We’ve all heard about the Mommy Wars, right? WOHMs (work outside the home moms) vs. SAHMs (stay at home moms) with WAHMs (work at home moms) thrown in every once in a while? It’s all great fun, really. I mean, women pitted against women – rock on. Anywho, as it turns out, Sam’s school is getting in on it as well, spreading propaganda. For the wrong side. I mean, we here at Mommin’ It Up proudly support both (all three) sides of the fence, but hello – this is a daycare we’re talking about. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you!
Ok let me back up.
Yesterday was Sam’s turn to take home the Book Sharing Bag from school. He picked a book to bring home to share with his family, and then he picked a book from home to take back and share with his friends.
When we sat down to read his selection, I was a bit perplexed.
“My Working Mom” by Peter Glassman. A man. Shocking.
So the title caught my interest (not to mention the picture – Mom’s job is being a witch?), but I thought perhaps it would be like a book we own called “When Mommy Travels,” which is a great book about a mom taking a business trip.
Yeah, not so much.
Here’s the first page.
“It isn’t easy having a working mom.” Well, ok, strange, but it’s probably rather accurate at times. But it just got worse from there.
It was at this point (page 2) that I started thinking “What the $#@% IS this??” Especially when she enjoys her work? Oh man, that is the worst. I mean, it’s one thing to have a mom who works because she absolutely has to, but to have a mom who likes her job? Sucks.
We read on. For some reason.
People. COME ON. Working moms not only hate their kids but they’re also sucky at the things women are SUPPOSED to do, like cook dinner.
When she’s had a bad day? Mom’s a total witch! Oh wait, Mom being a witch the entire premise of the book.
I totally got to Sam’s school play last year 30 seconds before he went on stage, but that is beside the point. Er, I think.
As I was saying…
But wait! Do not despair – the book has a happy ending!
Moral of the story?
Having a working mom is slightly preferable to being an orphan. Sort of.
I can hardly wait to read the rest of the series. I’ve already put “My Crackhead Mom” and “My Street Walker Mom” on hold at the library.
Ridiculous! The post, however, from a working mom, I might add, is great!
Well put.
UP
…and I’m still waiting for the “My Working Dad” book!
UP
do they not vet their books in the school library?
The title of my book would be ‘I was a witch as a SAHM so I needed a WAHM job that I liked’
…and sometimes, yes I love the solitude of my home office more than anything else. shhhhhh
While I am a SAHM, I was raised by a working mom. This book is ridiculous. Seriously! Insane.
Emily, your wit cracks me up! Thanks for the morning laugh! I wonder what the title of the book would be for moms like me who do more of a half/half thing–cooks dinner everynight, attends every field trip, but also attacks work every minute in between. Maybe “My Mom, The Zombie!”
Wow! Nothing like laying more guilt onto working moms! How could he even write a book like that? I would say more about it but then I would be typing for days…
I hope my children never see that book. That is the worst book I have ever seen!
Horrible.
I would like to give that author a piece of my mind!
His name is in the post. I am sure he has a fb page or some other site. Go get him!
wow! unbelievable! but it makes for a very funny post!
I am actually at a loss for words. I am actually offended and I am a SAHM. Have you wrote the author yet?
I’m so appalled I’m speechless. Which, for me, is rare. (obvi). Oh my, the places this post will go. Just watch me.
I found you (Mommin’ it Up) thanks to Shelly sharing this post. I’ll join her in passing this little gem on to all the moms I know who make up one of the three categories you mention – minus the witch category. Oh, NO. I just wrote a post today where I mention my mom was a ‘working mom’ back in the days when most were, gasp, homemakers! And I might add, I now follow both you & Jenny on Twitter ~ I’m from Dayton, OH, living in Denver now. We must unite against this evil. Let’s whip up a spell.
So cool Rajean! Gooo Dayton! Off to check out your blog now.
Shelly, you are amazing! Thanks for spreading the word 🙂
I am utterly disgusted. Who the hell published this book. They ought to be ashamed. Like Shelley said, oh the places this post will go, too!
Actually at a loss for words. Almost as rare as when it happens to Shelly Kramer. Not a fan. At all.
