James Lileks: What does mom want?
James Lileks, Star Tribune
May 8, 2005 LIL0508
I've been watching a lot of classic gangster movies lately, and they all have the same archetype: Ma. She sits at home and wrings her hands, hoping that Sonny / Rico / the Kid / Killer Malloy will call soon, because he's a good boy. They only call him "Killer" because people keep walking in front of his bullets, I'm sure.
The basic Ma is about 5 feet tall, 4 feet wide, made entirely of potatoes, and topped with a dusty bun of gray hair. She spends her life between the kitchen, where she's-a makin' the pie-a the way you-a like-a, and the parlor, where she cries. The most notable thing about Ma: Either she had her boy at the age of 50, or hard-luck life has aged her so fast that she went directly from dewy maidenhood to post-menopausal frumptitude without pause.
That was the idea of motherhood in the Olden Days: someone soft and cooing, ancient, sedentary, worried, and built like a bank vault.
This changed after World War II, when the popular idea of Ma got a glamour upgrade. Now we had Mother, who vacuum-cleaned in pearls and high heels. The '60s gave us chirpy-birds like Florence Henderson of "The Brady Bunch" -- she seemed less a mother than a robotic maternal surrogate that NASA was testing; for all we know she spent the afternoons in a regeneration booth in the basement, charging up.
"All in the Family" had a pure old-style Ma in the form of Edith Bunker, albeit a rather jumped-up jittery version, but the '70s mostly saw Plucky Spunky Moms raising feisty kids against the odds. The '80s: SuperMoms. The '90s: Don't know; I stopped watching TV around then, except for "The X-Files." To me, the archetype was single moms having alien babies, but that may not square with reality. (We'll know in 20 years when they start assuming positions of authority.)
From what I read now, the current archetype for the modern U.S. mom is the Desperate Overachieving Brood-Wrangler who quizzes her kids with Spanish-language flash cards with one hand while making paella with the other, and has a Swiffer sheet between her toes so she can get some dusting done while getting the kids ready for water-ballet class -- oh, and don't forget to play the "Stage Lighting for Opera Made Easy" tape on the way to the "Y," for the unborn baby.
Oh, if only your husband helped out. The other night you dreamed he did the laundry, and it was wonderful. Of course, he didn't separate the whites from the bright colors, and he used the WARM temp. No, the soap goes in afterwards, hon -- what are you doing? The Bounce sheet goes in the dryer, not the washer. Oh, what's the point, I'll do it.
You woke and glared at him for a while. Look at him. Dreaming of a hamburger, no doubt. In a spaceship. Launched from Cape Hooters.
Brute.
While I'm sure this archetype exists, just as the others did, I think the number of moms who live in this sort of pampered hell are few, and most inhabitants of the demographic have chosen to live there.
(Before you send the angry letters: I am the Mon-Fri on-deck parent in our family; I get Child ready for her day, take her to school, choir, swimming, archery, etc., and I do the meals and cleaning and put up the preserves and slop the hogs, so back off, sister.)
Most moms love modern momhood for its opportunities and joys, and the idea that they all exist in a state of weary despair does them a disservice. So what to give these marvelous women for their day?
Why, a DIA technology DVD Dream System DAV-LF1 system from Sony, of course. At least that's what the ad insert in last Sunday's paper suggested. The circular had all sorts of interesting gadgets for moms -- most of which, I suspect, appeal more to toy-hungry dads itching for wireless surround-sound systems.
What intrigued me about the ad was the archetype of Mom we have for the 21st century. There's a picture of a laughing young woman who looks about 29 -- jean jacket, plain white T-shirt, long blond hair, that sort of clean-cut effortlessly fabulous woman who a) has it all together and b) exists in the real world in quantities of fewer than three dozen, and even then requires a vast support staff whose Social Security and immigration status best not be examined too closely. The copy tells us more about her:
"Toured with the band for six weeks. Carried twins for nine months. Somehow flowers just don't seem appropriate."
Excuse me? Toured WITH the band? If she played an instrument, she would have toured IN a band, but to say she toured with the band suggests she slept with everyone, including the drummer. "Carried twins for nine months." Right after her stint with the band, eh. Here's little Mick and little Keith.
My point? From the Ma to the Mother to the Mom, the basic maternal archetype is getting younger, hipper, smarter and more stressed; by 2015, she will be a 17-year-old nuclear physicist/fashion designer who breastfeeds twins while sketching designs for the new plutonium containment facility. But whatever the archetype, she'll still want the same thing for Mother's Day. It's the one thing she never asks for; the one thing you stopped giving her enough of when you hit adolescence; the one thing that's in short supply, the one thing you can provide in boundless quantities. The one thing you can't wrap and can't mail and can't find on Amazon. Time with you.
This means you, Killer. Ma's waiting. |
