Here's this week's Smartmom from the Brookyn Paper.
Smartmom is terrified. What if people find out what a bad mom she really is?
Will she be fired from the now-Murdoch-owned Brooklyn Paper? Will
Dumb Editor accuse her of being a hoaxer? Will her readers finally stop
reading?
Well, it’s not like she’s a really bad mom. It’s just that, as you
know, she has this job writing a column called “Smartmom.” Which might
lead people to believe that she’s smart about being a mom.
And maybe she is. Sometimes.
All of this came to mind the other night, when the Oh So Feisty One
and Smartmom went to see the fluffy and fun, “Confessions of a
Shopaholic,” about a writer named Rebecca Bloomwood, who
writes a popular column in Successful Saving Magazine called “The Girl
in the Green Scarf” about the economic perils of debt and instant
gratification.
But Rebecca has a secret: She has $16,000 on her credit cards
because of her incorrigible need to splurge on Christian Louboutin
heels, knee-high red Pucci boots and a glittery array of designer
handbags.
Smartmom could relate.
No, Smartmom isn’t a compulsive shopper (if anything, she
pathologically hoards boxes of Amy’s frozen pizza and macaroni and
cheese in the freezer).
And she truly is a mom; her children really are 12 and 17. And
believe it or not, everything she writes in these columns is true — if
sometimes amplified a bit.
But it’s the mistakes, the constant parenting mistakes, that lead
her to wonder what she’s doing with her byline on a column named
“Smartmom.”
It all goes back to that fateful day at the now-defunct 10th Street
Tea Lounge, when Dumb Editor offered her the promise of fame and
fortune as a Brooklyn Paper columnist.
During that hyperactive interview, Smartmom never pretended to be a great mom or anything.
She told Dumb Editor that she and Hepcat were just muddling through.
She didn’t soup up her resume to include degrees in early childhood education or psychology.
She explained to Dumb Editor that the column would not be portrait
of successful parenting. Quite the contrary: Smartmom and Hepcat were
making every mistake in the book — and their kids were thriving anyway.
He seemed to be OK with that. Something about Smartmom being the
“everywoman, struggling with career, family, volunteer work, fame,
need, anxiety, etc.” Smartmom recalls Dumb Editor being a bit more
eloquent, but you get the idea.
Still, sometimes Smartmom wonders if the parenting police are going
to come after her for all the big ticket mistakes she’s makes on a
regular basis. The cops will be like Derek Smeath, the debt collector
in “Confessions of a Shopaholic.” Like Smeath, the parenting cops could
really have a field day with Smartmom’s recent transgressions:
• Smartmom actually likes those shorty-shorts that OSFO wears with
the Aeropostale logo on the butt. She even allows her to wear them. But
maybe that’s not such bad parenting after all. Smartmom believes in
letting OSFO define her own style and be herself, which is actually
good parenting (phew). Goodbye, 1970s-era feminist values. Hello,
healthy self-esteem.
• Smartmom actually let Teen Spirit order a mushroom and onion
hamburger from the Purity with extra BBQ sauce when he was hungry at 11
pm after missing dinner at 7 pm. Yeah, she knows, she’s reinforcing one
bad behavior with another. But a boy’s gotta eat.
• She even knows that Teen Spirit is a smoker, but she doesn’t know
what to do about it. It brings her pain and anguish especially since
her father died of cancer. It’s not that she doesn’t talk to him about
it all the time. But what’s a mom to do?
The mistakes that Smartmom makes are all over the map and she’s the
first to admit them. There was the time she let Teen Spirit miss a day
of school because he thought he needed a “mental health day.” Or when
she encouraged OSFO and a pal to watch “Slumdog Millionaire,”
forgetting just how dark and sad that movie can be.
And who can forget the time she went to the Grand Cascades, that hotel in New Jersey with OSFO and neglected to bring a first-aid kit and basics like children’s chewable Motrin?
And there’s more. She and Hepcat could be firmer in the discipline
department. They could say “no” far more often. They could worship
their children a little less.
Indeed, they are guilty of just about all the sins of contemporary
parenting over-attachment, enmeshment, and too high an opinion of their
spawn (a word Wise Gal would use).
So maybe there’s a lesson in all this. The fictional column, “The
Girl in the Green Scarf,” struck a chord with her “readers” — even
though it was written by a chronic over-spender.
In the same way, Smartmom strikes a chord with the readers of The
Brooklyn Paper precisely because she’s not perfect and knows she
doesn’t do the parenting thing that well.
Maybe the imperfection allows the readers to recognize parts of
themselves in her, which enables them to empathize a bit. Smartmom
discusses universal concepts and no matter how she deals with them,
people can learn a thing or two about what they’re doing right — and
wrong. They can sit back, relax and realize that maybe, just maybe,
everything’s going to turn out alright.
Not a bad trick. Anyone want to make a movie?
Hey Louise – You are so right – first and foremost, being a “good” parent is about self-honesty and self-revelation, and in those departments, you are really a smart mom indeed. Perfection in any endeavor is an illusion. I’m reading a book right now called “THE WISDOM OF NO ESCAPE,” by Pema Chodron. The gist of what I’ve read so far is that being and knowing yourself where you are now, is much more important than obsessively trying to “fix” yourself for some imaginary future. I often tell people that I work with that their “problems” are not the problem; but their judgments of their “problems” are the problem. I applaud you, once again, and fully expect you to outlast Murdoch in your gig. (P.S. I’ll write a movie with you anytime. In my “spare time,” I’ve written 9 screenplays and 4 TV series and actually have had five of the projects optioned somehow. I think we’d be a dynamic duo!)