Look, I don’t want to spend too much time on this blog talking about Britney Spears but something about this AP story just rattled my chain:
Britney Spears finally appears to be acting like a new mom. The pop princess, who recently made headlines for a rash of less-than-motherly hard partying, fell asleep in a Las Vegas nightclub early Monday shortly after leading the New Year’s Eve countdown, her manager said.
Emphasis mine.
And yeah, okay, nobody wants to see their own mother flashing her … how do I put this, my mother reads this blog …hoo-hoo for all the world to enjoy, but from whence does this moralizing tone come, AP? Once you give birth, you shouldn’t be allowed outside the house anymore? There’s something about the “less-than-motherly” phrase that just smacks of “stay home with the kids now that you’ve popped out a couple and don’t ever have any fun again.” Partying isn’t “motherly.” And really, who better to tell us all what motherly characteristics really are than the Associated Press.
Is Little Women out of print? Are we that short on role models, that we need to bug poor Britney Spears to provide one for us? Falling down drunk is not the exclusive privilege of the childless, last I checked, or a number of parties I’ve been to recently would have been a lot less amusing. And yeah, the whole genre of celebrity gossip was invented to allow us to pass judgment on people we don’t know, but when you drag the symbolization of Motherhood into it, it just bugs. I mean, if you don’t think people should get drunk and fall down in public, that’s your thing, and there’s no need to get all OMG SEAN PRESTON AND THE OTHER ONE WHATEVER HIS NAME IS WILL SUFFER!!11! about it. Her behavior is worthy or not worthy of our concern for her own sake, or at least it should be.
Maybe I’m overreacting. Talk to me, people.
A.
How else could a liberal media react?
They want her barefoot and in the kitchen. These are relics from should be a bygone era but the neoconservatives have made it popular again… in their own minds, of course.
well, ok so i’m not a britney fan. far from it. mother of the year, i do believe she is not. but i do dig what you’re saying, A. if, on the other hand, they had prefaced “less-than-motherly” with some reference to her driving around with babies on her lap instead of in car seats and so on, instead of just her partying, then we’d be talkin’ about something else all together. but no – you’re right. they’re just being assholes.
…now, A, if you were a real redneck like me you would know that Jeff Foxworthy already claimed “hoo-hoo” for male sexual organ, but never mind that. We may never fully rid ourselves of the “Ozzie and Harriet” image that somebody in the media thinks Americans still long for, but the fact is that I grew up in the “Ozzie and Harriet” era, and parents rounded up babysitters for the kids and went out to have a good time with strict instructions that the kids be in bed by the time they got home. I learned a LOT by staying quietly awake in my bed until after my parents came home from a night on the town…
Our parents weren’t A-listers, though, so there weren’t a bus-load of photographers trying to get shots of them for the rags. The media too frequently assigns itself the role of moral arbiter, though, so the A-listers like Britney are going to get this sort of “tut tut” treatment…
Hello Athenae’s mother – she does great work. Please forgive the whole hoo-hoo thing…journalism isn’t always easy.
jimmiraybob
really, Athenae, hoo-hoo?
ahem, the correct term, used by erudite scholars of popular culture such as ourselves, is va-jay-jay
i would go with the sex in the city c u next tuesday. or voo voo.
and well, she is just letting her southern white trash out to play. brits needs a new daddy for her spawn with her dirty boy.
and gotta do it before her looks and money run out.
the press is just givin what the left side of the bell loves.
Maybe the mother word just twanged you.
I think “less-than-adult” or “less-than-responsible” would have meant much the same yet not crossed over the line. She’s a wretched parent (as is K-Fed-currently-unemployable) and I want them (and Paris Hilton) out of the gene pool.
At least she didn’t drag the kids to the bar with her like some “mothers” AND “fathers” I have seen. Sheesh. As a party animal who waited till 31 to have a kid, I did my fair share of bar closings well before I spawned the kid. Afterwards I wanted to stay with her at night and make sure I was wide eyed and bushy tailed for the next day. Any alcohol was purchased at the store and brought home for consumption.
