STEREOTYPING THE ARCHETYPE: Working Mom of the Week

The "Stepford" Mom

She drops her kid off at pre-school in full hair and make-up. No stains on her yoga pants and the ponytail that is peeking out of her baseball cap has been threatened into submission. Why the yoga pants? Well, because she’s been up since 4 am finding her chi and baking 6 dozen cupcakes for the PTA bake sale. She’s got her office suit and power-walk sneakers in her bag so she can change in the nearest phone booth (wait -- has anyone spied an actual phone booth in the last 5 years? I haven’t.)

She’s a whirling dervish at the office – with cheerleader-like enthusiasm for sharpening pencils and marching about as though she’s always late for a very important meeting that you’re not invited to. She races home after doing a final-lap of ‘face-time’ around the office and creates a five-course organic, fat-free, delicious dinner while teaching her perfectly-groomed and mannered cherubs the calming art of origami.

Really? REALLY? It’s one thing if she really does find a way to ‘do it all’ (we all know that she secretly cries in her closet at night) but does she have to thumb her pretty little turned-up nose at us when we bring store-bought cookies to the school’s holiday bazaar?

No she does not.