Dingus of the Week: Mother's Day

America doesn't love mothers, it loves forced servitude

This is the Weekly Dingus, the Friday newsletter, where I round up my internet reads, share a drink recipe, and vent about something really dingusy that happened in the news. This week, it’s Mother’s Day. But once it was SCOTUS. Another time it was Joe Manchin. Will it be you? Stay woke.

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It’s ironic that the weekend after the draft of a SCOTUS decision rescinding abortion access in America leaked that we have to celebrate Mother’s Day in America.

Mother’s Day has always been a consolation prize to mothers in America, who are overworked, underpaid, and receive little to no help from the government or their partners. Talk all you want about “good men,” but statistically, mothers are doing the bulk of the domestic labor and the childrearing while still maintaining full-time employment. The labor gap only got worse in the pandemic as mothers were forced from their jobs and schools stayed closed.

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America doesn’t love mothers, America just loves forced servitude.

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This year, as a special fuck you to mothers in America, Congress refused to renew the Child Care Tax Credit and SCOTUS is posed to rescind abortion rights.

Americans are now being priced out of housing and can’t afford childcare or health care. Gas and groceries are unaffordable, and employers are refusing to pay living wages, and Congress won’t increase the minimum wage. And now, women will be forced to give birth in a country where maternity wards are closing and there are huge reproductive-care deserts, where pregnancy care and birth are prohibitively expensive, and where maternal mortality rates are the highest among developed countries.

America doesn’t love mothers, America just loves forced servitude.

Inflation is at a 40-year high and women’s rights are at a 100-year low.

But sure, happy Mother’s Day! Don’t forget to give your mom some shitty jewelry with her kids’ initials on it so she can wear her reproductive status around her neck on a chain.

Just a guess, but this Mother’s Day, maybe get your mother something she really wants—the right to bodily autonomy.  

But until then, can we just stop pretending that this country cares about mothers? Because we don’t. We have done nothing to stem the tide of maternal mortality. We’ve done nothing to help mothers afford to give birth or take care of their children. We’ve done nothing to make childcare affordable (except Iowa is legalizing letting 16-year-olds watch babies in a childcare setting, so that should oppress kids on two levels). Hell, we don’t even have a vaccine for children under five. 

But sure, a bunch of carnations and a card you bought in a panic from Walgreens Saturday night should do the trick.

What I Am Reading:

Parker Molloy has this good analysis on the language of abortion rights. Smithsonian Magazine has this story on saving art in Ukraine. I am just learning about it now, but I am obsessed with the site McMansion Hell.

Also, a very good podcast you should all listen to is Sexing History. I am going to interview Gillian Frank for next week’s newsletter about this moment in history, and I am very excited.

This week, I got to send in a blurb for Jeanna Kadlec’s book Heretic and Rina Raphael’s Gospel of Wellness. Both are incredibly revelatory books that examine some of our most closely held American ideals and reveal the rot that lies therein.

But honestly, I came down with Influenza A on Saturday thanks to my kids, and I didn’t feel better until about Wednesday. So, what a fucking terrible week. 

I had the pleasure of talking to a class on Wednesday, and we talked about feeling down and defeated. And I shared with them some of the sentiments I wrote here, about fighting and digging in, about not taking anything for granted. And I told them I thought it was futile to fight people one on one. That our fight is not won by debating people who don’t see us as human. Rather, we ought to have an ethos that is revolutionary, not reactionary. 

In that vein, Virginia Sole-Smith’s stepmother, Mary Summers, and three other filmmakers made this movie about pre-Roe America and why we can’t go back. The film is 28 minutes and free to watch and a really good resource. The filmmakers also have a list of places you can donate to aid the fight for abortion access in America. 

And Monday, after the news broke, I wrote and sent the mid-week newsletter early. Read it here if you missed it.

This Was Always The Plan

Also, I just want to say, I really love the comments section. Everyone is so amazing and thoughtful and even when there are disagreements, I think people handle it so well. I truly appreciate hearing from you all. And reading the comments this week when I was feeling so sick and defeated was just a boon.

What I Am Drinking:

Well, since I have felt like crap, the most booze I’ve had was when I had a whiskey sour at my favorite restaurant on Wednesday night. And it was so wonderful. I dragged myself there just for an excuse to feel human after a week of being sick and realizing that a good portion of this country sees me as subhuman. But the weather is supposed to be nice this weekend, finally, so I will, once again, try to make some Moscow Mules. Here are six different Moscow Mule recipes we can all try.

Proving we are cursed, the New York Times declared the Dirty Shirley the drink of the summer. It’s a Shirley Temple spiked with vodka and I am pretty sure I drank that in college and no thank you. But I suppose it’s the drink this country deserves.

And well, Loretta sang it best.