This month my feminist mothers’ group discussed the Slacker Mum Movement or Mothers Who Drink. You know, like this article from The New York Times about mothers’ cocktail hour, and these books currently making a big splash in the pond of parenting (normally so dominated by Alpha Mother reading material)? Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay, Naptime is the New Happy Hour, Daddy Needs a Drink, I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids, The Three-Martini Playdate, and the most recent, Dirty Little Secrets From Otherwise Perfect Moms.
Our mothers’ group always meets of an evening, over a glass of wine and sans children, so we’re totally qualified to review this movement and the real question is why it has taken us so long to get to this particular topic. It is no surprise then that we found many aspects of the Slacker Mum Movement extremely freeing, after all, a number of us are pretty much card-carrying Slacker Mums (unfortunately I’m still a little nerdy but I’ve got some runs on the board). However, we noted two less favourable features of the movement during our discussion – its willingness to embrace liberation without even mentioning feminism, and its classism. Almost certainly, a mother from a low socio-economic group wouldn’t get away with a book of this kind of humour, she’d risk being seen as neglectful rather than endearingly chaotic – imagine if the mothers in that New York Times article were drinking bourbon and cokes instead of Cavit pinot grigio, would this be seen as the emergence of a trend in sophisticated motherhood?
Our group then moved along and talked about the gift of the Slacker Mum trend – the way it reduces our expectations of motherhood, and the breathing room it gives us all to be less than perfect. As we sipped our wine we wondered if mothers really were judging one another so much or if it just felt that way in our weakest moments. Well. I can say, following our own confessions of judgementalness that yes, we are judging one another, quite a bit. The snottiness of your children’s noses, the groceries in your shopping trolley, and the way you’ve taught your children sex education are all being noticed.
And then we moved on to our dirtiest little secrets of motherhood.
Our group’s confessions took a decidedly darker turn than those generally expressed in books like Dirty Little Secrets From Otherwise Perfect Moms – this again was another beef we had with the Slacker Mums Movement. The false slackness, the confession that actually makes you, the confessor look good, the confession that through its lightness makes everyone else feel bad. In our group we were having none of that. I’m not going to repeat the melt-down type confessions because they seem too personal to discuss outside the group but what follows are a couple of the more endearing moments of slackness. Among us was the mother who turns the music up in her car to uncomfortably high volumes when her children are fighting to drown them out, but mostly to antagonise them (the speakers are in the back seat of the car and they hate her music). The mother who felt so insecure about the wealth of the other mothers at a children’s birthday party that she got drunk on the expensive champagne in front of the other parents and had to take her child and herself home in a taxi. And the mother who gave a rather furious time-out to her screaming toddler before realising that she’d completely forgotten to feed her all morning. When we say slack, we mean it.
Bask in your relative glory or lighten the load and ‘fess up here (don’t forget to make your comment anonymous). If you’re too shy here then you can try this one instead.
Oh I’ve timed out the unfed toddler…
When my eldest was a baby, his nanny couldn’t work out why his screaming was even worse than normal (he was a less than delightful baby) for a long time before she realised his dummy chain clip had actually grabbed his skin. I am not playing dob in the nanny, that could so have been me. I am also pretty sure I dislocated his toe when he was teeny tiny (in the process of attempting to put on a sock, which, given it was December, he probably didn’t need).
I’ve also timed out the unfed toddler. There’s been a few times where I’ve been disgracefully frustrated in public at my toddler before realising (after a good, long while) that he was due for a nap.
Also, there was one afternoon where said toddler was standing by the back door, doing the whole, ‘Mama! Mama! Mama! Mama!’ spiel and I too hastily yelled, ‘Leave me a minute. I’m BUSY.’ (I was doing tax-related stuff) And it was snappy and upset him. THen I noticed that he was holding a book that I was currently reading so I stood up (knocking my chair over), screeched shrilly and yelled at him to put my DAMN BOOK BACK.
A few minutes later after he had taken off to play by himself quietly outside, I realised that he had grabbed my book for me because he had noticed that I always read when sitting in the back garden with him. Doh.
