Elspeth had a post up the other day that had two great picture in it:
I have seen evidence that more women might be waking up, or simply not caring what feminism is telling them. Or, in this case, they listen but still show a yearning for what could be.
At first glance, Naomi and Stacie and Stephanie and Liz appear to be members of the species known as the “Hipster Mommy Blogger,” though perhaps a bit more cheerful and wholesome than most. They have bangs like Zooey Deschanel and closets full of cool vintage dresses. Their houses look like Anthropologie catalogs. Their kids look like Baby Gap models. Their husbands look like young graphic designers, all cute lumberjack shirts and square-framed glasses. They spend their days doing fun craft projects (vintage-y owl throw pillow! Recycled button earrings! Hand-stamped linen napkins!). They spend their weekends throwing big, whimsical dinner parties for their friends, all of whom have equally adorable kids and husbands . . .
Their lives are nothing like mine — I’m your standard-issue late-20-something childless overeducated atheist feminist — yet I’m completely obsessed with their blogs. On an average day, I’ll skim through a half-dozen Mormon blogs, looking at Polaroids of dogs in raincoats or kids in bow ties, reading gratitude lists, admiring sewing projects.
So why, exactly, are these blogs so fascinating to women like us — secular, childless women who may have never so much as baked a cupcake, let alone reupholstered our own ottomans with thrifted fabric and vintage grosgrain ribbon? It’s not as though we’re sniffing around the dark side of the faith, à la “Big Love.” And it’s not about religion. As someone married to a former Saint (my husband left the church as a teenager), I certainly have no illusions about what life as a Mormon would be like, and I’m sure it’s not for me, which makes my obsession with these blogs all the more startling.
Well, to use a word that makes me cringe, these blogs are weirdly “uplifting.” To read Mormon lifestyle blogs is to peer into a strange and fascinating world where the most fraught issues of modern living — marriage and child rearing — appear completely unproblematic. This seems practically subversive to someone like me, weaned on an endless media parade of fretful stories about “work-life balance” and soaring divorce rates and the perils of marrying too young/too old/too whatever. And don’t even get me started on the Mommy Blogs, which make parenthood seem like a vale of judgment and anxiety, full of words like “guilt” and “chaos” and “BPA-free” and “episiotomy.” Read enough of these, and you’ll be ready to remove your own ovaries with a butter knife.
“It seems that a lot of popular culture wants to portray marriage and motherhood as demeaning, restrictive or simple, but in the LDS church, motherhood is a very important job, and it’s treated with a lot of respect,” says Natalie Holbrook, the New York-based author of the popular blog Nat the Fat Rat. “Most of my readers are non-LDS women in their late 20s and early 30s, college educated, many earning secondary degrees on the postgraduate level, and a comment I often get is, ‘You are making me want kids, and I’ve never wanted kids!’”
Indeed, Mormon bloggers like Holbrook make marriage and motherhood seem, well, fun. Easy. Joyful. These women seem relaxed and untouched by cynicism. They throw elaborate astronaut-themed birthday parties for their kids and go on Sunday family drives to see the fall leaves change and get mani-pedis with their friends. They often have close, large extended families; moms and sisters are always dropping in to watch the kids or help out with cake decorating. Their lives seem adorable and old-fashioned and comforting.
Fun. Easy. Joyful.
While I have no illusions that marriage and motherhood are easy, these choices can be simple. Life as a mother and wife can be incredibly rewarding and feminine. It seems women might be waking up to this fact, that we don’t have to compete with men or with each other to find our own happiness and to make those around us happy as well.
Side Note: The linked picture with the girls showing their wedding rings has these comments below it:
~ We All Have Goals- why is an engagement more worth than a college degree?
~ I completely agree. This picture is very disappointing and depicts the future generations of this country. Its a shame to see how much perceptions about success and whats important have changed.
Success should be in the eye of the person achieving it (H/T Margery). Why should an engagement and marriage be worth less and who is being hurt by those women’s choice to be married young?
On the Rock 
“Why should an engagement and marriage be worth less and who is being hurt by those women’s choice to be married young?”
From the article you linked: “We kept the old male ideas of success: power and money.”
