Alpha Mom

Well, good for Isabel Kallman. I'll be over here knitting...

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

Yes, this is the kind of thing that riles one up.

I think I'll go have a beer and watch TV. I may be more of a Beta mom.

(This may be the first and last time I link to The National Review.)

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms

I don't often read the National Review, but that article was fitting to my opinion. I, too, was a little appalled (sp?) that someone can call them selves a mothering expert, yet have hired someone to do all the parenting. I suppose it's like being a homemaker that oversees all the maids, eh? I would have to say I admire moms who want to (and do) achieve things outside the home, yet I hold the same level of admiration for moms who can keep a family together. Taking responsibility to be a mom (not just a procreator) is huge and wonderful, no matter how you choose to do it. Yet, I'm curious to see how popular this will become, when we're basically being told "it takes a village, hope you have the moola to hire one", as most of us--well--don't. Staying home for many is a sacrifice, but a very worthwhile one and for me, it seems a difficult pill to swallow to have someone say, "Oh, just hire a nanny, and a night nurse so you can keep your sense of self and be a mom."

Well, I'm off to fold my own laundry and put myself to bed--hopefully for all night, but probably not.

Seriously--I was wondering how she was managing all of that (and apparently expecting other mothers to follow suit)--and then I got to the part about hiring several people to help. That'd help, all right. Ugh, just what we need, a TV channel to make mothers think they're not doing enough already.

Rich women are assumed to set the agenda for the rest of us. I know why they get the attention; that's the demographic the media wants to reach for its advertisers. But really it's just irrelevant to the lives of the rest of us. There's absolutely zero reason for anyone to pay attention to Isabel Kallman except her incredibly tiny peer group.

A better decription than Alpha Mom would be Very Wealthy Woman Who Can Afford to Hire a Mom. There's nothing Alpha about Kallman, except perhaps her belief that she and other women like her come first, like it's a competition.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

Since,
(A) My son is now 9, and
(B) We don't have a TV,
I read the article with a very detached perspective.

I was rather bemused to read that "Alpha Mom's" target demographic was women in the snow belt whose husband takes the family's only car to work in the morning, leaving them stranded with the children. I was that poor, pitiful creature about whom Alpha Mom cares sooooooo deeply (insert eye rolling emoticon here) for the first four years of motherhood. How did I ever survive without Alpha Mom TV? Why, I found the community at TNH, of course!

HOOO-WAH!!

Someone give that woman a sedative. Or maybe valerian root if she's still breastfeeding. In one sense I understand her behavior, a Type A personality is going to be a Type A parent. However, I don't want a Type A telling me how to be the perfect parent.

I have several issues, one being that she's a mom according to HER needs on HER schedule. Another is "raising overachievers" or "best of breed" children. How about just raising happy, well adjusted children who don't have to overachieve unless they want to? And third is assuming that other moms don't have a village. Just because she didn't doesn't mean the rest of us don't. It's downright creepy.

I think the author of that article was just as appalled as I was.

As a Type B or Beta Mom, I really don't want to listen to someone tell me how much more I can fit into my day, especially if it means hiring other people to do my job. I don't believe in outsourcing motherhood.

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

but it struck me that her kid was little more than an afterthought: "It was soon decided that Isabel would take some time off, consider her career options, do the baby while she was at it."

Err...

Ummm...

Babies aren't really something you just "do while you are at it."

While on one hand, its nice to see someone actually using VOD the way it was intended, its a bit disturbing that this will be the "More Mommy than YOU" channel. I can't think of a worse way to show mothers how to parent.

nannys, babysitters and interns, Oh My!

I think parenting 'experts' have always had to tread a very fine line, but teaching other women to parent like this woman seems to be almost a criminal act to me! People like this make me feel like getting violent. If enforced sterilisation was an option, these are the people who should get the first shots! Unfortunately I am seeing more and more people for whom parenting seems like an afterthought - whether because they are so ridiculously busy doing other things and pushing their kids to do MORE and BE MORE, like performing poodles, or because they just can't be bothered.

maybe an annual parenting 'health check' should be introduced to ensure that parents are coping properly with the changing needs of their family. Parenting classes seem to just involve the correct way to hold a newborn when bathing it, and assume that you 'get the hang of it' after that. Well clearly not everyone does. Difficult though because it's like interfering in domestic disputes, and where do you draw the line, how do you set up a 'standard' for pareting which all parents must adhere to.

I'm starting to babble now, so I'll stop - like everyone else this so-called Alpha Mom just makes my skin crawl!

Kerri.