A regular conversation in our house:
My son: “Play a game with me PLEASE, mummy.”
Me *surfing the web buying cosmetics/books/clothes/cd’s etc*: “I’m too busy doing work, darling.”
Pants on fire.
“JUST LEAVE ME ALONE for a minute” to a toddler with no concept of time
What Janine said about “working” while on the computer shopping or playing cards. The time I put new shoes on her and didn’t notice she was fussier than usual until the babysitter realized she was refusing to walk, took the shoes off and removed the paper stuffed into the toes. Yelling at her in front of a roomful of people because she put the wrong tap shoes in her dance bag when it was my fault we were late to rehearsal – and that one was yesterday.
My kid spent most of this very afternoon eating cake. Then we made him go out for dinner and stay up way past his bedtime. I had to fess up the cake thing before it is done on my behalf, I was visiting another blogger at the time.
I also got home a few times in the early days to discover that while I had diligently strapped the kid into his seat, I had not done up the belt the holds the seat in place. Those things really are too complicated for people who’ve had so little sleep.
But then, so is driving.
Oh yeah, the 5 point harness is done up but the anchor strap on the capsule is not connected… too many times to admit to. And I hate that, because I know just how unbelievably dangerous it is to not properly strap in a kid. (Have a relo in kids ICU and try to ignore the risk – can’t be done.)
I screamed at my then-6 month old (who after getting through some serious tummy trouble/colic still did not sleep much, it really seemed like never) “fine! don’t ever sleep! don’t ever fucking sleep!” and shrieked some more and left him crying in his mostly-unused crib so I could go flail and cry in my bedroom in a sleep-deprived rage. Yay me for a lack of self-control! Not my proudest parenting moment. I calmed down and went back to comfort him properly but I felt like such a jerk. It wasn’t the last time I had to walk out of the room on him during his infancy to maintain control of my emotions. I just felt so BAD at mothering sometimes and it made me angry at myself and I misdirected it at him. I’m sooooooo immature sometimes despite my age I can hardly stand it…
oh and hey I am back to blogging, Ms. Milk.
I pulled several tantrums like Bianca during my son’s infancy–especially during the middle of the night. The worst was that sometimes I put him down into his crib too roughly. Not shaking him, not throwing him, but definitely NOT gently.
I really liked your point about the classism involved. Having grown up in midwestern, working class culture, I generally see things through that lens. Interestingly, I hadn’t given this much thought with the mothers/drinking thing. You are right on.
I let my kids eat chook food (but not from the floor of the run – we have standards)
I have two more general comments:
* I’m really uncomfortable with the word ‘slack’. I appreciate that it is an ironic reference to and rejection of the unrealistically high expectation we place on mothers but it still doesn’t sit right with me, this framing up mothers’ very human and often rational behaviour as slack, as somehow not good enough, even if it is a reclaimation of the term.
* I’m also really uncomfortable that the initial focus of slacker mum issues was on drinking. It was so patronising – there’s been no discussion at all over men’s drinking which suggests an expectation that women can’t be trusted to manage their own intake when they are looking after their kids. No alcohol before you’re 18, none while you’re pregnant, none when you’re a Mum … hmm.. So nice to see there are so many more ways in which we all fall short of societal expectations.
I always remind my husband not to yell at the baby. He’s just prone to loud bursts now and then, whether angry or joyful. But it’s always jarring to me. Anyhoo, he and toddler got into it over her not wanting to wear pants. I couldn’t take his tone with her so I swept in, picked her up and she began to flail. Well, she hit the bridge of my nose with her little fist so hard I saw nothing but white fuzzes floating in black for a moment. I screamed “Agggghhh!” in her face so loudly and horribly she went pale. It wasn’t that bad, but I’ve caught myself screaming at her now and then that are so incredibly selfish and immature, I’m ashamed. Those moments just suck.