I love that she said this. Absolutely love it! Because it’s the truth and it’s one feminists just do not seem to get. “But we aren’t trying to be like men” Yes, yes you are. And Zosia calls it out right there. “We kept the old male ideas of success” Men didn’t gauge their success on marriage and children but more on what it took to procure, protect, and provide for those things. Now current society wants the latter version of success without even bothering with the marriage and family part of it- both men and women. And we all know, we’ve all had it engrained in us, that the male idea of success is an absolute necessity for women. It’s what “lean in” culture is all about. “Success” is our golden calf.
Great post!
The picture of the happy hotties who received their M.R.S. degree made me laugh aloud. I wish I’d had it several years ago, when trying to convince people of what my lying eyes kept telling me was more difficult.
Everything else I was going to say was said by Margery more eloquently than I was going to.
Grass is always greener and Blogs are not reality! They are a a facade.
If you think every woman posting likes playing dolls and having tea with her kid 24/7 you are drinking the mommy-fun cool-aid. How many of them had dreams of upholstering ottomans and imagined making 250K a year doing it?…HIs money is her money, right? How many of these young women are self-medicating to get thru the day? And then at that lovely dinner party, indulging in mind-numbing beverages to get through the evening.? Clean houses and gap babies don’t come with a closet full of luxury clothing but they might come with the inability to leave if said manly man is an ass. They come with too much trust and too little financial security should he decide to drive off the cliff in despair while coming home from his exhausting rat race job. YES< if one (the man or the woman) chooses to have and raise kids then one might need to go all-in and forgo some adult pleasures and mental stimulation to do it well because today's child-rearing needs are extreme and require the parent be the entire community for the child because society is not a good place to trust sending your little one to learn life skills and be raised by a village… SAHM is far different when compared to what you set forth as the ideal of the 40s/50s. If you think marriage and family is going to survive with a 40/50 mindset in this century then you are setting yourself up for some very empty headed women when modern day man trades them up because trophy wives are available and she's now a little saggy in the behind and has nothing grown up to say that gets him charged up mentally and physically and he realizes he isn't married to some hottie he watches on television or in his video games. Go ahead dream for this stepford wife kind of existence, but you are putting your dreams in the hands of men who are not on the same page as 40/50s men were and they don't want to be on that page either. I love the idea- but it is still an idea– ask any mom who used to take her kids to the beach with a little flask tucked in the pocket of her pretty little house dress– that was then. TOday, she brings a little pill case or she silently seethes inside as she watches him put more and more hours in to keep up appearances and she puts fewer and fewer life experiences into her greying little head…
Reblogged this on Reticent Mental Property and commented:
This is a reblog of some manosphere opinions that are getting some media attention lately. Essentially, there’s a large push to return women to traditional roles and a lot of perspective on just how and why it might be “good for women but we just don’t realize it.” Some of the posts (not necessarily by Stingray) and blogs supporting this are offensive and some of them are thought-provoking. Most of them want you to frame Feminism as a bad thing….some of them are misogynistic, some of them angry divorced dads who didn’t get child custody and paid child support for little father time with kids after a divorce. Some of the perspective implies men need to man-up so women can return to traditional roles. Some suggest women are taking over the jobs men need, etc. Interpret them as you wish, but look at them with awareness of the fears and dreams of those who write them just as you make your choices in life based on yours. Muah- Ret
@Reticent:
I actually don’t disagree with a bit of what you said here (namely about how extreme and isolating parenting has to be these days). But all-in-all you are watching us through a biased filter. Meaning, you have no idea what you are talking about. You obviously came here to disagree based on YOUR ideas of us and attacked those ideas. Honestly, this happens all the time. I am caught between a yawn and considering a response.
“Go ahead dream for this stepford wife kind of existence, but you are putting your dreams in the hands of men who are not on the same page as 40/50s men were and they don’t want to be on that page either.”
Oh, so you know our husbands? No, I didn’t think so. See, some men are more traditionally minded than others. Basically you, like most western women these days, are stuck in a cycle of misandry-lite. You don’t hate hate men but you sure loathe them. They’re good for nothing, right? They all are just going to cheat/rape/beat us/etc, am I right? Nope. #NotAllMen and all of that.