Makes me wonder what Charles Darwin would say...could be that the widespread relegation/abandonment of natural parent primary caregiving (or any real, consistent, and nurturing presence in the lives of human young) will eventualy lead to the degeneration of certain uniquely human characteristics and we will continue to devolve as a species into...well, Isabelle Kallman! Alpha Mom, my eye! the only thing more amusing than her entitlement complex is her self-titling......Sorry, everyone, for the bitter diatribe/just a little crabby towards the end of a REAL MOM's day...promise to be better-dispositioned next post....

I think Alpha Moms are a rather small percentage of the mothers, today. However, they have pots of money to spend and are being marketing to like mad. Cadillac, Nintendo, Proctor & Gamble, Suave, Huggies, everyone wants Alpha Moms to identify with their brand. Why do they want these wealthy, tech-savvy, consumer moms to buy their products? The main reason: Alpha Moms have a very "high social-networking factor" so when they align with these brands those products becomes the "it" brands for moms-in-the-know. How? Alpha Moms operate their own yahoo mommy groups and an entire TV channel for starters...when they spread the word lots of people hear it.

I think that our urban society's pace is too fast, that our children are "growing up" too fast, that the Alpha Moms and their children are overscheduled and seriously need to spend an entire afternoon sitting under a tree doing nothing once and a while.

But, I think the media loves to pit moms against each other. And I resent that. I'd like to call the dogs off of Alpha Moms just on principle.

I will say that I'd become a raving lunatic if I tried to live the Alpha Mom's life. I'm not Type A, not even close. I have so little in common with Alpha Moms it's hard for me to understand why they think certain things are so important. Most of those things are those which I am conciously opting out of or choosing not to do.

When it all boils down, the Alpha Mom phenomenon has so little to do with me, my family, my life, my buying choices, that it affects me almost not at all.

This post probably makes very little sense, I'm just thinking "out loud" here.

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

OMG! Reading that article really just makes me want to skewer that woman! AARRRGH!

The NYMetro article or the USA Today one?

Anhata
www.familynaturally.com
Your Family's General Store, Naturally

Sorry, the USA Today one. I didn't have time to finish the NY Metro one and it just made me feel sorry for Kallman that she is totally missing the point of motherhood. She is tackling it as if it was another mountain to climb and once she reaches the "top" she will stil remained as unfullfilled as she is now. No, Van what's-her'name is the one that made me want to lance her like a boil! I'll have to expound on this when I get a chance.

You ladies will find I LOOOVVVEEEE to share my opinion, and I believe they are just like butts, everyone's got one and they all stink! Just teasin'!

This thread's pretty old so I can't remember which one of my writermama friends knows her, but I heard reliably that the NYT pretty much screwed her over and she's nowhere near as "alpha" as she comes off in that piece--nothing like the way she comes across.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor

I posted my thoughts and a link to the GMA story on my blog, http://meanmomclub.blogspot.com/

I thought that these moms used to be called super moms? Are the Alpha Moms the spawn of the super moms? Where are the husbands in the lives of these Alpha Moms?

Thanks everyone! Even the mom who wants to lance me like a boil!! It was fun reading your comments. I'm glad that the term Alpha Mom inspires so much discussion and even a beautiful Poem! My hope is that moms see the term "Alpha Mom" as a fun, tongue in cheek way to describe the sort of A-type personality mom that blends her pre-kids passions into her post kid world somewhat seamlessly. She can be a career woman or a stay at home mom-but she feels she in in control of her personal time management. She doesn't have to have a lot of money--but she has a say in how the money she does have is spent. There is no requirement that she have a housekeeper, personal chef, or nanny --but she might if she feels she needs them. She is a trendsetter in her circles and stays in touch with what is happening in the world around her. She is smart enough to sift through marketing and media nonsense and extracts what she needs to create a the best quality of life for the people in her life. She also knows that installing a car seat, knowing how to breastfeed or what to expect during childbirth (not to mention the terrible twos!) are only instinctual for the "perfect" mom--which she is aware that she is not. Most of all she has a great sense of humor--which I personally think is the most essential ingredient in parenting.
I see there is a lot of negative feedback on the term. Too bad. I didn't create it to compare mom styles just to describe a moms with "can-do" spirit. Poor Isabel Kallman was truly a victim of mean spirited writing designed to give a loud voice to moms judging each other. Surely there is enough room on the post mom world to hold the same variance in personalities types as there are in the pre mom world--or are we all suppose to go through some Stepford mom funnel and end up with the same hairdos!
Viva la difference!
As a parting thought I'd like to mention that everyone writing about this, reading this, or responding to this is on the Internet and is plugged into one of the hottest trends of this year! You are engaged in exchanging ideas and information with other moms on a website created to keep you informed and connected! I hope you can laugh when you tell you friends you ARE an Alpha Mom!