Aperitif?

So you may have noticed the recent Today-show provoked brouhaha over mixing play dates and alcohol. And various bloggers have made some very good points about how extremely silly (and anti-feminist) the whole thing is. One of the very best points was made by Home on the Fringe (via the Zero Boss, who also has a decently shiny two cents to throw in) -- that this about a male-female double standard since no one would criticize a dad having a beer while the children play in the next room. But since mothers are all supposed to be neat, clean and always picture perfect (June Cleaver? June?) there is no room for blurry edges -- we're either perfect or we're Mommy Dearest, smeared lipstick and gin from the bottle. There is a middle ground, called being human, which most of us inhabit and which most of us wish to inhabit a little less guiltily. Which is part of the whole push behind the hip mother movement (although the hipmama thing has its own limitations) -- that mothers want to be simply human - and for that to be okay. For us not to feel like we're failing every time we sip a glass of sherry at five, or have no clean underwear or use a disposable diaper or burst into tears over the chicken cutlets.

But the drinking-as-issue is also a remarkably American conversation. Were we in France or Italy, do you really think anyone would bother to worry about whether a couple of mothers are having a glass of wine while the sun still shone? The basic repressive conservatism of U.S. society seeks to punish any slip, any descent from Rockwellian perfection. And like a Rockwell, it's all about how it looks, rather than what's going on inside. So hey! Be gay (or racist or classist or female)! Just don't tell us, okay? Drink in the dark, under the blanket -- but get up in the morning and pretend all is well and that's just fine with the morality police.

How much better that there are mothers sitting together, sipping a glass of wine while children play (or fight or yowl) in the next room. How much better that we are sharing our burdens, holding on to bastions of adult privilege, respecting ourselves and our ability to make fine as well as gross judgment calls.

A writer on things parenting once described parental sanity thus: two mothers are sitting, each with a cup of hot tea. Two children reach for the hot mugs. One mother cries, "No darling, hot. Don't touch." and puts her tea up high, somewhere the child cannot reach but then forgets about it. The other mother says "No darling, MY tea, MOMMY's tea," and holds onto her cup. Who gets to drink her tea?

Or her glass of Pinot Grigio?