“TOday, she brings a little pill case or she silently seethes inside as she watches him put more and more hours in to keep up appearances and she puts fewer and fewer life experiences into her greying little head…”
Let’s see- I have had 5 kids, my pregnancies left me so ill my husband had to bathe me and help me in the bathroom at certain points. My body is shot in so many ways, I have gained weight, lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, rinse repeat. I have suffered from PPD and anxiety. I am 29 but have been through what most modern women get done with by 40… and guess what- I’m still married to the same guy that married me at 18. He still supports me, still loves me, still honors me. I get it, you need to reduce our marriages to fantasy. I get how uncomfortable the reality of women like us makes you and how absolutely terrified the reality of men like our husbands makes you. I know this is about you that this is for your own benefit but please, at least try to be intellectually honest and charitable.
The point isn’t that Mommy Blogs are the height of reality but that the half reality/half fantasy of them makes women swoon still. That says something whether or not you want to see it.
You are incredibly condescending to us. it’s obvious you think little of us and our choices. Fair enough. But do everyone a favor and at least admit to not supporting ALL women. BTW, your take on our lives? You stance on men? Your inability to accept that life is not always the way you think it is? Is why so many of us are against feminism. It’s full of utter BS like your comment. “You can’t be happy because…” No, let me stop you right there. The honest completion of that sentence is “because I don’t want you to be. Because your happiness messes with my world view. Because I have to convince myself I’m happy by convincing myself that you’re miserable.” Again, fair enough. Just as long as we are being honest.
And for crying out loud why does everyone assume that we want to return to the 50/60s? Sure, values and tradition and blah blah blah but we’re aware of the time we live in. It’s not that we want to destroy 2014 it’s that we want to find a way to live in 2014 without compromising our values and beliefs and, ya know, being happy.
Put down The Feminine Mystique and try thinking for yourself.
I know, I know, I’m serial posting but I forgot one thing
“If you think marriage and family is going to survive with a 40/50 mindset in this century “
Because marriage and family are totally surviving modernity, right? So glad the divorce rate is so low and kids are growing up in stable homes more so than ever.
Oh wait…
Because marriage and family are totally surviving modernity, right? So glad the divorce rate is so low and kids are growing up in stable homes more so than ever.
You beat me to the punch, Marge, 😉 .
Margery beat me. I just have a couple of things to add.
Grass is always greener and Blogs are not reality!
Of course. People don’t (shouldn’t) write all their trash online, it’s disrespectful and rude to the husband and family. Most people do realize that it’s an ideal and never going to be perfect.
They come with too much trust and too little financial security should he decide to drive off the cliff in despair while coming home from his exhausting rat race job.
This reeks of fear, but I am absolutely thrilled that you recognize how hard many men work at rat race jobs.
Go ahead dream for this stepford wife kind of existence,
Stepford wife. Robots . . . . No. We are about reality here and the reality is, my happiness is in my hands and I put my dreams there as well. Does my husband go to work everyday so that this dream may be real? Sure, but I chose to marry him just as he chose to marry me. This has become our dream that we work together. And I put my full trust in him with that dream and my life. He is my husband and he deserves that respect from me and I freely give it.
ask any mom who used to take her kids to the beach with a little flask tucked in the pocket of her pretty little house dress– that was then. TOday, she brings a little pill case or she silently seethes inside as she watches him put more and more hours in to keep up appearances and she puts fewer and fewer life experiences into her greying little head…
You sell women short. Yes, there are women like this and there were women like this. But we are responsible for our own happiness. It is a choice. These women who self medicate, they often blame others for their sadness and don’t try to learn to take control of it for themselves.
Also, I just want to leave this here, because it’s awesome.
Agree- self-medicating is no solution. And absolutely, men, no matter the job do work very hard, and largely, they work hard because they see this as showing their love by taking care of the family financially. What i find most concerning about the post is the suggestion that early marriage and quickly falling into childrearing roles deprives some females of the opportunity to develop skills, talents and life-experiences, it deprives some the financial security they may need should their loved one not love or pass away, etc. Women who have children reduce opportunity for growth and independence and flexibility and time, etc..It comes with the choice to have children I suppose. They need to know that not blindly fall into the role that has been handed down by grandma and now re-shaped as “simple” by this movement to return to traditional gender roles in a marriage (speaking only of m/f marriage here).
Margery! I’m one of the most understanding women of all times! You don’t have to be angry about conversation here…or imply I don’t know what I’m talking about. What if we consdier this,
“Maybe marriage isn’t what needs to exist/survive in today’s day. The divorce rate might be an indicator that it is an old construct and unsuitable.” BTW: I have been a SAHM since the beginning of time. Have a college degree. Had a career for pay, have a very intellectually stimulating life and work outside the home (for no pay)…I Have a loving husband, great kids, weather v.bad things together, etc so forth and so on…don’t attack me personally. Let’s Stick to the topic.
