- Mommy blogger
- Mompreneur
- Soccer mom
- Mommy porn
To some people, these are badges of honor. To others, and in the same context, they are terms of derision and scorn. Here are some (sorta) comparable terms.
In the same way that the second list can be corrected red Sharpied to police officer, flight attendant, children's science kit, and erotica, the first list can be rewritten as blogger, entrepreneur, soccer parent, and porn/erotica (or mom, mom, mom, and fiction... or parent, parent, parent, and fiction).
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| I totally do this. Or, I let me kids get their own cereal, sleep in, and then several days later clean the crusted Rice Krispies off my |
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| I do not look like this. |
I really, really hate the term mompreneur. It makes me want to poke my eyes out with the pen I stole from the guy who sells me paper (who inconveniently does NOT sell printer paper, and is nothing like Jim, Dwight, Stanley or Andy). I have a small business. It doesn't make a whole ton of money, but I enjoy it. I meet lots of people. It's fulfilling. But rather than be called an entrepreneur, like every other male business owner (or female business owner in a business completely unrelated to children), I am called a mompreneur because my business is aimed straight at moms and kids (and, you know, dads, grandparents, aunts, friends... lots of people). Technically, mompreneur is defined as "a female business owner who is actively balancing the role of mom and the role of entrepreneur." Except that is what any working parent is doing. My husband is a dademployee (which is not a word) who is having a hard time balancing the role of dad and the role of employee working 60+ hours a week. But his role doesn't get a gender attached to it. I'm not sure who has it harder. Yes, I can close up shop when my kids are sick, or have an appointment, or have a super-duper-important school thing that I absolutely must attend. But my business suffers. My husband, the dademployee, just can't do any of those things at all.
Then there's also Laura, aka adequatemom, my co-writer here. She's a "mompreneur." She would really, really like to make a living as an editor, or even a greeting card maker, and put her talents and education to use to do something she loves. Instead, she spends 1/3 of her day at a job she doesn't particularly enjoy (but is damn good at anyway) because there are still bills to be paid, in a perfect world spends 1/3 of her day sleeping, and divides the remaining third between mundane tasks like cooking, eating, bathing, driving around, maybe possibly finding some time to herself to read a book, very occasionally seeing her husband, volunteering... and being the primary caregiver to her daughter. But yeah, let's reduce that to "mompreneur." Let's do that.
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| This does not resemble my family. |
Soccer mom. Just look at the hatred in some of those definitions. Why? Just why? Okay, I'm not actually a soccer mom because none of my kids are in soccer, but I do drive a minivan and this term is often applied to any parent who chauffeurs kids around in a minivan. I don't really hear the term soccer dad, and it's often the dads who are doing the soccer coaching. I do hear the term hockey parent (no gender). So why soccer mom? It actually started as a political term, coined by US Republicans, and specifically refers to white middle income women with school-aged children, who supposedly have nothing better to do than ferry around their children, but who would love to vote conservative. I find the term dismissive of the moms themselves, because they do have better things to do and they certainly have interests outside their children. I do. And I don't have anything resembling right-wing politics.
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| I enjoyed this piece of shit and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Also, I wish my husband would wear a tie. |
And, finally, mommy porn. First off, don't Google that term, because it won't bring up a bunch of references to EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey like I thought it would. Anyway, as I have previously written, Fifty Shades is dismissed as "mommy porn." Why? Because it is a book that appeals largely to women of child-bearing age and has graphic sex scenes in it. You could also call it "porn" or "erotica" or "a book." I like the term "book" because it doesn't come with any implications of the reader except that they... like to read? Incidentally, one of the search results that did come up when I googled "mommy porn" was this one, about a new book set to be a bestseller, featuring a variety of cliques at a primary school in England... mom cliques, not kid cliques. The subject matter hits home for me. There are a ton of childish mom cliques in my town. Except it's being compared to Fifty Shades, despite its completely different subject matter and lack of sex, because it appeals to the same demographic. And the new term? Mumlit. Literature that appeals to Mums, a term apparently coined by a legitimate news agency, which helps to legitimize the term. In North America, I'm sure it would be translated to "mommylit." Hey, here's an idea. How about we just called it "literature"? Nah, then dads (or "men") might accidentally read it and find some insight into the lives of their female partners. Or non-parents might read it and find some insight into the lives of parents. No, it's better we warn them off entirely and compartmentalize people's reading tastes. Girls, you read these ones. Boys, you read these ones. Guess what, there are more bestselling authors, award winners, and modern classics on the boys' list.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to my mompreneuring now. There's a potty seat just waiting to be sold.
