The Parent Dish Dishes Some Of The Worst Parenting Trends, Or Are They Just Mom-Bashing?
It is as inevitable as a New Year’s resolution to lose weight. Around the same time every year the best and the worst of the year lists begin to sprout like buds at the first sign of spring. Usually, I find these lists mildly entertaining. Its always a hoot to remember the craziness of the prior year and wonder what stories the next year is going to bring. This year, however, in my internet travels, I came across a list that, well, how can I say it? In the inestimable words of “Harry” from “Dumb and Dumber” really chapped my AS_! The list comes courtesy of Brett Singer at parentdish.com and is entitled “Worst Parenting Trends of The Decade. You can check the full article out, here. There are 14 worst parenting trends mentioned in the blog. The first of which is where Singer complains about parents “screaming” at other parents on the internet. Singer then proceeds to… scream at other parents online, particularly mothers. It’s essentially a motherhood-bashing article.
Singer, I implore you to go easy on my girls Stephanie Wilder-Taylor and Jenny McCarthy. Singer feels that because McCarthy was a playboy model she could have nothing enlightening to add to the subject of autism. Never mind that she has a son with autism, never mind that she has written three other successful books, two of which are personal favorites of mine on motherhood, Baby Laughs and Belly Laughs, that continue to sell well. To discount a celebrity’s ability to contribute simply because they like to take off their clothes is silly. By that logic, I suppose you would have to assume that Tiger Woods couldn’t possibly be a good golfer, or Wilt Chamberlain would suck at basketball, or Bill Clinton couldn’t run a country. What’s more, women are multi-taskers so that they can balance lots of balls in the air and pay equal attention to each ball.
Similarly, lay off Stephanie Taylor-Wilder, a comedic writer and author of three books that have brought many moms a laugh and a sigh of relief that they are not alone in their frustrations over motherhood. By your direction, Wilder-Taylor should cope with her individuality issues by simply “Dealing with it.” Isn’t that the same phrase uttered by the anti-suffragists of the early 1900’s. “Women are not meant to have the vote, deal with it.” Mothers, my friend, have the same aspirations as our male counterparts. We want to be mothers, yes, but why does that mean we have to give up our individuality as well? Fathers don’t give up their individuality. If you think the quest for a multi-faceted life is new concept to moms within the last decade, I would like to introduce you to another broad who touch a bit of a nerve with her book, Betty Friedan. Many a mother wondered why she was unhappy with her life. In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan pointed out some of the things that moms were feeling but we afraid to express in public. The culmination of this expression lead to a little known event, you may have heard of it, called the second wave of feminism. If you are still unclear about this movement, check out the AMC series MadMen and become familiar with the character Betty Draper. The plight of the 60’s housewife is brilliantly portrayed and eerily similar to some of the plight of the mothers today.
So, you see, I think the worst parenting trends of this decade could be described a bit differently. Instead of continuing to mom-bash and in effect goal-tend every basket a mom tries to make, lets look at some of the other parenting trends that have been on the rise this year. For starters, Fathers who cheat on their pregnant wives seems to be a trend that’s kind of interesting. Or how about fathers who take their children’s mother away from them by killing her in cold blood and then lying about it -there’s a scary parenting trend that has come up over the past decade. How about Moms continuing to do more housework than their male-parenting counterparts, even as her outside-the-house work continues to increase – now that’s a trend I would personally like to see stopped. These are just a few suggestions off the top of my head. I’ll leave it up to you to decide on your favorite trends but please, in the future, go easy on the moms who talk honestly about motherhood with humor wrapped in. These gals are truly doing the best they can to help their fellow moms.
Have you found any good best or worst of the years lists? Tell us about them.
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Tags: Baby Laughs, Belly Laughs, Betty Friedan, Brett Singer, Dumb and Dumber, Jenny McCarthy, Mad Men Betty Draper, Stepahnie Wilder-Taylor, The Feminine Mystique, The Parent Dish.com, Tiger Woods
