Friday
Sep232005
BOOKS: Slackers Unite!
Friday, September 23, 2005 at 01:18PM
This week’s Rebel Reviews are an homage to, and celebration of, MOMS, settling into a new routine in the first weeks of the New (School) Year--how’s everybody doing???
As The Rebel Housewife: writer/author, working woman, wife, and mother of three, I am sensitive to the issues that divide women, unnecessarily, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), into all these acronymed camps (SAHMs, WAHMs, SAWMs, etc.), too-often at odds with each other. (The grass is always greener...)
After all, as the Rebel Credo goes: "Whether we are working outside the home or at home, part-time or full-time, we are all on Mommy-time (which is, of course, 24/7)."
So this week, for ALL Rebel Moms, whatever your acronym, a selection of Mom-related humor and something for our SAWMs, too. (That’s Stay-At-Work Moms, which we’ll get to in a minute.)
ONE of Three Reviews This Week:
CONFESSIONS OF A SLACKER WIFE
I came across CONFESSIONS... in May, after reading a glowing review in USA Today Books (green with envy, of course). All unattractive fits of author-jealousy aside, I LOVE this book, and I am in full agreement with the basic tenets of the Slacker Wife. My favorites include:
-- Observations of The Visibility Factor in the ‘natural’ division of labor between men and women: He hangs a light fixture, "and it’s up there for everyone to see" and comment upon favorably.
"That sort of recognition is kind of a nice payoff for the person who hung the light fixture. Or planted the tree. Or built the fence. Or installed the new stereo. It would tend to make that person feel like they were valued and appreciated. That, I can only imagine, must be nice.
"But who’s there to say how well my husband’s clean underwear were folded?" (Or groceries re-supplied. Or everybody's clutter picked up. Or kitchen cleaned. Etc.)
-- The influence of advertising (from someone in the profession, as an advertising copywriter) on raising standards of cleanliness, organization and décor in our homes, and entertaining, among other things, to impossible standards, by which we have all been conned into judging ourselves--and we wonder why we come up lacking, and frazzled, every single time? Martha Stewart and women's magazines, that's why!
Muffy writes: "It seems like when it comes to all of these "women's" endeavors such as cooking, entertaining, and decorating, we're now supposed to adhere to performance standards that could only be achieved by outright professionals. So I shouldn't make an example of Martha Stewart, because making perfect pies from scratch, or more accurately, supervising a staff of people who make perfect pies from scratch, actually is her profession. The only thing I never liked about her is that she acts like I should do it too. The same way."
-- And what’s really important: How to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids (common sense and DON’T DO EVERYTHING FOR THEM); How to slow down and enjoy life ("free time needs to be a higher priority"); and, last but not least, Ladies: "...maybe now that we’ve managed to such a great extent to liberate ourselves from men, we need to liberate ourselves from ourselves..." and slack off a bit.
Excellent advice--and fun reading. Enjoy!
TWO of Three Reviews This Week:
CONFESSIONS OF A SLACKER MOM
On the whole, I tend to embrace the ideology of a Slacker Wife more than a Slacker Mom, but that could be because Muffy Mead-Ferro probably refined her writing style and grew as a wife, mother, and author in the year between the two books. CONFESSIONS OF A SLACKER MOM seems to dwell more in the homespun memoir narrative of Muffy’s life growing up on a cattle ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Although there are certainly some laugh-out-loud thoughts and anecdotes in SLACKER MOM, for all practical purposes, parenting tips and philosophies based on the good old days on the ranch don’t seem to apply as readily in modern-day reality--unfortunate, but true.
Still, highly enjoyable.
---
My friends at Da Capo Press were kind enough to send, along with my CONFESSIONS books, an Advance Reading Copy of a then-upcoming book for review (now available):
THREE of Three Reviews This Week:
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT:
I was excited to preview this title, assuming some kind of follow-on to the similarly-titled novel that caused such a best-selling sensation upon publication in 2002, I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT by Allison Pearson. (See the Rebel Review here.) Turns out, HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT is a nonfiction work, not related to the novel.