Outrageous. Outrage. But great post. I’m sure more eloquent comment will return soon but at the moment I’m speechless between this and bound women (binders).
I’m a working single dad and ya know what? This book — and the insensitivity and (I bet) righteousness of the school administrators and teachers — doesn’t surprise me at all. School is about cultural programming and there are certain easy targets, like men are incompetent as dads and downright dangerous in society, and that working women are somehow inferior than a SAHM. Blech, blech. Go get ’em, and let us know what the school says when you suggest that perhaps it’s not the best of all possible books for the children to be reading…
Dave- I totally agree with you. My husband is very vocal about what a tendency folks have toward thinking dads are incompetent. I used to travel 4 days a week for business and my husband worked and took care of our daughter and son and the comments he got were maddening. I’m work at home now and people now think because I don’t go in to a “desk job” I must have all the time in the world. There is no winning!
I hope you said something to the daycare about knowing their target market.
At this point it feels like it would take a cauldron and some eye of something to resolve these twisted views on working moms.
hope the book gets “lost.” and you can just send a post-it back to school with “working moms lose library books” in its place!
Lots of good comments here. This is by far my favorite.
ah thanks, holly!
As a working mom who adopted an orphan, I just want to say that I am so glad I got her out of an orphanage in a third-world country just so I could subject her to the hell that is being raised by a working mom. A working SINGLE mom, I might add. So glad this book is there to remind my daughter that, even though her life sucks and her mom is a bad cook who is often late for school activities, having a working mom is still preferable to being an orphan. Sort of.
Sort of.
WOW. I typically let a lot of stuff roll off my shoulders but WTH school?!? 1955 called. It wants its book back!
I’d say this is hilarious, but GAAAAAH. Wow.
The fact that everything in the book could apply to a working dad never occurred to the author. No, because HE obviously thinks that parenting is only a women’s job.
Having been a SAHM and a WFHM in the past, and currently practicing in the ways of a WOHM, I feel this book is rather confusing. After all, I didn’t need to be working outside the home for my kiddos to get a “witchy” mom from time to time, who didn’t always make the best dinners for them. The author needs to depict that ALL MOMS suck, except for the perfect ones the rest of us hate.
Kidding aside, I really hope you destroyed the book, and that you write the author and publisher, and make the teacher feel REALLY guilty for allowing the book in her classroom.
This post made me laugh out loud. The book itself, however, is horrifying. How sad! I, too, hope my children never see it. Sure, having a working mom probably sometimes sucks – but I bet having a SAHM sometimes, sucks, too! And there are lots of GOOD things about having a working mom! Maybe I should write an updated version.
Holy crap. Let’s use our witchy working mom powers to make this book disappear!
Thanks for the good laugh. The book is way off and I love how you handled it with wit.
I actually gasped when I got to the part about how the mom is late for the school play. Seriously, I hope you said something to them at school. This isn’t a case of having books that tell all kinds of stories — it’s just flat-out inappropriate.
This is the book that Tina Fey talked about sparking her “nervous breakdown” in the New Yorker. There was an interview done w/ the author about it. He actually says about another mother that complains that she was “obviously bringing her own issues to it.” http://www.dishpronto.com/sidedish/tag/peter-glassman/
I didn’t know that arriving moments before it started was a bad thing? Thought that was early! 🙂
So a man wrote this book?
Ok so my theory is that this guy was/is bitter about his own spouses success!
Oh my. I can’t quite decide if it rubbed me the wrong way because it supports those thoughts in my kids or because as a WOHM it hits pretty close to home at times. But then again, even when at home it’s still the same between running to 3 different kids’ activities.
Loved how you ended it- can’t wait to read the Tales of a Streetwalking Mom. 🙂 LOL
Disappointing that Todd Arnold did the illustrations. We love Fly Guy but this book blows! If you look at the reviews from PW and School Library Journal it seems like they totally ignored the text and just reviewed the illustrations which, in usual Tedd Arnold fashion are great. I just don’t know how, even in 2001 when this book was published neither review says anything about the content of the text.
Anyway, if you are looking for a good working mom book with a Halloween feel check out “Working Mummies” by Joan Horton. Shows mummies doing all kinds of jobs and I love that there’s a librarian mummy. 🙂
I’d really like to read Tales of a Streetwalking Mom… can you make that happen? I’d finally be able to explain to my kids what I do at night!
