Do You Need To Be A Yummy Mummy To Be Happy?
Yummy Mummy.
I can’t say the phrase, nay, even think it, without my voice dripping with disdain.
Yummy. Mummy.
That great honor bestowed on women that have children and don’t commit the heinous crime of letting themselves go -getting fat and not caring enough about their appearance. Because that’s what matters, right? What’s on the outside.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people wanting to looking nice or stay in shape, I don’t think we all ought to pile on the pounds and hand stitch our own clothes from bits of old sacking and cloth, but does nobody else feel that the Yummy Mummy thing is simply another way of trying to sell the magazine lifestyle?
Trying to make us all feel like under achievers; bloated, ungraceful hippos in a room full of swans? Or, in reality, in a room full of other hippos all covering themselves in feathers and trying desperately to be swans. All believing that this shit matters. All under the sad disillusion that if they just lost a couple of pounds, bought more Boden clothing, decked their house out in more Cath Kidston, scatter cushions and other pointless crap, if they put an island and a range cooker in their kitchen, got some decking in the backyard and a Blackberry in their pocket, that life would somehow be better?
That they would be happy? As content and serene as the women in the magazines?
What a crock of shit. This magazine lifestyle, this yummy mummy world, it’s a place that couldn’t possibly exist, not in reality, unless of course someone were to replace our children and husbands with robots. Very clean robots that never made a mess, drew in permanent marker all over the new pine kitchen island or thought the best place for their latest oily repair project was the hand painted cream decking you’d just had laid. Plus give us a maid, cleaner, gardener, nanny and a whole heap more cash. And even then, does it really signify happiness? Is this how we measure our sense of self worth and esteem,? Is this how we see happiness, as flawless mannequins frozen in perfect pristine homes and gardens?
Utter bollocks, isn’t it? And yet, so many people yearn for it, get swept up in trying to obtain it. Why?
And why has this magazine lifestyle, this yummy mummy status, started to become synonymous with being a good mother? Do people really believe that by not bringing their children up in a the perfect home, its walls painted in just the right shade of off-white with a hint of mint, in a world full of chocolate labradors and sweaters thrown casually over the shoulder, means they are a bad mother?
Or, more likely, is it all about nobody on the outside being able to see what a good mother they are if they don’t have all the ‘perfect mother’ trimmings to go with it? Is it other peoples perceptions of them that cause them to buy, buy, buy? Buy into the ideals, buy the clothes and the shit to scatter around their homes, pour over the magazines, trying to drag themselves, inch by scented candle inch, into this perfect world where they will be seen to be happy and content with life because, from outside at least, it will look like they have it all.
Have we not grown up at all? Are we all so desperate still to be one of the cool kids?
You know the phrase ‘dance as if no-one is watching’? Perhaps we ought to change it to ‘live as if no-one is watching’…I’m sure we would all be a damn sight more happy.
I'm Heather, an ex expat, now back in blighty and living in Lancashire. Which is just like Lapland only less snowy...and stuff.
Brilliant and your comment about being seen as the 'cool kids' is spot on. By the way you have described my sister in law to a tee.
I agree. For me this idea of yummy mummy-dom is just a repackaging of the 1950's idea of the “perfect housewife” – or the chauvenistic male ideal of cook in the kitchen, whore in the bedroom, etc. Ultimately it is less a celebration and more a tenet by which people who can't keep up are broken or ostracised. Not good either way.
Thank you. It disturbs me no end that some people actually find this way of life something to aspire to, something they think they SHOULD be aspiring to. All very strange.
As I was writing this that image of the 1950's housewife kept popping into my head and it occurred to me, we are going backwards! We are allowing and perpetuating the fall back to the idea of the women being the perfect housewife, mother and wife. like you said, chef, lady, whore. It's worrying.
Yes, I agree with Steve. The 'Yummy Mummy' ideal is just another version of the sexist pigeonholing that women have always had to deal with – one that tells us we must be the perfect wife, mother, home-maker… oh and we must be gorgeous and sexy too. Anything less and you can consider yourself on the heap love.
Thank god for you. This is why I love you, I think (because you are so on the money with the everyday stuff like this).
