Need to cite someone””a friend, a celebrity, yourself””for questionable mothering? Feel free to post pictures, videos or stories here.
Today’s ticket goes out to the mothers on the new Oprah Winfrey Network show, “My Mom is Obsessed,” for taking self-absorption to unthinkable levels.
At Momonomics, we’re huge champions of “me time.” Mainly because it’s something that’s elusive to us. How often do you get to sit down and read a book and drink a cup of tea? Every time I try to, my kids start hurling sharp objects at each other, and then once they’ve stopped, the baby gets up from his nap. (And by then the tea is cold. I’ve been on page 27 of a Phillipa Gregory novel for about three weeks now.)
But then there are some moms who not only get “me time,” they get, “the hell with YOU” time. And that’s where we’ve got to draw the line.
I don’t think there are many of these mothers on the planet (I’m assuming they all have some kind of narcissistic personality disorder), but there are apparently enough of them to be fodder for a new OWN mini-series show called, “My Mom is Obsessed.” I’ve watched three episodes so far, and I will totally admit to just this nasty, gossipy level of fascination with the depths of the bad parenting exposed.
One of the moms is a bodybuilder. My first thought was, “Good for her for taking time to get in great shape!” Then it turned out that she spent around four hours a day working out, and when her kid broke his arm, she pouted about having to miss a session with her personal trainer because he wanted her by her side. (This one hit home for me in particular because my oldest son did break his arm, and I remember that I went absolutely nuts. I was barely able to function–let alone work out. I don’t think I exhaled until the cast was set.)
Then there was the mom with no self-esteem who was obsessed with dating younger men. Not only did her 17-year-old daughter have the most important female figure in her life modeling truly tragic misbehavior, but she had to worry about her mom drinking and driving and all of the physical and sexual safety issues that are involved with half-your-age-hook-ups.
It’s such a train wreck. I feel so bad for these kids. And so disgusted with the mothers. And somewhat disgusted with myself for watching this kind of junk. But not too disgusted, I guess, because I’ve set my DVR to record the whole series.
Jorie is the “Vitamom” who edits Momonomics.com. She has three kids, ages 18 months to 9 years. She’s recently discovered Mychelle Pumpkin Renew cream and coincidentally got carded the last time she bought wine at the grocery store.