Passions and Priorities, or Not Being an Übermom

A friend sent me a link to this NY Times story about a self-described ‘über-mom’ Shannon Hayes who wrote a lovely blog entry about being held up as this new ideal, the organic, sustainable farming, eating locally, back to the land mother who homebirths and homeschools and has somehow become the new ‘supermom’ figure of intimidation, the one I see replacing the so-’90′s nanny-employing lawyer in a power suit who sends her child to the most exclusive private schools and remains deeply involved in her child’s life despite the power career. And there was something really reassuring in this revelation that it’s just another way of doing things — that her laundry doesn’t get folded and her lawn doesn’t get mowed, she feels like she compromises too! I am embarrassed at how relieving I found that revelation, that I don’t always discern the fine line between being inspired and aspiring by and to the models of motherhood held out in front of me.

And it’s frightening how much easier it is to see a person as a type than a person, perhaps especially when something about them touches on some area where you don’t see yourself measuring up.

Then it occurred to me how much this is always a mommy thing and not a daddy thing. I’ve never been aware of my husband looking at other fathers with evny at the ease with which they apparently do some things, or thinking he’d like to be more like that guy. I don’t think that he’s any less committed than I am to providing the best life we can to our kids, but he doesn’t agonize about the decisions and compromises the way I do. And that’s probably to the kids’ benefit, having one parent who researches the issues pretty earnestly and one parent who can be the source of endless, spontaneous fun (though it benefits our marriage, and indirectly, them, if we don’t let those become totally polarizing roles).

But in fact the degree to which my beloved looks around does seem to be really popular, by informal poll, among my friends’ husbands — “Honey, relax, I’m doing more than 90% of the dads out there” by which I think they mea “Look, I’m not Homer Simpson!” And somebody with more patience for media studies than I have might figure out what media portrayals of family life we are responding to so differently.

The thing is, I don’t know how our experiences of the messages in mass media about parenthood mean anything since I think we’re pretty selective in our media consumption, skipping glossy magazines, preferring television in box DVD sets a year or more after a series is completed, or at least, tivoed so we remain oblivious to commercials, completely eschewing reality tv, getting news by scanning CNN headlines and never clicking through on the celebrity stories, or from NPR, but mostly by podcast, so we spend time on the stories that are interesting to us.

How did the über-mom imprint so powerfully on me? Is it because I am only a degree or two away? I stay home, homebirthed one of the four, and, on the good days fantasize about homeschooling? But I am aware of the compromises to my own feminism (a whole other post!) and environmentalism that are involved involved in our daily life. I believe that the main parenting advice anybody needs is “Trust yourself and find what works for you” and everything else is tips and tricks for when you’re having a hard time figuring out what works for you, a chance to take a deep breath and reflect when you’re sleep deprived and stressed and don’t see things getting better any time soon.

I suppose it does come back to the AA thing about not judging insides against outsides, and acknowledging that things are hard, and if they appear easy for someone else, you probably don’t have the whole story or know what compromises they’re making. It may even be a case for learning to deal with each other as individuals rather than types and, on the enlightened days, understanding what part of your reaction is coming out of feeling a little intimidated, a little inadequate.