I was still excited to have something for our WOHR’s--that’s Working Outside the Home Rebels (and I had no idea it would come out that way; let’s say “WORE” as in worn out, unless you appreciate the humor in other possibilities!)--our busy sisters with the added complication and choas in their lives of balancing it all with a job, a boss, and a commute too.
Author Wendy Sachs calls you STAY-AT-WORK Moms (SAWMs), and HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT is non-fiction, "real" life, based on profiles and interviews with celebrity and more "ordinary" Moms, women who, by choice or necessity, are proclaimed SAWMs.
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT is well-researched, with interesting statistics and personalities. For the most part, these are not your average Moms: Bobbi Brown, Ann Curry, Soledad O’Brien, Vera Wang, Governor Jane Swift... Even the "ordinary" Moms focus on upper middle class career women (doctors, lawyers, media professionals), predominantly in New York.
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT never comes around to really answering the question. At times, Wendy Sach’s personal quest to find the solution of having "at least some of it all--all of the time" (I’m still not sure I get that, either) is downright selfish, whiny, and condescending, further divisive among the acronymed ranks of Stay At Home Moms and Stay At Work Moms, for the most part ignoring the great in-between life of the Work At Home Moms.
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT also ignores typical working women, the much larger statistic, who are trying to balance a JOB to provide for their families, versus finding self-fulfillment in a high-profile, and hard-to-leave-behind, career.
It is an interesting book, with important information and support for those SAWMs in a true career-quandary. Still I wonder: Why would working women shell out $20 for this book (paperback)? It is book-length format of standard magazine fare found weekly in WORKING WOMAN and other women’s magazines.
You could do worse by spending twenty bucks on a novel or two of escapist fiction--or humor!--to take your mind off the weary struggle, SAWM, SAHM, or WAHM.
As The Rebel Housewife: writer/author, working woman, wife, and mother of three, I am sensitive to the issues that divide women, unnecessarily, IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), into all these acronymed camps (SAHMs, WAHMs, SAWMs, etc.), too-often at odds with each other. (The grass is always greener...)
After all, as the Rebel Credo goes: "Whether we are working outside the home or at home, part-time or full-time, we are all on Mommy-time (which is, of course, 24/7)."
So this week, for ALL Rebel Moms, whatever your acronym, a selection of Mom-related humor and something for our SAWMs, too. (That’s Stay-At-Work Moms, which we’ll get to in a minute.)
ONE of Three Reviews This Week:
CONFESSIONS OF A SLACKER WIFE
By Muffy Mead-Ferro
(Da Capo Press Lifelong Books, 2005)
I came across CONFESSIONS... in May, after reading a glowing review in USA Today Books (green with envy, of course). All unattractive fits of author-jealousy aside, I LOVE this book, and I am in full agreement with the basic tenets of the Slacker Wife. My favorites include:
-- Observations of The Visibility Factor in the ‘natural’ division of labor between men and women: He hangs a light fixture, "and it’s up there for everyone to see" and comment upon favorably.
"That sort of recognition is kind of a nice payoff for the person who hung the light fixture. Or planted the tree. Or built the fence. Or installed the new stereo. It would tend to make that person feel like they were valued and appreciated. That, I can only imagine, must be nice.
"But who’s there to say how well my husband’s clean underwear were folded?" (Or groceries re-supplied. Or everybody's clutter picked up. Or kitchen cleaned. Etc.)
-- The influence of advertising (from someone in the profession, as an advertising copywriter) on raising standards of cleanliness, organization and décor in our homes, and entertaining, among other things, to impossible standards, by which we have all been conned into judging ourselves--and we wonder why we come up lacking, and frazzled, every single time? Martha Stewart and women's magazines, that's why!
