Lord, save me from the cute

One of the stylistic quirks of prenatal media is the irritating habit of referring to the reader -- and presumed parent-to-be -- as "Mommy." I'm not linking to any direct examples because I don't make a habit of keeping irritating articles in my bookmarks. Please, just take my word for it: If you become pregnant, you will be exposed to a number of articles that strip you, the gestating woman, of your autonomic personhood and slap you with the infantilized "Mommy."

So there's that.

This infantilization has infested the homekeeping sphere of writing too. There's a lot of cutesy-wootsy out there in domestic blogland. Make your chores into games, take tons of photos of you cracking an egg into a bowl -- be sure to quip about how "Gosh, that's eggs-actly what it's supposed to look like!" -- give your kids quirky nicknames ... It is as if women who take an active, thoughtful interest in domestic science are afraid to put forth their experience and observations with an authoritative voice.

A word about FlyLady: I once proposed doing a profile on Marla Cilley for a newspaper I was working at, because I thought her branding and online expansion were noteworthy for a business audience. I spent about a week negotiating with the assigning editor while also trying to line something up with Ms. Cilley. That woman is focused. Roll your eyes though you may at things like "Twenty-three fling boogie," the person behind them is every bit as dedicated to optimizing her own potential and others;' as, say, Tim Ferriss. I wonder if her focus and ambition are somehow threatening to her core constituency.

There was a recent New Yorker article on Ree Drummond, aka the Pioneer Woman, in which the author reported:

Several bloggers who know Drummond told me, in the furtive tone one might use to convey gossip about a friend, that she is a "very savvy businesswoman." But no one would offer specifics. "She's quietly, insanely ambitious," Ed Levine, a friend and the founder of the Web site Serious Eats, said. "Drummond reminds me of a duck: underneath the water, it’s paddling like mad, but above the surface it’s placid."

-- "O, Pioneer Woman!" May 9, 11

Why are people who take budgeting, cooking and cleaning seriously afraid of tipping their hand as to how serious they are? More specifically, why are women who take this stuff seriously afraid to own their ambition and authority?

Thank God for Martha Stewart. One of the things I've always admired about her publishing empire is its editorial tone. The articles all seem to be written with a few bedrock assumptions firmly in place: Of course, the subject is worth learning about, so of course, you want to master it; of course, you will settle for nothing less than cool proficiency; of course, nothing is worth doing if it's not worth doing well. MSLO's unabashed embrace of high standards has often been lampooned or bitterly remarked upon; I applaud it. She takes homekeeping seriously and if you don't? That's your loss.

There are a few other non-goofball voices in the domestic wilderness: for example, I've been using Cheryl Mendelson's Home Comforts as a reference for years.

It is striking to me: women who want to make a public name for themselves by optimizing the routines and results of their private lives go cutesy. Men go for "life hacking." It's a dichotomy that does nobody any good.

 

Comments

[Sue T.]

Great article. I would also mention Suze Orman as someone who has never hid her focus or ambition.

[Becky]

I hate being addressed as "mommy," and the only thing worse is "mama". Being addressed as "mama" by anyone other than my son completely sets my teeth on edge, yet it's rampant in various online communities (especially regarding breastfeeding, for some reason).

I don't actually follow a lot of domestic science or parenting blogs. I've somehow gotten sucked into a bunch of daily outfit blogs, and I've found plenty that aren't at all cutesy. So at least there's that.

[ginger]

"Why are people who take budgeting, cooking and cleaning seriously afraid of tipping their hand as to how serious they are? More specifically, why are women who take this stuff seriously afraid to own their ambition and authority?"

I think it's because those are things that all adults need to do. Any claim to expertise in a field where most other participants can reasonably claim equal acumen is necessarily self-promotion, and self-appointed experts take a lot of flak.

So, to demonstrate the exception that justifies their authority, domestic science experts - of which so-called "mommybloggers" are a subset - need either family circumstances seen as particularly demanding (lots of dependent family members; dependents with special needs; family trauma; competing interests like business or farming; geographic quirks) or outlying standards for these usual household tasks (the Martha Stewart and Julia Child model).

Too, I think that some people see the ambition to commodify aspects of family life as performance as more distasteful than the extensive variety of other personal activity performance we unquestioningly commodify.

[The Vampire Diaries Season 3 Episode 4]

What a prayer it gives big gulp to me. ^_^

[writer jobs]

this post is so funny and cute :))