Jane Caro has just written a rather charming article, “Over-mothered? No, over mothering” for the Sydney Morning Herald.
For birthdays, I bought two packs of 12 lamington fingers and stuck a candle in each one. They served a whole class.
I was very bad at any sort of preparation. I only once helped a daughter with a project – we couldn’t find a ruler, the glue had dried up, as had the textas, and the eventual product on creased blue cardboard looked like the cat threw up on it. The only photo we could dredge up of a marine creature was of brain coral. ”That’ll have to do!” I screeched at her. I think she’d had fantasies of whales, dolphins or seahorses. I went into the classroom a few days later only to see it displayed on the wall alongside other pristine, laminated dissertations on more glamorous sea creatures. Surprised to see it so honoured, I asked the teacher why it took pride of place. ”Ah,” she said, ”because she so obviously did it all by herself.” Once again, sheer incompetence came up trumps.
When it came time for the weekly swimming lessons, I invariably realised I hadn’t unpacked the cossie from last time. ”Oh well,” I reasoned as I forced them to don their damp, mouldy, smelly togs, ”they’re only going to get wet again anyway.”
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 the ‘slacker mothers/mothers who drink’ phenomenon.
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?
And as I also observed back then in 2008, the slacker mum movement often neglects to directly acknowledge the debt it owes feminism. It’s frequently liberation without the radicalism. This means the discussion can lack perspective and a sense of purpose. And that becomes particularly apparent when you read supposedly confessional pieces that are pulling their punches, something I refer to in this article of mine at Daily Life. If your ‘revealing truths’ reinforce how much you belong to the most powerful income/class groups of mothers then while you’re taking a risk in revealing them it’s not a particularly big one, and you’re probably not liberating a genuinely marginalised mother, such as a teenage mother, or a mother with a drug addiction, or a mother in poverty who wouldn’t get away with that same slackness without facing the threat of more serious repercussions.
Finally, the slacker mother movement seems to be taking a nasty turn lately towards judging mothers it sees as being too dedicated to the pursuit of motherhood. This begs the question what business is it of yours how another mother does her care work, because it’s inherently sexist that we routinely consider women’s lives our business and that we also have so many ways to criticise women? Also, are you sure she isn’t the oppressed minority, rather than you? In which case, step off her neck you big bully, she’s got enough on her plate. Lauren Rosewarne’s piece for The Drum was a classic example of this problem, in my opinion, as was Mia Freedman’s piece about birth activists, which I tackled in this article of mine at Essential Baby. Even Caro’s piece, which is notably about “over-mothering,” pictures ‘intervention-free birthers’ as some dominating group of mothers she is bravely breaking free of when, actually, having a medicalised birth is hardly taking the path of most resistance in Australia. (I should probably disclose here that I have a foot in both camps having chosen a birth centre ‘intervention-free’ birth for my first baby and a hospital birth with an epidural for my second baby).
If you actively engage with the feminist parenting community then you’ll find that breast-feeders, baby-wearers, home-birthers and even, the organic food types aren’t all the stereotypes you believe them to be. I’ve found many of these mothers have the more radical feminism of parents in the feminist community. And they are often political and quick to defend marginalised mothers, too. Maybe this is because I’ve found that quite a number of them are also, themselves, black or single or disabled or very young or a multitude of other identities that lead them to be marginalised. Mothers are rarely simple stereotypes. If slacker mothering is about liberating mothers then it’s important that it actually does.
Oh, my goodness, does this hit close to home. I’m a slacker stay-at-home parent with a severe mental illness. I’m also a writer, and on the few occasions when I’ve written about some of the things you’ve listed (moldy togs, “too much” tv, shutting him in a safe room for a bit to go sob my brains out), my critique group has first asked if I’m all right, and casually, jokingly mentioned CPS.
One out of four has had children, and she’s.. well, “interesting” about it.
I want to emphasize that all ‘bad mother’ confessions come with risk, even when you’re a relatively privileged mother, because let’s face it, we live in a society that is extremely judgemental about mothers. And this is a patriarchal society that polices mothering outside of nuclear families particularly strongly. So, there’s real risk and real feminism in making ‘bad mother’ confessions but I see a lot of ‘slacker mother’ or ‘good enough parenting’ writing being done with very little awareness of class and increasingly with a very divisive tone to it and I wanted to draw attention to that when I saw this article of Caro’s published.
I’ll keep that in mind, thank you. Your writing on the topic is so inspiring to me because it addresses those issues.
Also, I should be right up front here and say that I am a bit of a slacker mother, myself, and that a lot of my writing about my experiences is done in this vein.
Great article, great point. I live in a town where there is a tonne of judgement by mums I know about the ‘ferel’ parents..it’s so tiresome. I struggle daily with my parenting & highly suspect we’re all doing the best we can in any given moment. The biggest difference I can see is I’ve been taught that appearances matter..therefore should keep the ugly, screaming bad days in private, at home. I like to think of myself as the slacker parent, but of course it’s done in a very middle class, over analysed way (benign neglect etc). I often wonder about what the actual difference is, if any, between ‘us’ and ‘the ferels’ (as you can see I’m intereseted in this concept of’the ferels’ in my town ha ha).
I had a chuckle at the Caro article and I agree with your point about class. It’s only “slack” if it’s middle class and white otherwise it’s judged as neglect and abuse.