Muffy writes: "It seems like when it comes to all of these "women's" endeavors such as cooking, entertaining, and decorating, we're now supposed to adhere to performance standards that could only be achieved by outright professionals. So I shouldn't make an example of Martha Stewart, because making perfect pies from scratch, or more accurately, supervising a staff of people who make perfect pies from scratch, actually is her profession. The only thing I never liked about her is that she acts like I should do it too. The same way."
-- And what’s really important: How to raise happy, healthy, well-adjusted kids (common sense and DON’T DO EVERYTHING FOR THEM); How to slow down and enjoy life ("free time needs to be a higher priority"); and, last but not least, Ladies: "...maybe now that we’ve managed to such a great extent to liberate ourselves from men, we need to liberate ourselves from ourselves..." and slack off a bit.
Excellent advice--and fun reading. Enjoy!
TWO of Three Reviews This Week:
CONFESSIONS OF A SLACKER MOM
By Muffy Mead-Ferro
(Da Capo Lifelong Press, 2004)
On the whole, I tend to embrace the ideology of a Slacker Wife more than a Slacker Mom, but that could be because Muffy Mead-Ferro probably refined her writing style and grew as a wife, mother, and author in the year between the two books. CONFESSIONS OF A SLACKER MOM seems to dwell more in the homespun memoir narrative of Muffy’s life growing up on a cattle ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Although there are certainly some laugh-out-loud thoughts and anecdotes in SLACKER MOM, for all practical purposes, parenting tips and philosophies based on the good old days on the ranch don’t seem to apply as readily in modern-day reality--unfortunate, but true.
Still, highly enjoyable.
---
My friends at Da Capo Press were kind enough to send, along with my CONFESSIONS books, an Advance Reading Copy of a then-upcoming book for review (now available):
THREE of Three Reviews This Week:
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT:
The Secrets of Success From STAY-AT-WORK Moms
By Wendy Sachs
(Da Capo Life Long, May 2005)
I was excited to preview this title, assuming some kind of follow-on to the similarly-titled novel that caused such a best-selling sensation upon publication in 2002, I DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT by Allison Pearson. (See the Rebel Review here.) Turns out, HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT is a nonfiction work, not related to the novel.
I was still excited to have something for our WOHR’s--that’s Working Outside the Home Rebels (and I had no idea it would come out that way; let’s say “WORE” as in worn out, unless you appreciate the humor in other possibilities!)--our busy sisters with the added complication and choas in their lives of balancing it all with a job, a boss, and a commute too.
Author Wendy Sachs calls you STAY-AT-WORK Moms (SAWMs), and HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT is non-fiction, "real" life, based on profiles and interviews with celebrity and more "ordinary" Moms, women who, by choice or necessity, are proclaimed SAWMs.
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT is well-researched, with interesting statistics and personalities. For the most part, these are not your average Moms: Bobbi Brown, Ann Curry, Soledad O’Brien, Vera Wang, Governor Jane Swift... Even the "ordinary" Moms focus on upper middle class career women (doctors, lawyers, media professionals), predominantly in New York.
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT never comes around to really answering the question. At times, Wendy Sach’s personal quest to find the solution of having "at least some of it all--all of the time" (I’m still not sure I get that, either) is downright selfish, whiny, and condescending, further divisive among the acronymed ranks of Stay At Home Moms and Stay At Work Moms, for the most part ignoring the great in-between life of the Work At Home Moms.
HOW SHE REALLY DOES IT also ignores typical working women, the much larger statistic, who are trying to balance a JOB to provide for their families, versus finding self-fulfillment in a high-profile, and hard-to-leave-behind, career.
It is an interesting book, with important information and support for those SAWMs in a true career-quandary. Still I wonder: Why would working women shell out $20 for this book (paperback)? It is book-length format of standard magazine fare found weekly in WORKING WOMAN and other women’s magazines.
You could do worse by spending twenty bucks on a novel or two of escapist fiction--or humor!--to take your mind off the weary struggle, SAWM, SAHM, or WAHM.