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I write about motherhood and my book "Mojo Mom" came out this spring. I did my best to write a thoughtful, substantial guidebook that addresses the personal and political aspects of motherhood. Readers have appreciated it, but the media didn't quite know what to do with it. Right now they are focused on the "Bad Mother"-type meme which creates a clear and simple media hook.
Watch the re-run today of Oprah's episode about "The Secret Lives of Moms" for a really good example of the jokey, guilt-ridden "Bad Mom" approach to motherhood. Some of the discussion was thoughtful but a lot of it was oh-so-wacky-Mommy bloggers talking about kid-centric stories, like the woman who peed in a diaper on a road trip so she wouldn't have to wake her sleeping kids. She's gotten a lot of mileage out of that anecdote, which is the kind of story drives me nuts. What also bugged me about this show was that most of the women guests in the Momversation video segments were book authors, but they were not even given credit for their work--they were just presented as "everyday Mommies."
I feel like we are stuck in a rut when talking about motherhood, either with these kiddie stories or controversy like Elizabeth Edwards and "Resilience." While any individual story is not necessarily bad or harmful on their own, the narratives are too limiting, and prevent the spotlight from being shared with a wider variety of stories and perspectives that are not just about household drama.
(@rennet, I feel your pain about the tone of letters here but I think the solution is for more women to write comments, rather than to abandon the forum. I agree that the level of name-calling has gotten truly despicable and I would like Salon to try to address that.)
