July 24, 2005

Alpha Mom (The Martha Stewart of Parenting). With the right planning, resources, and work ethic, you can, too, be a perfect and fulfilled woman, raising a perfect and happy child. "It’s not like everyone doesn’t want the best for their child, but to me, it seems people these days have a more professional attitude toward raising their children. A lot of it is very intellectually thought-out and very scheduled, almost like they have a business plan for their children.” Isabel.... would later describe the typical member of this breed as, “you know, the maven of mommyhood, the leader of the pack.... Definitely dominant." (via a little pregnant)
posted by Melinika 19 years ago
  • Believe me, I am trying. But this dick keeps on getting in the way.
  • Uh... This woman hires a "village" to take care of her son, claims control over everything in her life (including husband), works 100 hour days, talks like a Hollywood cliche of the high-flying executive ("have your people call my people" type), and she's supposed to be the paragon of motherhood? Whaaa-? How's she different from the upper class Victorian era woman who has a whole entourage of servants, except for the self-help books and technology? I was almost physically nauseaous at certain points of the article.
  • YUCK.
  • Hurl.
  • Honestly, as much as my wife and I miss NYC (and we miss it A LOT), the bars, the restaurants and the fun... on balance, we're so much happier since we moved to Connecticut to start our family, mostly just to not have to share resources or otherwise have to deal with people like this.
  • "It takes a village." ...when Ryland was rejected from the Harvard of 2-year-old programs *grinds teeth*
  • Sad, sad, sad... If anyone was an "Alpha mom," it was my mom! Somehow she managed to raise three kids (without any fuckin' nannies), work full-time, and get a college degree on her own. She didn't bow out when she had to rely on food stamps, nor did she complain after days/weeks/months of getting no rest. One year before her planned retirement, she has taken custody of her step-granddaughter, who's blood family basically cast her away. She's about to raise another child on her own, and she does it without hesitation. That's what I call inspirational. This "alpha mom" on the other hand, she makes me want to blow goblin chunks. I'm sure little "Ry-Ry" will be a model citizen, I'm also sure he'll be one of those annoying little "golden kids" who you secretly want to grab by the throat and strangle all life from...
  • Straw mom. Isn't it obvious to anyone else that the article is set up to make you hate her? I didnt read it, but the Martha Stewart reference in the subtitle is a dead give-away...
  • ))) for sugarmilktea's mom. )))  for isabel kallman.
  • Maybe, instead of hiring a bunch of people, if her husband, the child's father, seemed to be involved, then it wouldn't be so hard... While it was just an article, the father doesn't seem to have ANY role in raising the kid. If she is such an Alpha mom, then why the hell doesn't she say, "Dude, this kid is half yours. You need to be raising him as much as I am." (Of course since she sheems to have hired 3 people to take care of the kid, I guess he is raising her as much as she is...) Then, of course, this woman seems like the LAST person who should be starting a network about how to be a good mom. How to raise a spoiled brat is mor elike it...
  • I read the first line or two, started hearing an SS choir..Shit the bed...
  • Well, I like Martha, and this article still made we want to climb the clock tower and start shooting.
  • Isn't it obvious to anyone else that the article is set up to make you hate her? Not necessarily. For every ten people who were disgusted by this article, there may have been one or two New Yorkers that were inspired by this woman's example. These people do exist, unfortunately.
  • Seems obvious to me that this is just a load of marketing bollocks. Self-apotheosis. Nauseating, indeed, and not a very healthy environment for Baby.
  • jccalhoun: I got the impression that it doesn't really matter whether he'd prefer to crack back on the hours at work, stop spending all their money on hiring minders, and raise the kid. He probably just does what he's told.
  • Another vote for vomit-inducing. This woman is not psychologically healthy.
  • Poor kid. Articles like these make me less frightened about someday raising my own spawn. I cannot possibly be that bad of a parent.
  • Also, I have to call my mom and thank her for not being like this.
  • poor ryland... his "alpha mom" is a sociopathic, gullible, and unbelievably shallow woman, and his ("alpha"?) dad seems apathetic and henpecked. i suppose it's a good thing that they aren't actually raising him, themselves. also, are they really going to call it "alpha mom tv"? not only is that incredibly offensive (sexist + reinforcing antiquated gender norms), it demonstrates this woman's half-baked, myopic business sense... alienating a sizable chunk of your targetted demographic. and like a snake eating its tail... it is quite fitting that a yuppie marketing exec should swallow all the bullshit sold to her by the 'baby industry'. for new parents or anyone interested, i recommend picking up Einstein Never Used Flash Cards: How Our Children Really Learn-- And Why They Need to Play More and Memorize Less next time you're at the library.
  • What self-centered losers. In my opinion, random people, conceived and delvered according to nature, who are raised with love, consistency and the occasional family crisis, are always the best-adjusted. The children here are engineered. These "families" are constructs, arcade games that will collapse the instant something substantial is hurled into them.
  • Child-rearing is “an endless amount of work, but I wouldn’t call it a burden,” she says. Isabel enjoys laughing with Ryland, putting him to sleep at night, getting him out of the crib in the morning, “and he goes, ‘Yippee!’—how great is that?” Much of the rest she leaves to the village. BARF. Also - when the dad does stand up to his wife, it's to complain that the kid's the centre of the universe now, and that he's not king of the castle anymore. Bitch, please. I mean, I fully agree with the idea that parenting is about finding a balance between yourself and the child - I'm not at all fond of the style of parenting that means you suddenly lose all sense of self and have to live for the child - but, well, bitch, please. Er, that said, thanks for what was a nauseating, but interesting, read, Nika.
  • To hell with the mother, I just feel sorry for the poor kid when he encounters the real world.
  • Wait till he's a teenager and has to read the crap she wrote/writes about him.
  • Anyone else get the feeling this woman's a cokehead?
  • Would I be right in assuming that Isabel won't be on our Christmas card list then?
  • Anyone else get the feeling this woman's a cokehead? it crossed my mind, yes.
  • look for exciting newspaper headlines featuring them both in 14-16 years!
  • The tone of the article implied to me that the writer thought she was kind of lame; it seems to poke fun at her a little. I told my midwife about the article yesterday and she said she knows a mother whose ten-year-old had a nervous breakdown because she had him in so many extracurricular activities that he literally had no time to relax or be a normal kid.
  • Oh, I taught a kid like that. His mom was a doctor and had his whole week scheduled to within fifteen minutes. He never had more than ten minutes alone, to himself. And he spent his days out of school in his mom's clinic. Poor kid, he was almost literally crawling the walls. I spent my "tuition time" playing educational games with him instead; bought playing cards, stickers and stuff with my own money to give him. The mom was keen on getting me back the next year, but never called. I have a feeling she found out I wasn't "teaching" him much.