What i find most concerning about the post is the suggestion that early marriage and quickly falling into childrearing roles deprives some females of the opportunity to develop skills, talents and life-experiences
This begins with the premise that somehow women can’t develop skills, talents and life experiences as a wife and mother. Why do you assume this? Plenty of SAHM better themselves and have wonderful life experiences and they are able to do this with the people they love.
it deprives some the financial security they may need should their loved one not love or pass away, etc.
Most husbands do get life insurance and divorce does not leave women penniless.
Women who have children reduce opportunity for growth and independence and flexibility and time, etc..It comes with the choice to have children I suppose.
Yes. It is a choice and it doesn’t come with reduced opportunities. It comes with different opportunities. You are showing your hand in that it is clear that you believe these opportunities are somehow less. But, many SAHM’s and I don’t.
They need to know that not blindly fall into the role that has been handed down by grandma
Blindly. Again, why do you assume that so many have done this without thought? That we somehow can’t figure this stiff out on our own?
re-shaped as “simple” by this movement to return to traditional gender roles in a marriage
Simple, meaning not ornate. Not with all the bells and whistles. I said it wasn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be so complicated either.
WOW. Stingray- you are putting words in my mouth, jumping to conclusions, inserting defensiveness and generally treating me the way you feel I have treated you…Okay. I certainly do NOT feel welcome to come to coffee and have a laugh and learn more about this with you gals! Boo.
Perhaps this is the reason why the movement is not appealing to me. Those who are in it, and who love it, and who have made this choice require those who might want to explore why the heck any one would want to embrace this seemingly contrasting approach to go thru a battle to earn your trust. I get that. I don’t like it but I get it. You have a lot of trolls and a lot of years of the women’s movement to counter. How about pointing me to a book that best summarizes your position and I’ll get up to speed so I can frame my questions without using inflammatory language. No promises, but hey. What the heck. I love to learn.
Ask me whatever you wish. I’m not offended or defensive. I’m going by the words you chose.
Yes, you have to earn my trust. As you said, trolls are heavy. I will spend as much time with you answering your questions as I can. But you are going to give some, too. Drop the descriptors and just ask what you want to know.
I haven’t read the books that others have read, but I understand that The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands is very good as is The Surrendered Wife.
She is not putting words into your mouth. She is repeating – verbatim – the words you are saying. You mean the implications? Eh, you might not want to do the passive-aggressive dodge with Stingray, loading statements with phrases designed to evoke an emotion or thought process and then denying it. It’ll just get dissected like a biology class frog.
Maybe you don’t know you’re doing it. Maybe it’s so ingrained that anything outside the approved viewpoint never occurs to you, and the communication confusion is perfectly honest. Based on your last comment, that seems possible. If so, if you’re really astonished by all this, stick around. Even if you never agree with her point of view, at least it’ll make a certain sense. And if you can do the trick of disagreeing without letting emotion cloud things, everyone will gain by it. I say, give it a go.
There’s some hope-sortalike in the first pic. But I wouldn’t be me if the prospect of a woman who relishes the time with her man as the opportunity to “put on ugly clothes…and have sex” didn’t make me want to run.
An assumption is that she had the pretty clothes on at the party – dressed for everyone else. DH/DBF gets second rate. Blech.
Maybe it’s so ingrained that anything outside the approved viewpoint never occurs to you, and the communication confusion is perfectly honest.
This is what I’m hoping for, too, John. But I’ve been burned before. . .
javaloco,
I knew that would turn some people off, but I still liked the basic premise. So, I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt for getting the rest of it.
I know at least for me, I personally know at least half a dozen women my age and younger who have gotten married, and based on social media I can point to at least a dozen more. Women, at least around here, are still marrying young. One couple already has a baby on the way and they are thrilled.
One single woman keeps squawking that she’s happy being single, which she needs to reiterate in some form or another on a biweekly basis. Mostly with Buzzfeed articles.
These women all graduated from the same liberal college, where young marriage if discussed is actively discouraged. None of the married women fell into the role grandma modeled for them, not even me. Just because women choose something other than feminism and careerism doesn’t mean they aren’t choosing.
I need to add as a sidenote that obviously no one reads my blog, since I posted that first image months ago with a little commentary. However, your and Elspeth’s posts are much better, so I’m not upset at all.
