Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. She still dips her toes into academic waters by writing the occasional scholarly article about the place of motherhood in Western philosophy, but mostly now she changes diapers and wipes noses and indulges in long reflections on whether Yo Gabba Gabba is a harbinger of the decline of western civilization. Oh, and she blogs: in addition to Bad Mother blogging at BeliefNet, she is, among other things, the author of HerBadMother.com, Managing Editor of MamaPop, moderator of Her Bad Mother’s Basement, co-founder and co-editor of WeCovet, Contributing Editor at BlogHer, and (deep breath) founder of and contributor to Canada Moms Blog. And in her spare time… oh, wait. She doesn’t have spare time. But she’s okay with that.
I know that this is terribly, terribly wrong, but I totally laughed when I saw this:
I mean, seriously. I know that it’s bad to talk back to police officers, I know that it’s bad to curse at police officers, I know that it’s bad to go 75 in a 60 zone, I know that it’s bad to break the law in general, but still: she’s a tiny little bad-tempered grandma and that makes it funny. (Up until the part where she gets tasered. That’s not so funny.)
Also: she could be my own mother.
My own mother wouldn’t shove a cop, I’m pretty sure, so the comparison isn’t perfect, but she’s pretty contrary and so I could totally see her talking back. I could also see her making a vibrator joke about his taser (is that a stun gun in your pocket or are you just happy to see me, officer?) She’s just that way. She’s bad.
But she’s bad in a good way, and that makes her – has always made her – awesome. And her badness – her wonderful badness – has inspired me to embrace my imperfections as the things that make me who I am, the things that make me a wonderfully strange and imperfect mother. Not the kind who makes vibrator jokes – although I reserve the right to do so in my dotage – but ‘bad’ in my own way. Bad in the best way.
Which doesn’t involve breaking the law or cursing at police officers, but it does mean flouting, to some extent, prevailing social conventions. Mothers shouldn’t curse? Mothers shouldn’t complain about the being bored? Mothers shouldn’t get frustrated with their children? Mothers shouldn’t love their husbands with a different – and sometimes greater – kind of intensity than they do their children? Fine. I’m not that kind of mother. And if that makes me a bad mother I will – as I said over here the other day – embrace it fully. Because if my own mother is any kind of model to go by, bad mothers are pretty awesome.
They just need to look out for the tasers.
posted June 10, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Here here. I had to laugh, too. Especially when she said “I wasn’t combative. I wasn’t argumentative. That was a lie.” Helloooooo, saw the video. I think we should resist tasering old women, of course, or anybody, for that matter. But she kept trying to run into traffic. Craaazy.
Anyway, I ABSOLUTELY agree with what you said about yourself as a mother. Mother’s are people, too. Their personalities don’t just disappear when a kid pops out. I’m glad that you can not only accept but embrace those parts of yourself. That makes you awesome.
posted June 12, 2009 at 12:26 am
I’m proud (I think) that this happened in my town. Wish I could meet that woman and tell her she has some fans out there…
posted June 17, 2009 at 3:19 pm
*giggling*…. um, did you totally just imply that HBG is in her dotage? Because it kinda looked that way
Also, you are full of WIN for using fun words like dotage that are so awesome they distract me from the entire rest of the post.