Since it's only been about 5 minutes since the last mom-related controversy exploded, inspiring women everywhere to take sides against each other while secretly doubting the validity of their own positions: Enter the heated debate over "regressive" moms. Brought to our attention by writer Amy Sohn, who recently wrote a piece promoting the release of her upcoming novel "Motherland" introducing this new class of modern mommy, "regressive" moms are older moms "avoiding the big questions -- Should I quit my job? Have another child? Divorce? -- by behaving like a bunch of crazy twentysomething hipsters." What exactly does said behavior look like?
Apparently, "masturbating excessively, cheating on good people, doing coke in newly price-inflated townhouses, and sexting compulsively -- though rarely with our partners." Oh.
Yeah, I'm not buying it. And this is why ...
I'm not arguing that moms who fit this description don't exist. I'm not judging the ones that do exist. I'm just saying this kind of behavior is nothing new, and it has nothing to do with being a mom.
The "regressive" mom trend is no more or less than an exaggerated, sensationalized take on the female midlife crisis. We just never really talked about the female midlife crisis before -- at least not in this tell-all, button-pushing way. So what's being exposed here, exactly? Women face the same sort of identity-questioning midlife transition that men do? Women are people, just like men! Mothers face the same sort of identity-questioning midlife transition that men do? Mothers are people, just like women!
In my opinion, the concept of "regressive" moms is a cultural cheap shot -- an attempt to start yet another pointless battle in the already pointless mommy wars (if I have to type "mommy wars" one more time in my life I think I'm gonna scream). So what, now moms whose greatest vice is a glass of chardonnay at Sunday brunch get to sit back and feel smug and wholesome? Or insecure husbands get to sit back and feel validated for being suspicious, controlling jerks?
I'm not sure I even understand who's fighting this particular battle. But it seems like everybody's going to end up losing.
Do you think the "regressive mom" stereotype is all hype?
Image via Jose Roco/Flickr
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Comments 7
Please honey, middle-aged mothers have been drinking, clubbing, and pill-popping for decades. I know because I was raised by one and have always been surrounded by those types of moms...not in edgy and hip NYC, but in rural Indiana during the 80's. This is nothing "new", except maybe to some of the women who had sheltered lives and are just hitting middle-age.
Other ridiculous modern day examples? Breastfeeding into the toddler years has been done for millenia, as well as co-sleeping and baby carrying. Yet somehow a bunch of hipsters think they invented the breast and wrote a new manual on parenting, and all the sudden being a normal parent is now a super trendy AP parent, and up pops up the so-called "crunchy mom" label.
Need Another? Look at the women that have found themselves clamoring for the "sexual awakening and insight" that the ridiculously written 50 Shades franchise offers. Go back a good 20 years and pick up some Anne Rice literotica...nothing these days is really "new", it's just recycled for the next generation to discover.
I am "only" 30 years old, yet I can see through all of this crap. I hope others will as well.
Where I came from you were either labled "selfish" or having a "mid-life crisis". It amazes me that people think they "discover" a mew trend of behavior. Some of the activites may have changed, but the behavior overall still falls in to the same category :)
Slap a fancy label on something and suddenly, it's a brand new concept awaiting debate!
I love how if a young, poor parent does these things, it's called child neglect, but middle aged, financially secure Moms drinking, and snorting coke and smoking pot is "regressive." Seriously?