And @kris, I agree with the first. Why is it slack for a mom to be human? And entirely on the second… Men can drink and act a little foolish without much consequence in my social circles. It’s almost endearing if hubby makes a clown of himself at a party for a moment or two… but heaven forbid I or any of the other mummies enjoy more than a single cocktail and disagree with any comments, make light of something or have an honest moment. Then we can’t hold our liquor. And I know this ridiculous expectation is carried out by other moms as much as everyone else. Ask my mom friends how many drinks the other moms had one night.. I’m sure they were all counting.
Uh god. Failure to properly buckle child — check. Lying about working to garner just a few more ‘tuned out’ moments — check. Punishing child for suffering emotional effects of non-napping or non-eating — check. Temper tantrum over sleep, shouting at infant, rough drop into crib — check, check, check. My temper tantrums over sleep continued until I had a four year old and culminated in the “fine, we’re never going to sleep. let’s fucking stay up all night,” and was punctuated with my flipping a desk across the room at 4am. What a terrible low point. There are some days where you seriously consider that you’re not a fit mother and wonder whether they’d be better off in foster care. You conclude that they wouldn’t, but not because you’re a great mum, you’re just the least bad of their growing up options.
The irony is that if we weren’t made to feel so inadequate and defensive about times when we’re too stressed or sleep-deprived to hack it, we’d be so much easier on ourselves, more likely to take breaks before we’re melting down. We might even take real breaks and not allow all that guilt to poison and cut short the breaks and we’d be blunt about our having earned them instead of taking the five minute ‘spacing out with the internet’ breaks and lying to justify them.
How many of you have handed the children to dad so you can get a morning off, just to have him come to you after an hour, cutting it short with, “I just can’t handle him.” There are such different expectations — I’ll be in tears every day for weeks before it occurs to me to ask for a break, my ex begged off if he had only got ten hours of sleep (“I’m just too tired to handle a baby”), if he couldn’t soothe crying in less than a minute or if it had been more than a day since he’d been out with his friends (“too stressed”).
Great thread. I’d contribute, but it’s near to 10 in the morning, the house is knee deep in mess, and I’m still in my uggies. And the boychild is on the other puter. Benign neglect roolz!
Kris – you’ve raised some excellent points!
Everyone else – kudos to your honesty.
My father and uncles used to have several beers each, take a hoard of kids to a dam to catch yabbies, drink a few more beers and then take us all home. So yeah, drinking, driving, small children and water. We all lived and no one expected them to feel guilty about it.
But then, one of my friends got shocking sunburn while swimming under the supervision of her mother and a neighbour who were both drunk. I’m not sure that her mother feels guilty either.
Rough handling and shouting. Screaming f*** at the top of my lungs. Throwing cutlery (not at anyone, just at the sink/bench while doing dishes). Whole afternoons of neglect (encouraging kid to watch TV/play computer/anything that doesn’t involve my input). Not noticing that his new shoes were giving him blisters. Getting distracted on the computer and not noticing that the door had blown open and the 11 month old (who’d only been walking a month) was heading down the slippery wet front steps towards the road.
Oh boy. I may as well just copy most of Megan’s first paragraph, just substitute door slamming for desk throwing – there wasn’t anything throwable ready to hand at the time.
My getting distracted on the computer story involves me frantically searching the house, the yard and the playground on the other side of the cul-de-sac and culminates in a phone call from a friend who lived a block away across a quiet, but nevertheless dangerous to cross, road. She rang to tell me my then just 4 year old had turned up on her doorstep asking to play with her kids and assuring her I knew where he was.
They all seem to be turning out ok though. Sheer dumb luck perhaps?
Hey just found your blog and loving it.
I’m probably most famous for feeding my son Campbell’s Chicken Noodle soup without heating it up. I’d open the can and spoon out the noodles and carrots into a bowl with very little broth. It was fast and easy and quite frankly he liked it. Unfortunately one day he ate soup at someone else’s house and found out it was normally served hot (and no globs of fat).
Oh I also pinned him to the bed by lying completely across him to get him to take a nap. After a lot of crying and thrashing, it worked.
mimbles: one of my aunties was gardening in her front yard one day when her toddler was having a sleep. Then an elderly lady approached, holding my cousin by the hand, and asked if she knew where this little boy lived. My aunty said “yes I know his mother, I’ll take him from here”.
