Acronyms being all the rage these days, I was amused to learn recently of the modern-day phenomenon known as the SMUM: a Smart Middle-Class Uninvolved Mother, generally well-educated and intelligent, who finds motherhood and her children tedious and uninteresting.
And since I’ve got a bit of time on my hands, I can’t help but wonder what a SMUM would think of me and my small clan here today as we get ready for a morning of school on the beach.
Annie and Molly have brought to “class” two of the seven teddies they’ve dragged halfway around the world (and oh, what I wouldn’t do to have had a frequent-flyer account for Annie’s green rabbit, Hippity, who has not only been driven across Canada three times and the US once, but has flown across the Pacific to NZ and Oz at least six times in the past eight years.) Molly’s Midnight is a new addition to our family, having been acquired in Calgary after much cajoling and praise from Molly herself: “Mom, you are so great. Mom, you are so beautiful. Mom, you are so perfect. Mom in fact I love you SOOOO very very much could you please drop 100 bucks on this build-a-bear and a coupla matching outfits?”
Anyway, no SMUM in her right mind would think I was cool or fun or halfway interesting to be doing a year-long, 24/7 adventure
with my kids. But to her and her stuck-up urbanite, nanny-dependent friends, I say: Get a life! Realize that although motherhood can absolutely be tedious at times, it is what you make it. And know that your kids are often, if not almost always, more interesting than anything you could dream up in your pathetic adult-centric world. So get on the bandwagon, SMUMs, before you add yet another unflattering acronym to your repertoire ... SMUM: as in Shitty Mean Unappealing Mother.
