SuperMom is Dead, Adage Reports
October 30, 2007 by Tracee Sioux
Filed under Parenting
Adage says Supermom is dead. They are advising advertisers to stop putting Supermom in ads because the rest of us - so so parents keeping slightly cluttered house – hate her.
Former Letterman writer Jill Besnoy is at the front of the anti-perfection brigade. She created the website Honest Baby, where she sells baby products designed to put perfection in its place.
“Not sleeping through the night,” reads one of the tiny T-shirts she created. “10th percentile,” announces yet another tee, as radical as the old “Black is Beautiful.” By proudly embracing the wee one’s smallness compared with 90% of other babies, it crushes any comparisons crazed supermoms are aching to make. . . .
Today’s moms look at that hyper-intensity and cringe. That’s not what parenting is about for them (unless they love sewing). While parents will always compare and compete, now it’s a race to see who’s the most easygoing about their imperfect house, so-so parenting skills and average kids.
Finally something I can win at. Imperfection.
This is kind of silly, but that’s why, for the longest time, I refused to use Aveeno lotion. The woman in their ad reminded me of the most annoying overachieving super-mom types I’d met. And then I bought some because it was on sale and discovered it did wonders for my stretch marks. Just goes to show how influenced I can be by advertising!
I’m so influenced by advertising that I took a lower interest rate on my savings because ING’s Orange Dot makes me happy. Now that’s silly. Hating SuperMom – that’s just sane.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a real Supermom. I know women who work, raise children, attend school functions, whatever, but they all claim to feel unbalanced or inadequate in some way. Some people have labeled me a Supermom but I have my own inadequacies, just as everyone else does. I think Supermom is another fiction created by writers or publishers who have nothing better to talk about. Their motivation? I don’t know, but the result is always to make many of us feel bad.
I hear what you’re saying FeeFiFoto. When I sit down and really talk with these SuperMoms I always find some interesting price they are paying like that they sob every night through dinner or that they hate themselves and their life or something.
I know some women who try to look like SuperMom but it’s always at a price I don’t think is worth paying.