Why Everyone Hates Mommies

“Helicopter moms,” “sanctimommies,” “stroller Nazis,” “breeders”—moms are getting a bad rap these days, but why? Yes, some aspects of mommy culture are ripe for mocking—the obsession with pregnant celebrities, the sham of Baby Einstein, the mothers who park “SUV-size” strollers next to their barstools, writes Lynn Harris for Salon. “But I still say that when it comes to mother bashing, there's more going on. Something deeper, more venomous, even more timeless.”

Class resentment is part of it—“the simple act of pushing a stroller down a gentrified street” screams, “I can afford one more bedroom than you can”—but the bottom line is that “Women—still—are not ‘supposed’ to take up space,” Harris writes. “We grow a belly, we need a seat, we say ‘excuse me, please,’ we speak up (or, God forbid, blog), and we've crossed the line, said or asked too much, become ‘entitled.’”
(More motherhood stories.)