I also know a boy whose parents had to upgrade the security of their house to keep him in. He kept wandering down the road and being returned by the local police. They were very nice about it.
I tried to comment yesterday, but wordpress was giving me the finger. Think I said something about yelling at my infant, too. And now that he’s a pre-schooler, I hate how I act all “perfect parenty” in public and save my snarls and growls for when we are alone. Whew. This feels even better the second time around. No wonder confession is still a sacrament. Thanks, Bluemilk! Happy Mummy’s Day!
I am so relieved by all these comments. I thought it was just me.
I haven’t had my infant yet (one more month, eee!), but I used to care for my four younger siblings for 6 hours per day after school and 12-15 hours per day during the summer. Not only did I lose the toddlers in the snow and set the kids in front of the T.V. waaaay too often, I also smacked them on occasion. It culminated in my stabbing my brother with a fork, and lying about it to my parents when they got home. I was 12 when I started caring for a 6 month old and 17 when I left for college.
Now that I’m about to be a parent myself, I’m scared to death.
One of your most entertaining comment threads ever!!
Me, right now – refusing to help daughter with homework, telling her she has to work it out herself (I am truly slack with homework) while letting her watch Barbie movie DVd while she works on it, and looks at me doelfully saying “I can’t do it.”
we have mcdonalds for dinner one night a week
we have “brekky tea” another night a week
i’m so buggered from cooking elimination diet meals the rest of the week, an can’t stand the cleaning up of the kitchen.
i have also smacked my kids and screamed at them to f-off when they were toddlers.
i’m now on aropax and there is much less screaming and smacking.
I’m kind of torn about this post. I have had plenty of “slacker mum” moments but as another commenter said, this is human (sleep deprived) behaviour, not slackness. It’s not slack to want some time for yourself. I also worry that in an arguing for equal rights to get pissed “like men” that actually we are just glossing over the fact that a lot of women are drinking because they are at home isolated and depressed. There is such a fine line. We need to take care of ourselves and get to the real issues rather than fighting for our rights to be laddette drunks. Don’t get me wrong, I like to have a couple of drinks with my girlfriends as much as the next slacker mum but I think there is a darker side to this.
Actually though when people are expressing relief about this post, as in Helen above, then I do think we are in the realm of something that is liberating and despite the class bias of the movement (a good point) there is something about it that not only appeals to me but is something I can relate to: it reflects the standards I hold, which will never reach the other models widely available. For me though slacker motherhood is not so much about the all-too-human emotions – including anger and frustration borne of being not in control, in combination with severe sleep deprivation – as much it is about ‘dropping out’, so to speak , of the consumer, expert, sanitised culture that so fundamentally permeates the experience of motherhood today. I will always maintain that a bit of healthy neglect is actually good for kids (harriet lerner for all her pop psychology I think is right about this) and it is a nice antidote to the over-priveleging over-attending parenting that features so heavily in every form of motherhood ‘advice’ out there (which of course is also an incredibly ‘classed’ form of parenting). The reality for me is some days, towards 5pm, I do begin wondering if it’s Ok to have a glass of wine NOW! Also, I appreciate the subversiveness and humour of some of the slacker mother moms I’ve read. So while I agree that we temper this ‘movement’ with some critical thinking and care, I also think it helps to see it in a context in which motherhood is held up to unprecedented standards, scrutiny, pressures, and uber-professionalised perfection.. (also of course very much class biased)
mm. must send this link to my teenager who is telling me i am the worst mother in the world at the moment. I seem pretty run of the mill.
my kids talk about some of my greatest exhausted don’t care parenting moments with great fondness though – like the time i let them live in a home made sheet, chairs and pegs tent on the living room floor for a week rather than clean it all up, and the institution of the ‘backwards dinner’ – you’re late coooking dinner, so you let them eat dessert while you make dinner.
