Once you have children, having any kind of fun sets such a bad example:
The trend toward hipper, hotter moms has already been prevalent among Hollywood types. Dina Lohan used to famously go out clubbing with daughter Lindsay Lohan. Madonna and her daughter, Lourdes, Demi Moore and her daughter, Rumor Willis, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi and her mother, Helen Polizzi, are just some of the famous mother-daughter duos seen out together. On Bravo’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” family matriarch Kris Jenner and her Kardashian daughters are seen as nightclub regulars.
But not everyone agrees that mothers and daughters regularly partying together is healthy bonding. Kathryn Smerling, a psychologist in the New York City area, said celebrity culture can often damage mother-daughter relationships. She believes reality TV shows, such as “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” have brought “the unacceptable into our living rooms” because they show what she said are inappropriate mother-daughter relationships.
“It can very well be destructive to the young girl, especially if the mother is more attractive, especially if the mother is more outgoing,” Smerling said. “It engenders competition.”
So much to unpack here. I’m gonna venture a guess that Lindsay Lohan had more going on than just mommy doing shots. And what is the “trend towards hipper, hotter moms” all about? Has the writer suddenly noticed there are ladies older than 25 who aren’t camel-faced hags? Did some 40-something relative have the temerity to buy a halter top? What on EARTH.
The competition thing makes me stabby: Once you have a daughter, disappear, girls! Make sure she’s the only pretty girl in the room, because heaven forfend you teach her that the standard that there can only be one pretty girl in the room is horseshit, that she need not be measured against you or anybody else, and that you both have better things to do than worry about who has better hair.
As for the actual partying thing, let us stipulate that the Kardashians are not, perhaps, role models against whom you should regularly measure your behavior, and if you get so shitfaced while out with your children that they have to drive home it’s probably not the best thing. Kids need their own spaces, as do adults. But I’m not sure we should use the reality show outliers, and a few random mothers in nightclubs, to tell women that it’s inappropriate to go to a rock show and order a beer around your kid.
We have a massively fucked-up attitude towards alcohol and teenage sexuality in this country, in which it’s all or nothing in both cases. Never teaching people how to have two beers instead of twelve, telling young girls to be beautiful and then shaming them when they dress in a body-conscious manner because OMG BOYS WILL LOOK AT YOU, is damaging. We make these things utterly verboten and then wonder why kids can’t magically handle themselves.
God forbid women go out with their daughters and model happy, healthy, fun behavior, appropriate and responsible use of alcohol, and HORROR maybe enjoy themselves a bit as well.
But it seems more and more women are blurring the lines of middle age, and refusing to age gracefully.
YEAH. Sit your ass down in that rocker, Grandma, and put on a poncho. Fuck’s sake, who do you think you are?
A.