1A Lesson Plan for “This Mess” by Judith Warner (333)

One. Lexicon

1.  Mother’s Myth of Sisyphus: three steps upward, five steps backward

2.  Self-abnegation: self-erasure or self-loss from embracing a role that causes you to lose yourself because the role “isn’t you.” See paragraph 2. She becomes “unrecognizable” in her SUV.

3.  Self-loathing: hating yourself for the self-betrayal of playing a phony role resulting in self-hatred, a condition that causes you numb the pain and rage by drinking or engaging in some other self-destructive behavior.

4.  Vicarious narcissism: over-extending your children in all sorts of micromanaged achievement-oriented sports and hobbies so you can use them as trophies, making powerful statements about your superior parenthood skills.

5.  Female role reversion: insidiously (without knowing) reverting back to old-school gender roles while trying to push your role forward. See page 334, top paragraph.

6.  The Paradox of the Super Action Female Hero. Women politicians and TV personalities create female super hero images, which influence real mothers. The problem is this: As real mothers try to be Super Women, they in actuality become Super Cripples, paralyzed by the overwhelming duties they must perform and subjugated to the traditional roles they thought they had freed themselves from.

7.  Inferiority Complex: Judith Warner sees super women in society and feels she can’t measure up to the expectations these super women have created. She is overcome by a roiling, seething sense of failure in everything she does.

8.  What class of women are especially subjected to the Super Woman Paradox: Middle class to upper middle class. See page 336.

9.  In the quest to be Super Mom, the mom’s, paradoxically, don’t want to mother: See page 337 in which Warner points out that working and non-working mothers prefer to keep their children in child care or rely on nannies. Perhaps they’re too busy going to the gym or getting Botox or something. Or finding the best Halloween costume to outdo the other mothers whose children dress in “lesser” costumes. Or the mothers focus on having the best birthday parties, often at the detriment of their children.

10.               Mommy Wars and one-upmanship: the need to outdo other mothers, your “competition.” This gets in the way of mothering and leads to insanity.

 

 

Two. The Super Mom Stereotype: The 12 Signs

1.   She is a svelte Nordic blonde of six feet dressed in khaki safari-wear from J. Crew.

2.   She drives a dark blue Range Rover.

3.   She has a black belt in martial arts.

4.   Her three children are state champions in gymnastics, softball, and soccer and are primed, by age nine, to go to Harvard or Yale.

5.   Her parties are so lavish that they are featured in the local newspaper and stir seething envy in her neighbors.

6.   She budgets $10,000 a year to hire professionals who put up Halloween and Christmas decorations so lavish that cars line up for miles to photograph her house.

7.   She is a member of the PTA, the Rotary Club, and other prominent organizations that fulfill her objective: To be feared in the community.

8.   She has a PhD in psychology or an MBA but only works as a consultant for which she makes $700 an hour. 

9.   She doesn’t allow her children to eat anything at school or friends’ house unless she’s checked out the food to make sure it’s organic and not conducive to generating allergies and other pathogens.

10.               She micromanages her children’s day from 6 A.M. until bedtime at 10 P.M. sharp so that her children have absolutely no free time. This includes monitored cell phone calls and TV watching.

11.               She doesn’t so much see herself as a mother of a family as the CEO of a private company.

12.               She is the queen bee of a coterie of brown-nosed sycophants and toadies who have devoted their lives to massaging her ego for the privilege of enjoying the high status that comes with associating with her.

 

Three. McMahon’s Scabrous Commentary

Judith Warner asserts that the super mom ideal has set back feminism fifty years or so. But this is not a gender issue. And it has little do with mothering. It has all to do with narcissism and power. The mothers featured in Warner’s essay (from her book Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety) are insecure so they sacrifice their mothering to gain power in the workplace or in other ways. This power-mongering has all to do with image. Of course, society pressures all of us to conform to some fancy image or other, but we have the choice to see these images for the sham they are. The whining and learned helplessness evident in Warner’s screed seems less rooted in reality and more rooted in her need to create an “issue” so she can publish a book. I’m sorry, but the “issue” of choosing between our families and our narcissistic appetites is nothing new. Warner merely tries to package this age-old conflict into something newfangled to get attention and a publishing deal.

 

Four. Essay Option for Essay #3:

In one page summarize Warner’s essay. Then in another page profile a “super mom” you know, either firsthand or by interviewing someone who knows such a super mom (perhaps the child of one?). Then in your thesis you might write something like this:

Mrs. Tuttweiller (whatever name you use) embodies the consummate super mom evidenced by ________________, ________________, and __________________, and ____________________________.

 

Another thesis:

Mrs. Tuttweiler’s self-aggrandizing role as super mom actually compromises her duties as a mother evidenced by __________________, ____________________, and ___________, and _____________________.

Your research sources will include the child of such a super mom or a friend of such a super mom, my blog, and Warner’s essay.