I have a confession to make.
I can’t stand those “mom” song parody videos that have spread across the Internet like a not-so-rare Amazonian fungus.
You probably seen them in your social media feeds; heck, we’ve probably even shared them on the chambanamoms Facebook page.
So what draws my ire?
They tend to feature (mostly) wealthy, (mostly) white, (mostly) ultra-privileged moms wearing yoga pants, drinking Starbucks and driving late-model minivans who are completely oblivious to, you know, the rest of the pedestrian world.
The most recent one — set to “Uptown Funk” but titled “Suburban Funk” supposedly “celebrates life in the burbs.”
G-d forbid they can’t get 2 a.m. food delivery anymore after leaving the city!
Then there’s the one set to Taylor Swift’s Blank Space that about how tired moms are and how much they depend on coffee, which is a theme to which many of us – regardless of socioeconomic status – can relate. But of course there’s the riff on Starbucks as the answer.
Because every stay-at-home mom buys multiple $4 lattes daily! RIGHT?
There’s the one about being “so” pregnant, another topic many moms can relate to – the mixed blessings of those final (large) months of pregnancy. But they lost me when they show the pregnant woman shopping at a certain big box store with a red circle logo and then suggests she should get a job there — when in the next scene they hint that her “job” is playing tennis with friends.
Reality check: there are plenty of pregnant women who do, in fact, actually work at Target.
I guess these parody songs are supposed to show these women making fun of themselves. The thing of it is – the videos mainly just show how out of touch they are with real life, outside the bubble of privilege. Sure, they must resonate with some segment of the population – the videos have been viewed and shared literally millions of times.
But it’s hard for me to understand the attraction – how more people don’t see how these videos completely swing and miss. How they denigrate and stereotype.
Or maybe those spreading it are laughing at them, not with them. Not that I advocate that, either.
I’m wishing that they would put their talents to work making “parody songs” showing actual real mom problems: our country’s lack of favorable maternity leave policy; how women are penalized in the workforce for stopping out and fall behind in compensation; how working women often lack a safe, clean place to express breast milk; the struggle to find affordable childcare for all.
Maybe I’m just too serious – or just overtired.
Laura Weisskopf Bleill is the mom-in-chief of chambanamoms.com. She’s now going to change into her yoga pants, put on fancy sunglasses, start up the minivan and drive to Starbucks.