I Look Down On Amy Glass And I’m Not Sorry
First of all, Amy Glass, you are a terrible writer. That’s first. Use spell-check and learn how to spell “dominant” next time you decide to personally take down motherhood in your ridiculous article, “I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry”. You are also an ass. That’s second, Glass-Ass.
How did this “article” get published? What is happening to “journalism”? I am so afraid for the future of words and thoughts and concepts if trash like this keeps getting published and circulated.
I am not a mother. In fact, up until quite recently, I never gave it much thought. I like my body (selfish, but true). I like my life. I like my home and I like my fancy dinners and I like my discretionary funds. What’s more, I am afraid for kids growing up today. I watch the news and I read the blogs and I tweet the tweets, and I see what kind of world we are becoming and it scares the shit out of me. I don’t like that I live in a world where kids aren’t safe going to the mall or gym or SCHOOL. I don’t like the idea of carrying around a child for nine months, pushing it through my vagina, raising it as incredibly as me and my partner possibly can, and sending it out into the world to be pumped full of racism and hate and sexism from other people’s shit-kids or gunned down on the playground. And because of those exact thoughts and sentiments, I was told last year I should absolutely be a mother – because I get IT, what motherhood is really all about, and because not enough women do.
My friends are mothers. Some of my friends wanted their children, some of my friends’ children were happenstance – originally unintended, but now absolutely cherished. I have quite a few friends, currently, who are mothers-to-be, and I watch them change their lifestyles and their addresses and their diets and their SLEEPING POSITIONS for someone that is still inside of them. (I also know friends who won’t change anything for actual human beings they’ve known all their lives living and breathing in front of them, but I digress.) To those women – mothers and mothers to-be – I admire you. I admire your strength and dedication and love and purpose, and I don’t give a damn if you’re employed or not. I don’t care if you’re a stay-at-home mom or working 70+ hours in the office. I don’t care if you’re a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick-maker. You are a mother, and you are killing it, and your husband knows it, and your girlfriend knows it, and your boss knows it, and your child knows it. Glass-Ass doesn’t think you are killing it. She is looking down on you, but she is also the worst human ever. (I thought Catie Warren was the worst human ever because she thinks too many women are “crying rape,” but she has been DETHRONED.) A person who looks down on motherhood and condescends mothers and finds their successes and goals for themselves and their children deplorable is just the lowest of the low.
I have a mother. And. She. Is. EVERYTHING. I mean, everything. She didn’t always work, and she didn’t build a business, and she isn’t a lawyer, but she brought me (and my brother) into this world and raised us in her twenties, in a poor city, with a strong partner (shout-out to my DAD!), and gave us her body and love and attention and affection and Disney Channel’s “Lunch Box” and Paddington the Bear and matching umbrella and coat sets and her art and her beauty and her WHOLE ENTIRE SELF. I don’t know if we kept her from achieving her dreams, but she is the reason we now have ours. Unfortunately, I think that’s what sometimes happens with motherhood (especially in lower-income families and this economy), that your dreams as a mother are put on hold – whether temporarily or permanently – for the sake of your children and family. The fact that Glass-Ass downplays that SACRIFICE as QUTTING is just disturbingly warped and disrespectful. She should be ashamed, her mother should be ashamed, and Thought Catalog should be ashamed for allowing her words and this article to enter the cosmos.
When people like Glass-Ass have an opinion like this and believe it is worth being voiced, published, and shared, the public needs to take a stand. I support and condone freedom of speech, which is exactly why if you say something stupid, I’m going to respond. Thoughts like hers are only further crippling our current culture and fight for equality. If women think like her, imagine what men think. Imagine a world where motherhood is mocked and disregarded and placed in quotations when it’s described – “important” or “managing a household” or “exceptional”. We cannot allow this type of abuse towards women – young women, pretty ones, colored ones, fat ones, mothers, lesbians, tall ones – to continue. We have to defend our mothers and make them proud. We have to show them how much we appreciate their sacrifice and decide for OURSELVES what’s best for our futures and our dreams and what we deem important. We have to LOOK UP to all who came before us and be grateful for what we have today.
Sick of the muck and the mire? Me, too.