neurotic. Most stay-at-home moms I know are working very hard and don't have the back-up help that CF does, and they don't have magazine jobs. They certainly don't crow constantly about the 24-7 mother-love they're giving their children.
I didn't mean to dump on all women who decide to stay at home, just the few nuts like CF who use the media to fluff their mommy feathers. Her vision just doesn't seem to match reality. (And that owing-your-husband-sex thing makes my skin crawl.)
It doesn't matter if you're a stay-at-home or a full time working mother, if you let your kid go to public school you have already relinquished the duty of raising them to their disgusting little peer group. Homeschooling mothers often have a job working out of the home, but the important thing is that the parents are the primary influence on the kids. The previous poster who wrote about homeschooling got it right.
Well, she's done the VERY traditional thing of marrying up - a man rich enough to support her and her interests, let her have her little job (hobby?) and someone to help with the house. Very nice. Very third world! And traditional in the sense that she also seems ok with the idea that she can and should hire women of a lower class to do the work she doesn't want to do. I'd take her more seriously if I thought she had any clue at all about the balance most women face when trying to work, raise kids, be there for their family and community, and keep a decent home. Her bout with cancer might be the closest she's come to reality. Not that I would ever have wished that on her of course. I don't think having read her stuff that she particularly understands feminism or the women's movement or where she might fit into that, except that she benefits in every possible way from our collective history on this one. I write this as a military wife who has no choice but to work if we are to raise the kids (the alternative being, I suppose, for them to go without food or clothes or food, but to have me home) and very often to be doing it all by myself while my husband is deployed. I say she needs to quit yakking and get some work done - or at least practise being grateful for the life of ease her husband makes it possible for her to enjoy.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
