The Heusens

I've been afraid of the Mommy Mafia since becoming a parent. I've heard horror stories about "those" moms who thrive off of competing against one another in a Stepfordish, overly cheery, sick way. I've met a few. But, until yesterday, I'd largely avoided this demographic - partly due to dumb luck, partly because I'm too awkward to be "in" with the Stepford crowd, partly because I'm too busy to join one of those mom groups, and wholly because I'd resolved to stay away from mom groups. No pre-natal yoga, post-natal "mommy & me yoga" and certainly no mothers' support groups for me.

Let me tell you what happened yesterday. I took Saya to the park behind our house and I noticed that it was really, really crowded with a ton of women (absolutely no men at all) and kids. As I got closer, I noticed that the groups of women were entirely, perfectly segregated by color. The second I saw this, I started thinking what a great blog post this would make. So I started doing counts/statistics in my head.

There were exactly 16 non-child females in the park. 10 were white women. All 10 white women were clustered in a little circle. Ahhh, the mommy mafia. The remaining women were all women of color and were scattered around the park, either alone or in twosomes - a few were probably moms and a few were obviously nannies (either that, or they happened to adopt white kids). I was amazed at the perfect segregation and how icky stereotypical the scene looked - almost like a spoof on life in suburbia or something. I gritted my teeth and thought, "Well, this is good practice for Indiana!" I plunged in with Saya. I clearly didn't fit with any group but ended up sitting quite close to the mommy mafia because they were clustered near the infant swings.

The mommy mafia generally ignored their kids (including the sad looking one-year old boy sitting in Saya's adjacent swing who was ignored by his mom for about twenty minutes while he called "mamamamama!" all pathetically). I put my blogger statistics glasses on, and here is what I observed:

10 out of 10 mommy mafiosas wearing sunglasses
10 out of 10 mommy mafiosas wearing either designer jeans or yoga pants
7 out of 10 mommy mafiosas were blonde
2 little boys named Aiden

I think about names a lot, in part because of Steve Levitt's research on the intersections among names, race and class. If you haven't read Freakonomics (I haven't, but I've read his papers on names), he argues that families actually name their children fairly predictably, according to race, class and education. I saw him give a talk once on campus, where someone brought up the point that people with identifiably non-white names are systematically discriminated against in the job market, and asked why parents wouldn't just name their kids rationally (i.e., by giving their kids as white a name as possible) in order to encourage their later job market outcomes. Levitt said that, to a lot of parents, giving their children non-white names instilled their kids with a sense of ethnic identity - and even community obligation - and that this was a choice that parents made consciously, often with awareness of the negative tradeoffs.

I can totally relate to this. Part of why we chose Saya's name was because we wanted her to have an identifiably ethnic name, especially because her last name is German. Yes, it may be difficult for people to pronounce. And yes, it will likely identify her as a person of color in many future roll-calls and job applications. And, trust me, I fully understand the implications for future labor market outcomes. But I chose to give my baby an ethnic name because I want her to grow up with a concrete reminder that her ethnicity is something to be celebrated and acknowledged, and is something beautiful and different, rather than a liability that needs to be covered up a.s.a.p. by naming her any one of the popular high-income white girl names.

Anyway...sorry for the long digression. The point is that every single one of these kids had a TOTALLY predictable snooty, upper-class white kid name. One kid was named Mills, another was named Bennett, and another kid had the two-name thing going on (it was "Arthur Michael" or something like that). There was a Madeline (I mean, how could there not be?!) and TWO FREAKING AIDENS! Sheesh. Every time I heard one of the moms call for their kid, I kind of felt like smirking. I don't dislike the names per se, but I seriously felt like I was participating in an SNL parody.

I loved overhearing the conversation about the "thought-provoking" art exhibit at some local museum (Thought provoking how? That part wasn't covered.) And I loved how one woman holding a little girl said (a little too loudly and too brightly, in my opinion): "I'm SO GLAD So-and-So FINALLY HAD A BABY GIRL AFTER TRYING FOR SOOO LONG! IT MUST HAVE BEEN HEARTBREAKING FOR HER TO NOT HAVE A BABY GIRL WHEN SHE WANTED ONE SOOO BADLY!!!" (Umm, ugh.) And I loved how one woman lamented about breaking her diet by eating a candy bar, while a stick-thin mom replied - completely seriously - "It's okay, God will forgive you." (Whaaa?!) And then the dieting mom - completely seriously - hung her head and said "I know" in this ashamed little voice. What the heck!?

The coup de grace was hearing each woman recite - one after another - what they were planning to cook for dinner that night, each while trying to act nonchalant. When asked what she was making for dinner, one mom replied, "Oh, just a little grilled chicken I started marinating last night, and some grilled organic vegetables. Nothing special." Then the disingenuous replies: "Oooh, maybe we should all be having dinner at YOUR house tonight!" And the fakey, bright smiles. I was seriously holding back rolling my eyes. I fantasized about what their response would be if I interrupted their little convo to let them know that I felt some bile creeping its way up my little half-Asian esophagus.

The best part about all of this was that the other (non-white) women on the playground and I traded more than a few surreptitious smiles in response to some of the more ridiculous comments made by the Mommy Mafia. At least I felt like we all agreed that we were watching Keeping Up With the Joneses unfold in front of us.

So, I know I sound really judgmental in this post. Here's my breakdown of the situation. I can't really judge someone based on their taste for designer jeans or sunglasses. I mean, I love sunglasses, and I love designer jeans. It's amazing how paying an extra $100 on denim makes me feel 1,000 times better about my pancake butt. And, it's not like I never have shallow conversations. In fact, I have THE SHALLOWEST conversations. Just today I forced Marsha to look at this website to give me advice on whether I should get a platinum Posh Spice bob (I'm thinking...yes).

And I have to chastise myself. While I was on the playground, I kept thinking smugly to myself that I am a "smart" mom and that's why I'm not part of the small-minded mafia. I was sure they would respond with blank stares if I asked them for their opinions on how badly the administration is f-ing up the TARP program. But...in fairness, I'm sure most (if not all) of them are probably decently intelligent women who have full and interesting lives in their own right, but just aren't in the type of social situation that would allow them to exhibit that. Who knows? Maybe I would've gotten a decent response to the TARP question. And maybe they were looking at me, thinking smugly to themselves "Yup, I remember when I was an inexperienced neophyte and thought I was too good for these conversations too. She'll just have to wait and see that these conversations are a fact of life." If they thought of me at all, that is.

I guess the reason why I am so judgmental has to do with the racial segregation. And maybe that's my own problem. I know we self-segregate for any number of reasons. And I know the women probably weren't consciously deciding to only hang out with other white women. And I know it's easiest to hang out with people who are similar to ourselves. I get that. But I couldn't shake the feeling - based on the conversations, body language, everything - that these women felt entitled to be there, and felt like they were part of an exclusive, elite group. They acted like they owned the place, and in some ways, the rest of us reflected that back to them, through our own uncomfortable, nervous sidelong smiles. I feel like so much of the subtle racial tensions in the U.S. play out like this.

So...you tell me. Am I judgmental? A reverse racist? Or right on the money? (Or (d) All of the above?)

Posted by Ashlyn on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 at 9:29 PM | Permalink