Looking Like a Mother
You find it on many mom blogs--some kind of admonition that all of us moms (especially if we are religious and have more than two children) get our acts together and go out in public not looking too “weird”. We should dress stylishly, put on some make up, do something with our hair. This is framed as some kind of evangelization tool. Which is crap. It’s just the same old woman on woman shaming. It’s especially bad when this line of thinking is presented as an act of charity for those “who have to look at you.” When this comes from other mothers of big families, it’s just intolerable cruelty. I don’t know about any other women, but when I look like a wreck, it’s not because I want to. It’s because there’s some kind of crisis--teething baby, sick kid, husband working unexpectedly meaning solo parenting--all or any of which could combine to create a back up in the laundry or just suck up any time I was counting on to make myself presentable. The last thing I need in those m...