THAT’S NOT OKAY
By Erin Riley
Raising kids. It’s a mother of a job.
“That is not okay,” is the phrase for every mom trying to gently break it to her kids that they are ruining her life.
“That is not okay,” is what said mom thinks when she sees how far she’s drifted from shore. No land in sight.
“That’s Not Okay” is a webisode about a mom at the crossroads of (gag) middle age.
Susannah Dawson is a 33 year-old, SFV-living, SUV-driving, stay-at-home mom far from shore. She’s an anonymous blogger spilling the beans on her celebrity husband and her two children all over the Internet. And most important to our purposes, she’s BFF to three other stay-at-home moms: Annie (the difficult wild child), Candice (the smart, sexy one) and Meg (the perfect mother) all trying to keep it real.
Keeping it real is important.
Motherhood has been up on that pedestal for too long. It’s romanticized and criticized and homogenized.
But no more.
This is not your mother’s show on motherhood.
These moms were raised on the urban legend of bra burning as well as the promise of a new deal for women sponsored by Feminism. They graduated from college, went to grad school, moved across the country to L.A. where they became well respected in their field. They fell in love and married great men. Great men! Then they got pregnant. How wonderful. So…unexpected. But so wonderful!
This show is part blog, part best friend. You're along for the ride.
You're knocked up. You're a breeder. Congratulations!
Without warning, your body becomes public property to well-meaning strangers who will pet you without asking.
And be warned: while pregnant and hereafter, your every parenting decision is open to scrutiny and judgment. Watch out especially for the prior generation. Hint: They think they nailed it.
You start to lose your brain. Literally.
You put down your reading group novel to read “What To Expect When You’re Expecting,” also known as ‘You’re Kid Is Going To Catch Something Horrible and Die.’
And yeah, it was probably that glass of Chardonnay you had, but whatever.
Pregnancy is called expecting. Expecting what exactly?
Expecting equal pay for equal work in your own household?
Think again.
Expecting to have great sex after the baby? Oh, baby. Expecting to have any sex after the baby? Come on.
Do you expect to have some time to yourself ever again? Do you expect you’ll recognize yourself in the mirror post-baby birth?
Let me tell it to you straight. Here’s “What You Didn’t Expect and Why Didn’t Anyone Fucking Tell Me?”
Each pregnancy ages you an extra seven years.
Your feet will grow an entire shoe size and they don’t, like, go back.
The skin on your stomach will never look normal. Forget about it. It will look like a torn-up box of tissues. Like oil shimmering in a pan before it burns. Forever.
That’s not okay, you say?
Listen.
Your vagajay might need stitches. STITCHES. It will not look normal after baby/miracle but it does recover a bit over time. Free advice: Don’t bother looking at if for a while and do NOT ask your husband to look to see “if it’s alright.” It is not all right and he does not want to see it.
And someday that baby you love and nurture and live for will learn to talk. And she will look at you with those eyes that are your eyes and she’ll say, “I hate you. You are ruining my life.”
In closing, say bye-bye to your dignity and social standing. You’re now a non-person. You don’t get Social Security or contribute to the GNP.
You’ve chosen to “opt out.”
You’re a stay-at-home mom at the opening of the 21st century. An enigma. Like that old-school telephone ring on the iPhone of life. You’re retro, baby-maker. A throwback.
Now what? The kids are growing up, going to school. You have a little more time on your hands. You see your friends going through it. You feel it. Ch-ch-ch-changes. You have a standing 5pm glass of wine/phone call with your girls while you "make dinner" and you ask each other: WTF?
Regrets? Yeah I've had a few.
Well, what now?
I mean, you’re not a housewife, are you?
And in the immortal words of the bagger at Trader Joe's: "So...you're a stay-at-home mom. What do you do all day?"
Let me show you.