@Reticent,
You’re deflecting. Stingray directly quoted you and I didn’t attack you. I would LOVE to have an intellectual conversation about all of this but you’re going to have to actually engage us instead of deflecting.
Link Alla! Sorry I missed it. My blog reading has been scaled drastically back.
That is good news about the girls near you and you’re right. They ARE choosing.
None of the married women fell into the role grandma modeled for them, not even me. Just because women choose something other than feminism and careerism doesn’t mean they aren’t choosing.
I had to stop and think about this one as my grandmother modeled the more traditional role. I forget that I’m old sometimes. 😉
@StingRay…. Yes, can’t have everything.
“None of the married women fell into the role grandma modeled for them, not even me. Just because women choose something other than feminism and careerism doesn’t mean they aren’t choosing.”
I love the bolded, Alla! That is exactly it. And, what’s more, deciding that one way equates to choice and another doesn’t actually robs people of choice. How many women feel being a wife and mother is not an option because they were told it wasn’t a viable one? Can we really say career women are making a choice in a society that tells them that is the ideal/only choice if they want to be good women fighting the good fight? I highly doubt in this day and age that the real concern over choice is whether women are falling into traditional gender roles simply because traditional gender roles are no longer the societal default.
Anecdote: I did chose what my grandmother did when I chose to be an overbearing shrew. My grandmother worked and treated my grandfather like a child. So, ya know, pretty standard for today’s woman. I rejected that. Women around my age were not raised with the traditional model, at least not where I grew up. We were raised with the feminist model. I have zero friends in my “real” life that live like I do.
This woman also rejected that model http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rebeccafrech/2014/09/my-feminist-mom-marriage-and-me.html
Okay! Ouch! Geeeeez.
@ alla:
I do read your blog from time to time but I did miss your posting of that image. I think the one with the women flashing their rings is what is evoking the more visceral responses, though.
I too made note of the “ugly clothes” reference but like Stingray decided that the good in the quote far outweighed the bad. Sometimes you do come home, take off all the layers of *stuff*, throw on one of his t-shirts, and get comfy. And still have a really great time together.
This is marriage, not dating after all. It’s not like he isn’t also stripping down to his wife beater, LOL.
Margery: “I love that she said this. Absolutely love it! Because it’s the truth and it’s one feminists just do not seem to get. “But we aren’t trying to be like men” Yes, yes you are.”
====================//*^*\\====================
Preach! And the sad fact the many of them don’t learn for many years is that they will never be as good at being men as MEN are being men. Then they figure out that the company isn’t going to love them back. Then the desperation sets it.
À bientôt,
Mistral
I don’t understand why comfortable clothes have to be ugly. I mean, some are, but I like to find stuff that’s comfy AND cute when I can. Soft t-shirts in a ladies cut so that they have some cling (without being tight) are comfy and cute, and usually good for showing off your boobs to the hubs too. 😛 And my “pajama pants” are mostly yoga pants – comfy and cute. Not. Hard.
And I want to second (third? Fourth?)
*Sorry, somehow my comment got clipped. Musta ctrl+Z’d when I shoulda Ctrl+C….
I want to second those who opine that our hostess has not been in the least defensive. A little armchair psychologizing here, but it seems to me the Reticent one is projecting a bit. The lady doth protest too much, and all.
The truth is, life is inherently dangerous. The only guarantee we have coming into this world is that one day we will come out of it. We can spend our lives frantically trying to control everything and prepare for every eventuality, to be good (enough) at everything “just in case”, or we can accept that there’s only so much any one of us can do. We can hitch our wagon to another traveler’s cart and pull together. Even if something happens to their cart, the journey will have been easier and better for the time spent together, than trying to do it all yourself. Ideally, you ought to be learning a little by watching the other do, and, as Stingray pointed out, life insurance and alimony will smooth most transitions. Of course, it used to be your family, community, and the Church would help you out, but that fostered too much a sense of gratitude and indebtedness. And that would be trusting too many other people, letting things too much out of your control. Wouldn’t it now?
@Margery
Traditionalism is not to be faithful to past forms and institutions but rather the principles of which that forms and traditions arise that are adequate for a specific period of time and in a specific geographical area.
Although the expressions are different the seed is the same.
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I really doubt the idea that “power and money” are the true male measures of success.