Housewife Chic

The National Post (a Canadian national daily) had an article in last weekend's paper by Anne Kingston (who is one of the few Post writers who does not make my teeth itch) entitled The latest motherhood advice is not about raising children, and subtitled The only acceptable stay-at-home moms are yummy.  Seeing the word motherhood in the title, I immediately wondered, as Daphne de Marneffe calls it, 'Is it for me or against me?'  When my eyes skimmed over Danielle Crittenden's name, I feared the worst.

The article starts out with a brief plug for James Lileks Mommy Knows Worst book, which pokes fun at parenting advice of the '40s and '50s (such as the recommendation to baste your babies in oil before putting them out in the sun.) Kingston points out that although such advice seems silly in our day and age, modern parents are not immune to advice givers such as the "those stern, boxy British Nannies...browbeating American parents about the need for discipline." 

Then she writes: "What distinguishes motherhood propaganda today, however, is that it's most virulent strain is directed not at child-raising but mother-raising -- as in how to self-actualize as a Yummy Mummy."  The Post, like many of their mainstream media counterparts, have featured a number of Yummy Mummy type articles such as this one which seem to treat mothers primarily as a self-indulgent consumer group, so I was interested to see what Kingston had to say on the topic. 

Kingston discusses a Sunday Telegraph article (reprinted in the Post) by Danielle Crittenden which espouses the new Housewife Chic where "the old-fashioned, full-time mother at home is being celebrated -- as fashion icon, as status symbol, as sex symbol."  Apparently Crittenden is enamoured with mothers such as Darla Shine who embrace the notion of the Happy Housewife without any sense of irony. (For a truly hair-raising experience, read some of the press releases for the Shine-approved Total 180 magazine.  I was particularly fond of the one entitled: "Girlfriend Media Group and Darla Shine Join Together to Demand Respect for Women who Choose their Children Over their Career" which offers this gem:

It's the new feminism.... We are capable, educated women, but we don't want to break the glass ceiling anymore.  We are reinventing ourselves and molding out lives around our children's schedules.

Charming.)

Kingston challenges Crittenden's notion that Housewife Chic is a new thing and also debunks her assertion that highly paid, educated women are opting out of the workforce as part of this trend (a slowing economy, not fashion, is taking women out of the workforce in slightly higher numbers than in previous years).  She also sees this narrow view of motherhood as unpalatable for, in addition to the pressure of being fashionably Yummy, "there's also the indignity of having the back-breaking work and self-sacrifice involved in motherhood minimized as a "lifestyle" choice designed for self-fulfilment." 

Hear hear.

Comments

[andrea]

Why are you bragging about being a lazy homemaker? And Darla is not stepford, and neither am I. Why do women have babies and then don't want to be around them?

[ceebee]

I thought this article was very interesting:

http://www.alternet.org/story/28621/

(I hope you don't mind me posting the link on your blog, Jen (?))

I too, left a career on Bay Street to stay home with my two children.
There are days when Bay Street politics seems more manageable that raising an 18 month old toddler and a three month old infant...
especially at around 5:30 pm... *the witching hour* at our house... LOL

Oh, and as for looking good. I'm completely ignored at Holt's these days... is wearing a baseball cap and loose yoga pants that bad??? How do celebrities get away with it?!?!

[Running2Ks]

My husband and I decided we wanted someone to stay home and raise the children. When we realized that he was suited to putting up with office politics BS and I was much happier being at home doing domestic stuff, we knew we made the right choice.

We were fortunate to be able to scrape by financially to do it.

Not everyone can make that choice, as Andrea said.

And I don't look fancy doing it, as Marla said.

But I'm content with our roles, and we both realized that we each made the right "career" choice.

[Marla]

"Being an at-home-mom is the hardest job I ever had. I was a whining, miserable, desperate housewife, but I finally snapped out of it."

Oh, Darla - it's called Stepford.

Jen, this is a brilliant post. You've really pulled a lot of information together and presented it with precisely the right tone for my sensibilities.

When I chose not to continue working in my field, it was because it's a stressful 50+ hour a week. weeknight and weekend job in a working environment that is incredibly toxic and stressful, with a side helping of some genuine assholes. I was a whining, miserable, desperate wife who didn't want to spoil the rest of a what could be a wonderful life by continuing to work there - but there are only three comparable positions in the entire city of Toronto - so nowhere else to go and nothing to go back to. So my choice was no choice.

I just resent feeling like I should have to look my prettiest, use stylishly designed cleaning tools, aromatherapy cleaning products, and grin when I'm picking dried yogurt and granola out of the rug.

Motherhood is what it is (just read Vanity Fair's article on that, oh what a lazy homemaker I am), whether you're employed outside the home or not - it doesn't need to be re-branded to make it more palatable. Sometimes it isn't something at which you need to work smarter but harder. Actually, most of the time it isn't, if you're me.

[Dana]

Well, aren't you choosing your career over your children if the children are in daycare all day? What is the point in having kids if you aren't even around to raise them? From what I gathered after reading the book is that she is trying to get the mom's that are already at home to begin to feel empowered by their choice to be at home rather than be beaten down by people who think your IQ is less when you are at home. Our families should be the most important thing and we need to love and cherish them. Face it - as women, we are the glue that makes the family stay together and we should be made to feel like less of a person for doing so.

[Andrea]

And of course, this also casts all of us working mom types as having chosen careers over children. Lovely.

Is it just me, or are there hair-raising 1950's let's-all-go-back-to-the-kitchen vibes in our culture today? That are supposedly all about "lifestyle" and "choice" and "motherhood" and are really all about teh economy.