The Best Kind of Mom
Motherhood isn't pretty, but it is made for TV.
Some of the best fiction being written today will never hit the New York Times bestseller list. It’s all on Instagram.
But if we’re going to adopt a fictionalized version of motherhood to emulate, why does it have to be the one where we’re always unhappy about something-or-other about our kids that’s threatened the very delicate psyche that still longs for days when we had to shower out the alcohol smell or it would sweat into our bedsheets. And for that matter, why does it have to be a version that seems to involve a heck of a lot of laundry; my kids change outfits three times a day, there’s no way I can afford to dry clean that much vintage deadstock.
Last week was a lot of me complaining about other mothers, which is its own occupying pastime of motherhood. I could tell you about my neighbor who doesn’t speak to me because my kids have plastic toys in a spectrum of colors invented only after we started monkeying around with nuclear waste. But I have real friends for that.
No, there is an aspirational mother who thrived within the span of the Millennial lifetime: the 90s sitcom mom. And this is dedicated to her, the woman of genius who held an unaesthetic house together with the sheer force of her generational wisdom and Aqua Net.
The Paragon.
When I first mentioned the 90s sitcom mom as the aspirational model over the 1950s mom — look, we’re soft now and can’t handle that much lithium and I’m really bad at mixing drinks for henpecked husbands — I got some pushback from the more traditional community. Feminist! Know it all!
I mean, okay, those aren’t inaccurate.
But the 90s mom wasn’t the boss of her house or her husband. She wasn’t lording over a fifedom and she wasn’t the breadwinner even if she worked — a reality for most moms, even now. Most wrangled more than the typical number of kids (usually three in a 1.5 kid world), and no one’s house was without flaws.
We all know how The Cosby Show turned out in real life, but that’s not to say Cliff and Claire Huxtable were anything short of partners in love and life. Aunt Vivian was rich but she was wise. Debra Barone put up with a mother-in-law accross the street, and a house that looked like it was decorated on a canned-vegetable color palette. Jill Taylor raised her three sons in a house that frequently threatened to kill her, a side-effect of nuturing “toxic” masculinity that can’t be understated.
My Tim-the-Tool-Man-Taylor dad once set off a fireworks show while doing electicial work in our kitchen he wasn’t technically licensed for, too.
It’s fictional, but in a weird way, its real — more real than you can get on the Internet. No one ever had enough money. No one ever had enough childcare. No one ever had time to clean. They were, in turns, terrible cooks, somewhat neglectful parents, and shocking bad at forethought, but besides their aptitude for solving problems in 22 minutes between commercials, the most intense emotion any of them ever felt was love.
That’s a credit to the writers, of course. But no one thought to erase from their television moms whatever they’d gleaned from their own upbringings. All messy; mostly wonderful.
More to the point, its kind of how I live, right down to the giant fork and spoon I have on the wall of my kitchen, a staple of both sitcoms and Italian housewives, designed to apparently remind everyone that the kitchen produces food, and that wallpaper eventually fades everywhere but under the wall art.
Mine are pretty beat up, of course, because, like a sitcom, my husband has never opened the cabinet next to them with middling force, sending the spoon flying and everyone cursing, only for me to hang the spoon up again in frustration in hope, until one day the running gag splinters it so badly he has to buy me a new one.
Subscriber note!
Starting this week, I’ll be posting more on Substack and maybe less on Twitter, since Twitter is now a bot-filled hellhole. Paid subscribers can expect probably 2-3 posts per week, plus the recipe, which will be free through next week. Upgrade if you want! If you hate me you can switch back to free.
I promised Easter cake, and you shall receive it. We’re now in the countdown of free recipes, which is the drug I’m using to get yout pay for your subscription, at which point my offerings will expand to stuff that my toddlers won’t eat, which is the surest sign that a recipe is both delicious and sophisticated.
Ciambella
3 eggs (at room temperature)
1 ¼ cup sugar
3/4 cup olive oil
1 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest (usually about one lemon’s worth)
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (conveniently, also about one lemon)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
If you like the taste of anise/licorice, it is traditional to put 2 tsp of ground anise. I leave it out unless I definitely don’t want children to eat it
Powdered sugar for decoration
Preheat oven to 350
In a bowl or stand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together until creamy — this usually takes longer than you think it should, and you can err on the longer side. Add your wet ingredients (oil, milk, lemon juice and vanilla) to your mixture, along with the lemon zest, mix again. Finally, add the flour, baking powder, salt, and the anise if you’re of that persuasion. Mix again slowly unless you’re a toddler, in which case, mix fast enough to cause a mess, but not fast enough to get anything mixed.
Spray a bundt pan liberally with olive oil spray, pour in batter, bake for 50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool before you turn it over and bash it on the counter to release the cake. Garnish with powdered sugar. I didn’t know how to do that, so it was extremely garnished.