MOTHERHOOD

Mother's love is peace.  It need not be acquired; it need not be deserved.  ~Erich Fromm

MOTHER OF THE YEAR
Carolyn B Healy

Elizabeth Edwards slogs forward on her book tour, pundits lob shame-bombs at her, and I cultivate a growing resentment about the whole scenario. My friend Kathy and I even had a spat about her the other night. Kathy thinks she should just stop talking and toss her husband to the curb. Kathy thinks she’s pathetic. I think she’s anything but.


I’d like to talk about Elizabeth without wasting too much time on husband John. Kathy and I agree on him. Let’s just stipulate that he’s the guy you hope your daughter won’t meet. Too good-looking to have been required to develop character, although well-trained in creating and cultivating appearances. An overgrown adolescent. If you don’t agree on the last point, watch clips of his coy flirtation with the videographer he took up with. A middle-schooler lusting after the new social studies teacher wouldn’t display such leering desire. Narcissistic, arrogant. The good-guy imposter genus of the liar-cheater species of the human male. Yeah, yeah. He’s also done good works. He should have stuck with those. MORE . . .


MY MOMMY IS BETTER THAN YOURS
Ellie Searl



I knew my daughter, Katie, would be a far more charitable parent than I when she was twelve. It was while she was babysitting our four-year old neighbor, Laurie, an outspoken, precocious child. You know the type. The over-indulged genius-spawns who are taught that adult conversation is of minimal significance and interrupting a discussion about mortgage meltdowns or the President meeting with dignitaries in the Middle East with such earth-shattering news as, Mommy, see? I made the letter L, is a far more critical issue in the scheme of world events.


Such children are encouraged to speak their minds – no matter what. They’ll stare into a poor soul’s face and say, That fat man looks like a gorilla – when he unfortunately does – and the mother, in her need to take every opportunity to reinforce her child’s powers of perception and add yet another word to the child’s burgeoning, somewhat annoying, vocabulary, responds with, Yes, Honey-Bunch, aren’t you the observant one! Observant means you see things very accurately, “accurately” having been taught the day before during dinner while the family contrasted the various green shades of arugula, pesto, and blanched broccoli. MORE . . .