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Tina Fey on the 2 Rudest Questions Moms Get
I don't mean to be rude, but Tina Fey, you have it all!
What’s the rudest question you can ask a mom? When she plans to lose the baby weight? Whether she’s breastfeeding? When she plans to get her kids under control? Whether she’s the mom or the grandma?
Not even close, according to Tina Fey. The brain and face behind NBC’s “30 Rock” writes in this week’s New Yorker that the rudest question you can ask a mom is this: How do you juggle it all?
The second rudest question?
Are you going to have more kids?
Fey’s essay “Confessions of a Juggler“ is only viewable if you have a New Yorker subscription or if you buy this issue. It’s totally worth it because not only is it typically Fey funny but it’s a great illustration of modern working motherhood. Sure, most of us aren’t at her level of success. Not all of us have 200 people counting on us alone for their livelihoods, as are all those people who would be out of a paycheck if Fey took time off to have another kid, she points out.
But all of us — no matter what our careers — are having babies and raising kids in the same culture and age as Fey. To have kids and a career is a never-ending series of choices made admist a never-ending series of deadlines. Who gets my attention today? Tomorrow? For the next few months? Until I’m 40. After 45!
And to accuse any of us of juggling it all? Fey points out what many of us suspect off and on: asking a mother how she juggles it all is another way of telling her she’s not.
It’s all a big race against the clock — against lost fertility, lost years, lost wages. Ships, in the form of work opportunities, sail without mom on board on a daily basis. But the kids are cute, so what’s the big deal? It is a big deal but one you don’t dare contemplate, unless you want to be up all night getting stress-induced canker sores like Fey.
It’s too much, working motherhood. Too much. And also not enough, maybe. Which is what’s keeping Fey up at night.
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Meredith Carroll commented on Feb 08 11 at 10:11 am@Madeline — Thanks for bringing this article to my attention. Hearing about other working moms and their similar frustrations and what also keeps them up at night makes me sleep better. Well, a little better, anyway.
MsC commented on Feb 08 11 at 12:32 pmOn the ‘are you going to have more kids’ thing: Before I had children, almost no one (and certainly no one at work) asked me about when or whether we were planning to have kids. But once my daughter was born, it seems like nearly everyone from family to coworkers to strangers at Target felt free to ask about our further family planning and to give advice on the same.
Gretchen Powers commented on Feb 08 11 at 1:24 pmI don’t get offended when people ask me stupid questions. Sometimes people are just…uhm…stupid and don’t know how to make intelligent small talk (that is the concession I am giving them anyway). Asking if you’re having another…asking how you juggle. I think it’s a cheesy sign of female defensiveness to assume someone asking how you juggle is underhandedly saying you’re NOT. Maybe they legitimately want a time management tip…maybe they’re just trying to give a subtle compliment? Who knows…things people say are nothing to lose sleep over! I’ve got to get my hands on this article, though…sounds interesting.
Scarlett commented on Feb 08 11 at 2:55 pmIn my experience, every mom has her own sore spots when it comes to the questions she gets. Something totally innocuous to one woman could be a major hot-button issue for another woman. We definitely need to stop reading so much into what others say. That is not to say that we won’t be offended at questions sometimes, but when we are, we should be honest about how we feel and give the other person a chance to respond. In this way, both parties could really get a new perspective. If you just bottle it up and gripe about it later, you miss the chance to come to a new understanding.
Gretchen Powers commented on Feb 09 11 at 5:27 pmUgh…that New Yorker article was pure fluff and only mildly funny…what a waste of six bucks…oh well.
Dalia Colón commented on Apr 18 11 at 11:49 amI’m a journalist for HealthyState.org. I recently wrote a blog post about Tina Fey’s pregnancy, the risks of getting pregnant after 40, and how the March of Dimes recommends minimizing those risks. Here’s a link:
http://healthystate.org/archives/9127
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