In other news, I looked at the book on Amazon out of curiosity and noticed a reviewer said she was there because Tina Fey Mentions this craphole of a book in her book! Ha!! This means you are as awesome as Tina Fey! Can you introduce me to Jimmy Fallon?
Oh my!
I’ve been all three types of moms. (Never really a SAHM because I’m always working on something). Sometimes it’s a choice. Sometimes it’s not. But yeah, this brings up all kinds of issues that a kid shouldn’t have to think about. Not from a KID’S BOOK anyway.
Geez, that book is terrible. I’m a working mom, and every day, my 3yo says to me, “I don’t like your work.” Well, I don’t like that I have to work either, buddy, but I do. Books like this just make it worse.
The author of this book needs a cockpunch. Plain and simple. Sorry I said cock on your blog.
Wow – so wrong (the book) and so funny (you, as always).
Please please please do a follow up on what happens when you return the book to the day care…with a copy of this post tucked inside the flap.
*jaw drop* I… don’t have any words. Well, any NICE words, anyway.
Holy sh*t. The sad thing? There’s likely more than one copy of that drivel in print.
Totally gross.
Wow. Just wow. I have been a school librarian for nearly ten years and thought I had seen practically every book in print…..but this one. Ahhhh, this one. No wonder I haven’t seen this one before! I am deeply disappointed in illustrator Tedd Arnold, whose work I recognized almost instantly. This is repulsive. I am all for reader’s rights but this book needs to disappear. Sleep with the fishes disappear.
I am so pushing this post on my blog. I want this author to hear the “boo hiss” from as many mothers around the world as possible!
Are you freaking kidding me? I can not even understand the audacity of this author or the teacher that allowed this book into the classroom.
I don’t think I could be more appalled by this book!!!! What about how my mom shows me how to have a job and be a good mom. Or about those that can balance most things most days? How about working mom’s being great role models for their daughters (don’t get me wrong, SAHM’s are great role models too), still being able to volunteer in classrooms, etc.. A very wrong message to send our kids!
Wow. This is just horrid. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom, a work-at-home mom, and a work-outside-the-home mom…. and I’ve never imagined writing such a misogynistic, passive-aggressive book about moms.
“So I guess if I had to choose”? Because you know, I guess she’s okay, despite the fact that she’s clearly selfish and self-absorbed.
This isn’t Mommy-wars — this is just foul play.
Does anyone else see the irony in this book being in the child’s school? A school where likely 85% of the women who work there are, themselves, working moms?
When was this book first published? The pictures look current, but maybe the book was written in 1692. In Massachusetts and is more of a biography? That’s about the only way the book makes sense.
If ever there was a reason to burn a book, I’d say we found one!
What the?
That’s… terrible. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Umm does the teacher, who allowed the book in her classroom, not get she too should be offended?! ‘Cause I’m pretty sure she’s working…oh wait, does she have a child? I juggle 4 jobs and still manage to raise a half way decent 6 yr old, who at times does ask why I work all the time. My answer is simply this, so that Mommy can keep a roof over your head, put food on the table, clothes on your back and give you the best education…minus one book apparently. I say a throat punch is in order! *ahem* Just sayin’!!
Oh..and p.s. my 6 yr old gets it…the author of this book….not so much!
I was appalled at this! So I went to Amazon and found out that Mr. Glassman has also written a book called “My Dad’s Job”. The cover is a dad holding a breifcase while holding his son’s hand both with huge smiles on thier faces. First line is “I wish I cuold go to work with my dad. He’s always talking about his job, and it sounds like he has fun every day”. I’m sure that the rest of the book spews on and on about how great it is that dad goes off to work to support his family. On the back cover it syas that Mr. Glassman in addition to be an author “owns and operates Books of Wonder, a very successful children’s bookstore located in Manhattan’s Flatiron District”. I can’t imagine what kind of books your going to find in that bookstore.
Oh my gosh! I can’t believe that about the Dad book! I never dreamed there would be a “companion book” to add insult to injury! Amazeballs.
That is a horrible book!