I used to be a pothead. Before J. and I made the decision to conceive Bella, I smoked marijuana every single day, for over a year. After we’d made that decision, I quit, cold turkey. I let my system clear out for a few weeks and then we starting trying to have a baby. For years, I didn’t touch a stick, stem, leaf or seed of anything. But it damn sure wasn’t because it was wrong. I just wasn’t interested in doing it anymore.
I read a lot of mommy blogs, and I follow many mommies on Twitter. They are my community; I love them. I’ve come to find that really, the good ones? Are completely entertaining and relate-able and always give me something to think about or fawn over or smile because of. And it seems that right now, wine is all the rage.
“The kid is driving me insane with his tuba practicing! Ready for bed so I can break out the vino!”
“Baby’s finally down for the night. About time! I got a bottle of red waiting for me!”
“A glass of wine or two helps me sleep – better than any Ambien!”
“8pm!!! WINE TIME!!! Get your glasses out ladies! I’m sharing!”
“…and the day was so stressful that all I could think about during the parent teacher conference, as my son’s teacher raved about his excellent use of color in his rainbow drawings was the box of zinfandel in my fridge and how grand it would be when I could finally finish it off.”
Ok. That’s fine, right? Have your wine you gorgeous almost alcoholics – you deserve it. Parenting is a hard job.
But you know what really grinds my gears*? The fact that if I were to say something like:
“This day has been hell. The girls are in bed, and I’m heading outside to take a few hits off this blueberry kush that’s been begging me to light it up all day. Peace!”
These same perpetually bragging about being buzzed or tipsy or drunk women would turn their nose up, judge my parenting and wag their little fingers at the audacity I have to do that, let alone say it online.
BlogHer’s coming up. Let me ask you – how many of you have announced that you’ll be getting drunk as a skunk? And thinking I’m a total oddball for not partaking in the drinking? Mmhmm. Now, how many of you would think negatively of me if I said ‘don’t worry about me not being drunk – I’ll be high’? Mmmhmmm.
So, let me ask this question: what is the difference (besides the illogical and completely stupid illegality) between you drinking some fermented grapes and inhaling the fumes of a burning plant?
I’ll answer, it was rhetorical: there isn’t one. There is absolutely no difference. Not one. Not. One.
But, I have to say that the entire new culture of wine drinking moms annoys me. It’s like…a fad, you know? And it’s such crap. The whole 40′s housewife martinis and wine gag is just lame. A few years ago? There were no mommy blogs with titles that referred to drinking. Now, you’d be hard pressed to go through a blogroll and NOT find one. Because it’s…cool? I don’t fucking know, it’s something. There’s a reason why it seems every mom in the blogosphere drinks wine instead of beer, isn’t there? No one would call you a bad mom for saying you were having a corona, right? But yet, you rarely hear that. It’s always a glass of wine. I’m not the only one that picks up on the phoniness. I know it.
Now I realize that whole paragraph sounds pretty bitchy. I can’t help that. I’m not saying that if you are a blogger that happens to be known to be a drinker or anything that you’re a part of the fad or whatever – I’m just saying that there is one. And if you’re not a part of it, I’m sure you’ve noticed it, probably a lot more so than I do, since it rings the similarity bell, yes?
Where’d this whole blog post come from? Well, it came from a tweet I saw a few months ago (I’m slow, shush!) from someone blasting some woman she knew or didn’t know or whatever for smoking pot and basically called her mothering into question because of that ‘filthy habit’. This same woman tweeted pretty frequently about her fondness for red wine.
The hypocrisy, it boils my blood. The fact that one is so widely accepted and the other so widely rejected bothers me. And the fact that 1/2 of the issue it’s all just a guise, an effort to be ‘in’ is troublesome.
I’m not doing my best to get my point across right now, and I’m covering two different points that should be in two entirely different posts, probably, so I’ll just sum it up with this: I were to name my blog Beer Pong Champ Mommy or Marijuana Matriarch, I’d have fire and brimstone raining down upon me. Because that wouldn’t be very motherly. Or classy. Or…appropriate.
That’d be too much, too honest, too real, too not smoke and mirrors.
It’s all about perception.
And that’s just another way of saying it’s all about bullshitting.
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Listening to: James Morrison – Call The Police
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My head is about to pop off. Currently, it’s as swollen as the original Dora’s big ass cabeza. Moms are all in a friggin’ tizzy over a SHADOW. A fucking silhouette. Seriously folks?! Can we wait and see if she looks like a Bratz doll before we throw a fit? This is totally premature. It seems like people just want to claim FIRST?! in attacking what they don’t know anything about. Calm down folks! Can we reserve judgment after we see what she actually looks like?