Underlying all the slackness is love, personally that’s how I justify it! I think I am also teaching in a way, nothing is perfect nor does it have to be, we all make mistakes etc etc. and comparing me to the other mums at school and what they do is just a waste of time and it’s not a competition!
Great post Andie.
[…] up, a little background reading: Jane Caro wrote this for the SMH on the weekend, and this was a very sensible response at Blue […]
[…] up, a little background reading: Jane Caro wrote this for the SMH on the weekend, and this was a very sensible response at Blue […]
I really, really love your writing. You make so much sense.
Thank you so much for this. I definitely identify with the ‘slacker parent’ tag and my own parents were in this camp to a degree and I always felt very loved and validated, just not the most important being in the universe! I have a job where I work with disadvantaged families and I am meant to deliver parenting education courses which on the whole I find problematic, fairly judgemental, unhelpful and bland. When I say ‘parenting education’ it is mothers who attend 100% of the time.
I’ve never been able to articulate the clash of worlds I’ve seen where a poor, isolated mum is crying in the group about being late for school drop off constantly, and is judged harshly for it, and a few hours later being amongst friends who are laughing about how funny it is that we all can’t get our shit together to be on time for school.
Like all labels around parenting I suspect a little bit of something is probably a good thing, but perhaps we should be checking with kids of the truly slack parents both rich and poor and find out what their lived experience is.
Thanks again for another sharp critique of stunning YES- ness!
Thank you for pointing this stuff out. These kinds of confessional pieces actually piss me off a little, because there is no way that sort of thing would be acceptable to admit if these weren’t middle-class white ladies. At some point there’s got to be consideration and self-reflection in those spaces if they’re really trying to do the work of inclusive feminisms.
i wonder if the slacker mothering movement is linked to the distrust of passionate mothering…
http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2013/02/stephens.html
Thank you with all my heart for this link. It is about something that I have been stewing over and drafting for a long time so it has come at perfect moment.
Yes, thank you for this. A fascinating article.
On people’s judgement of the Rosie character in The Slap, I wonder whether the results would have been different if the survey was based on the book rather than the TV series. You never get the full force of Rosie’s point of view in the show, whereas in the book, it is a huge revelation when you get to her chapter about her experience of having a young baby, and one that certainly shifted my sympathies. In fact, I remember having several conversations at the time about how skilfully Tsiolkas had rendered these experiences. Perhaps these editorial choices of the TV writers and producers are telling of their own biases in this area.
I also really did not like the (male) voiceover technique used in the show.
Agreed, a fascinating article although a tough read for me. I am absolutely passionate about my children but I am not passionate about motherhood. It feels like a hard place to be in our culture where the primary way to show love for your kids is by displaying passionate motherhood: staying home, throwing elaborate parties with loving details, becoming immersed in your children’s education, and so on. That’s not me and it’s not a put on because I fear passionate motherhood it is simply just not who I am.
So how do I convey how passionate I am about my actual children? I am at a loss on that front most of the time. Not that care, particularly, what others think but I do want my children to know how fully I care for and love them.
[…] and she wrote this about being slack. Andie Fox is the thinking woman’s Slacker and she wrote this response to Jane. Read them both. Do. It’s a slap in the face, followed by a kick to the guts rounded […]
Thank for pointing out even more contradictions in how modern motherhood is talked about. And for me too, this made me think about how class and race are also connected to our perceptions of “intensive” and “slacker” moms. I taught for years at an elite private school, where “overparenting” was the norm in its most easily mockable extreme. There was one kid in my class whose parents were outright neglectful: she and her numerous brothers and sisters were left alone in dangerous circumstances, and the parents also used physical punishment in what I thought was an abusive way. When I brought my concerns to the administration, they were almost admiring of the parents’ comparatively more “free range” style of parenting. And I asked the principal is she would react the same way if the parents weren’t extremely white, wealthy and prominent (on the cover of business magazines). If this child were one of the scholarship students living with a single mom from the projects, would the principal have been more judgmental about these parents’ risky and borderline abusive parenting style?
Did you get a response?
And now there’s this In Praise of Mediocrity, which is written by a dad. The comments are mostly supportive.
[…] “A couple of things to bear in mind with the ‘slacker mum’ movement” (blue milk) […]
[…] recognise that. I’ve criticised a couple of Australian feminists recently, most notably, Jane Caro, Mia Freedman and Lauren Rosewarne, and for reasons I stand by, but I also want to note that each […]
[…] an internet rabbit trail that started with First the egg’s link to a post at blue milk about slacker moms and white privilege (really good observations, by the way, that behavior reflecting questionable judgement exhibited by […]
[…] ‘minimum of effort’ approach to motherhood, most of which I enjoyed, and then I read Andie Fox’s response, most of which I also agreed with. Some things about Caro’s piece annoyed me, or just […]
[…] von Vater-Mutter-Kind vertreten, alternative Modelle werden kaum mitgedacht. Auch Bluemilk betrachtet das Slacker-Mom-Movement ambivalent. Sie begrüsst deren entspanntere Haltung, betont aber den […]
[…] von Vater-Mutter-Kind vertreten, alternative Modelle werden kaum mitgedacht. Auch Bluemilk betrachtet das Slacker-Mom-Movement ambivalent. Sie begrüsst deren entspanntere Haltung, betont aber den […]
[…] A couple of things to bear in mind with the ‘slacker mum’ movement post which is also cross-posted at her blog and a comment left on her Twitter stream last night. (you can follow @bluemilk). Also read […]
[…] A couple of things to bear in mind with the slacker mum movement […]