If she has sitters and caretakers, wants to go out and have some fun (and after being married to that guy who wouldn’t?) who gives a shit?
She’s no ones role model as that phase died out ages ago. None of the kids my daughter hangs with pay any attention to her or that other one, Hilton.
Gindy
.
what business this is of the AP is a good point, but so is that parents (mothers and fathers) need to be considerate of how their actions affect their children. It goes with the territory of having kids, that a more sedate life-style by BOTH parents is generally more beneficial for the children, at least until they’re old enough to realize that parental wildness is not a reflection on them. Its why people should do their “flinging” BEFORE having kids and then settle down, at least a bit – no need to be an old foggy at 28, but keeping the kids in mind while partying is being considerate.
Being an over 50 adult that grew up in a household with an alcoholic parent, I can tell you the embarrassment of such a parent has a profound affect on the children.
.
A pop star accepts a six-figure fee for appearing at a New Year’s party, and collapses an hour after midnight. AP lede?
Britney Spears finally appears to be acting like a new mom.
Journamalism in the Bush era.
i thought it was va-gi-gi (pronounced gee-gee)?
Anon. hit it on the head.
If she went out one night and had a little too much to drink, I’d agree with you completely, Athenae.
But Brit has been away from her children (whom she has custody of at the moment) for a loooong time. And she has spent those nights utterly trashed, throwing up in public, flashing her Brit-bits, having to get carried to her car, etc.
I personally, am OK with calling that behavior “less-than-motherly.”
huh … to me, the most aggregious part of the article was that she “fell asleep” … yeah. right. other articles said she was guzzling Dom like it was YooHoo and she had to be carried out of the club. That’s not falling asleep, that’s passing out. Motherhood-schmotherhood … the issue is that the AP sugarcoated what happened.
mmm-sultry
Ms Spears is such an easy target. Virtually anyone can watch her escapades and feel superior as a result. I think that is what the Great Goddes in the Sky put her here on earth for. So, let the press have their fun – she isn’t exactly shunning publicity.
pooty
That’s true, she is the one selling it.
As Atrios says: Simple answers to simple questions.
No, you’re not overreacting.
I find it really weird being on Brittney’s side of anything but I think they’ve about beat this non-story to death.
So long as they’re not toting the tots to the clubs or otherwise endangering them, moms are entitled to whatever type of fun they fancy.
Brittney may not be any deeper than a drainage ditch and I find her antics childish and tiresome but it doesn’t say a damn thing about her parenting. I am not saying she’s a good mother — I don’t have a clue — but the proof one way or another is not in whether she likes to kick up her heels (or her whatever) once and awhile.
Kitty.
I thought that was a fairly well-known euphemism, even before the pooty-displaying Cat-Bloggin’ masses invaded the Internets.
-idiosynchronic
http://www.lowandleft.org
Well, most moms don’t have nannies and chauffeurs and bodyguards (and what were THEY doing while she displayed her pantie-free zone?) So if the kids are in good hands while she’s making a fool of herself, it’s her loss because what will her kids will think when someone (and it will no doubt be in school) shows the kids mom’s coochie photos which will be available online from now until the end of time?
You say va-gi-gi
I say vay-jay-jay
Let’s call the hoo-hoo off…
virgo
lmao 🙂
actually, growing up we called it a “birdie”…and not even my mother knows why – she says that’s what her mom called it, and she didn’t know why either. if i ever have a daughter, i’m going to make sure to put a stop to that little family tradition!
Well, y’know, it’s B. Spears.
She’s no better a mum nor wife than singer.
So, what’s all the fuss about?
She should only grow headfirst in the ground like a turnip.
indeed! i do not like to even think of this slightly attractive once you get past the misaligned eyes, female,. she is a flash in the pan. and i am waiting for her to be pooped out by the celebritynistas.