When Bad is Hip: Thoughts from The Motherlode Conference

The 10th annual ARM (Association for Research in Mothering) conference, aptly named "The Motherlode: A Complete Celebration of Motherhood" was held last month in Toronto.

The National Post ran a front page article about the conference titled "Doting or hip, mothers face tough expectations." In the article, journalist Anne Marie Owens writes:

[...]"[Andrea O'Reilly, founder of the Association for Research on Mothering at Toronto's York University] and the conference organizer, became a mother more than 20 years ago, when it was difficult to find any of the one or two one books that dealt with the topic. Now, she said at the conference, searching the words Motherhood/Mothering/Mothers on Google will turn up 438,000 hits, the phrase mommy lit returns 33,400 entries, and there are an estimated 8,500 parenting blogs to which new mothers can turn.

She worries that most of this material reflects a "new mom-ism" slant that undercuts the real needs of most women - that by looking at how difficult and tiring, yet necessary, it is to do the work at home, nobody is really talking about their real needs for daycare or family-friendly work requirements any more.

In attendance at the conference were a number of writers and bloggers, including Jen Lawrence of MUBAR and Amy Tiemann of Mojo Mom and author of the book "Mojo Mom: Nurturing Your Self While Raising A Family." Of the conference, she writes:

"It is powerful to have these motherhood researchers and advocates actually gather in one place. We so often work on our own, connected only by the bonds we can form over the internet. I feel like we'll get a year's worth of work (not to mention blogging and podcasting ideas) done in four days."

Her Bad Mother went to the conference to give a presentation on how "ancient and modern political philosophers have shaped our understanding of motherhood and the role of mothers in the public sphere." She had a slightly different reaction to the conference and writes:

"I was a little surprise by my reaction to the Motherlode conference, which was a wonderful conference, full to bursting with interesting women and great ideas, but which also provoked in me a powerful desire to shout contrary opinions. Not because I fundamentally disagreed with the principles of the conference or the ideas being bandied about there, but, rather, because I was recoiling from some vague but powerful feeling of being expected to conform."

Her full post is here. I'll let you read it to find out what exactly bothered her.

At the conference, blogger and author Andi Buchanan of Mother Shock gave a talk on "The Escalation of Cool." Andi's talk focused on the current trend in published memoirs written by mothers to focus on the cool and hip. She calls it the "I used to shoot heroin! Now I'm a mom! It's boring! I wish I was drunk!" genre of memoir:

"But my point is that this dark side -- playing up insanity, drugs, and alcohol as things that have been for whatever reason not associated with progressive parenthood -- is quickly becoming de rigueur. And I'm wondering several things. What does this do to the publishing landscape, where to publish a book of writing about motherhood you have to have some kind of hard edge, a hook, which means either slamming women or being somehow above the work of motherhood (or in the case of Caitlin Flanagan, doing both!). What does this mean for mothers who don't have this kind of "cool," "hip" experience -- or whose actual experience of addiction and depression is not glamorous and trendy -- and aren't they as excluded from the landscape as others were when there was a similarly non-diverse lens aimed at motherhood? And what does this say about the scarcity of our options when it comes to being a good mother?"

Toronto Star reporter Andrea Gordon of Because I Said So went to the conference and writes of Andi's presentation:

"Whining about motherhood sells. So does sniping. That's why books and newspapers fan the flames. They've done it with the increasingly irrelevant mommy wars between at-home and working moms (See Linda Hirshman, Caitlin Flanagan's To Hell With All That, Judith Morgan Steiner's Mommy Wars, and Happy Housewives by Darla Shine). And now they're doing it with drinking, partying, naughty and unhappy mommies.

Why should we care? Because by polarizing mothers and turning them into cartoon characters, the authentic stories of the majority who fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum get lost."

Elen Tajo of UnMartyred Mom loved the conference but didn't necessarily agree with Andi's definition of cool mom:

"Oh no! I want to be cool, I really do. But I’m not trying to constrict anyone else. I just want to be free of the cultural ideal of self-sacrifice. Do we really have to constrict ourselves to fit an image? I really believe that if we are living a satisfying life, we don’t have to judge others or measure ourselves against standards."

In the spirit of blogging democracy, they provide a give and take on the issue on Andi's blog.

Meanwhile, blogger Tearfree of Reject the Koolaid agrees with at least some of Andi's presentation:

"Tearfree has commented on the ridiculousness of the whole cool mommy (Or cool mama, cool mommy -- and yes, this is for the search engines) phenomenon before. She finds the whole badass, trash talking Mummy Blogger schtick totally laughable and conformist. So, up until that point she's with Buchanan who offers some interesting insights."

Within the Blogoshpere, Andi's presentation certainly provoked some interesting discussion. And most blogging about the conference confirmed it provided attendees with a space to exchange thought-provoking ideas about modern day motherhood, social change, and mothering.

For more information about the conference, visit the ARM website.
---

BlogHer Contributing Editor Mary Tsao also blogs at Mom Writes.

Image credit: Association for Research in Mothering.