A few of you have raised the very valid distinction between slacker behaviour (ie. allowing yourself some breathing room from the perfectionism of contemporary views of motherhood) and sheer exhaustion and human frailty. Had I read more of the Slacker Mum books I might have been able to provide a better definition of the movement earlier. Good on you Shelley for bringing us back on course and you raised some terrific points.
Some great parenting tips from some of you others – I like the Brekky tea idea particularly! And thank you littlegemsession for the very interesting perspective you brought with your comment too, I hadn’t thought about this from the point of view of whether any of it reflected the ladette trend.
I agree that i think that slackness comes more from coping and managing being a mother, maintaining a house, being a wife, working and all the other things we are expected to do. Sometimes I just need time out, like my time I just sit on the computer to get some free time. I must say, my husband and I have our Friday and Saturday nights to ourselves where we sit and cuddle and watch a DVD and drink a bottle of wine. I have a tendency to not give the girls naps these days so that they go earlier to bed and go to sleep straight away instead of playing up necessitating going upstairs 2-3 times.
On another note: I was never a ´snob´or worried or notice class issues while living in Australia. But now I realise it was because I was surrounded by similar people. Now I live in a small village. My daughter´s best friends are children who are left supervised by 10 year olds during the long school holiday while parents are working. Their parents let them wear and eat what they want. They chew bubble gum all day long. They dress like 18 year olds on the prowl. Their only toys are Barbies and other sexist and inappropriate things I don´t want my daughter brought up like this so I am most probably stricter and more conscious about what I am doing with her because of it. I have now become a snob and an elitist, although if I was back in Australia, it wouldn´t be an issue.
[…] Milk hosts a discussion subverting the perfect competimummy movement in “What we can tell you about the Slacker Mum Movement after two glasses of wine”. She continues her look at hyper-parenting in “If you were the parent you want to be, who […]
Wow! I just discovered this blog through the Feminist Carnival at Hoyden and I must say this won’t me my last visit.
And let me add I feel so much better about the time I threw my toddler’s drinking cup at the kitchen sink only to have it go through the kitchen window instead. Yes I was having a tantrum, it makes it so much harder to teach my children not to chuck them when I still indulge on occasion.
[…] haven’t yet made my way through all of the attractions of the Carnival I particularly enjoyed this piece by blue milk. Blue milk hosts a discussion about the American ‘Slacker Mom’ movement, which is a […]
I definately think the rich, drunk mommy circle thing could be labeled ‘slacker’, but what’s going on here is simply throwing off the expectation of perfection..admitting that we’re not.
The class issue is very true. We would think of them as trashy, and neglectful instead of endearing.. But don’t we view all the bad antics of the rich w/ those same rose colored glasses?
alternated fish fingers and sausages each night for dinner for about a year with my first toddler who refused to eat anything else, literally bored her into eating real food.
Fed fourth child bacon and eggs for almost every meal for ages, was so over the arguments over food. This one also spent most of her second and third summer naked, used to visit the neighbours starkers, refused to keep her clothes on.
Nothing beets pulling a full handful of my sixteen year old’s hair out fighting over her going out on a school night, we literally brawled from one end of the house to the other and she still got out the door, not one of my proudest moments.
[…] P.S. Of course this discussion is very relevant to the recent discussion on the Slacker Mum movement, which I totally should have referenced here already. Instead I’m doing it now. […]
[…] posts ever on parenting blogs have been confessions of meltdowns. (Like this and this and this and this and this). Honesty between women, about our lives, especially when our lives are at their most […]
[…] There’s a lot I love about this piece but it reminds me that I am also a little skeptical of this stuff. I’m a big fan of slacker mums and relate to much of what the movement is expressing about unrealistic standards in mothering. But I want to raise a couple of cautions here given such confessions are becoming big in the media at the moment. Firstly, there’s a lot of in-built classism in slacker mothering, as I noted way back in 2008 when I first wrote about ‘slacker mothers/mothers who drink’ p…. […]
[…] them. There’s the Anywhere, Anytime people, nope, not me. And now I’m reading about Slacker Mums. Now this seems more like me. These, I think, are the Mums who don’t give a crap that they […]