It IS an utter crock. And what is worse, it pits those of us, who happen across these so-called “yummy mummies” who probably have no more than good genes on their side and have not even a skerrick of a baby bulge to show they have given birth at some point, to size them up and pigeon-hole them unfairly. Magazines and the media have everything to answer for in perpetuating all these myths and this female rivalry. It's sad.
Agree, Steve.
Well it's a good thing it's not mandatory cos otherwise I've got big probs. Seriously though, the 1950s/60s housewife lifestyle was called the Cult of Domesticity. Chauvinistic and depressing it coincided with that time in history when large numbers of women became addicted to bliss in a pill – mother's little helpers.
Well I'm a slummy mummy and proud of it – I like to think I have more important things (to me anyway) on my mind.
even pre-mummydom, I despised the fashion cult. Yes, I was never one of the cool kids, unsurprisingly. I don't get why people spend lots of dosh on toiletteries (I can't even spell it
), clothes, magazines and all that rubbish that you don't really need. At least I never felt I had to be a yummy mummy although I know my mum (perfect housewife) would have disapproved of the mess and disorganisation in our home. I'm ok with it though, I work, I try to be a good mum, and have some me time – I can't do all the other stuff on top of it too, simply not my priority.
Too busy dah-ling to leave a comment really.
I may have to get my nanny cum housekeeper cum domestic slave to type it out for me as I don't want to chip my nails on the kepboard.
Oh, and the chauffeur is at the door as I have an appointment to touch up my roots at Nicky's salon.
And then lunch with some girlfriends but we only pretend to eat as it's really a competition to see how little we can all consume for exorbitant amounts of money.
And I would go shopping for some new Louboutin shoes – my other pair was chewed by the puppy, that damn dog-walker STILL has not housetrained it properly – but I need to be at home when the children arrive back from their daily summer entertainment camp.
What a bother. Terrible hassle all this hard work, I tell you.
LCM x
Too busy dah-ling to leave a comment really.
I may have to get my nanny cum housekeeper cum domestic slave to type it out for me as I don't want to chip my nails on the kepboard.
Oh, and the chauffeur is at the door as I have an appointment to touch up my roots at Nicky's salon.
And then lunch with some girlfriends but we only pretend to eat as it's really a competition to see how little we can all consume for exorbitant amounts of money.
And I would go shopping for some new Louboutin shoes – my other pair was chewed by the puppy, that damn dog-walker STILL has not housetrained it properly – but I need to be at home when the children arrive back from their daily summer entertainment camp.
What a bother. Terrible hassle all this hard work, I tell you.
LCM x
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're a tad annoyed by this?!
You're going to hate me: I totally buy into the Cath Kidstone lifestyle. I want a family and the white picket fence and the beautifully turned out children and all that. Having said that, I consider you to be a yummy mummy; you're a fabulous mum, funny, intelligent, brave and wonderful, that's what makes a yummy mummy in my book.
Brilliant post and so true. But, dare I say it — I would rather be seen in the school pick up/drop off line as a yummy mummy than a slummy mummy! LOL I've been both by the way and usually blag my way through the slummy mummy look by saying I've been painting ALL day. Yeah … which goes right back to your post and why do we feel the need do that.
Haha and my SIL too!
Seriously where do people find the time to yummify themselves and their home? Some days I don't brush my hair. Who cares? Not me. I'd rather play with my children (and read blog posts too of course). Great post, Heather.
Oooh, I like this.
Have you seen the film “The Joneses'? It's kind of about this very thing (not exactly, but same theme). The premise is that a family move into an area, get to know the neighbours, seem very charming, BUT they're not a family, they're a “marketing unit” (I'm not telling you anything that the trailer doesn't). Their job is to become the golden family, make lots of contacts, and then start selling by example, by flaunting their latest phones, golf equipment, designer jewelry, etc etc. It is a shocking comment on a materialist society, where all is image, image, image. It's not even that we want the things for themselves, any more. It's that we want to have what they represent.
The thing I found scary (apart from Demi Moore's over-acting) was the thought that if a movie has been made about this, it's probably happening in real life. I didn't really like the way the plot developed, or the ending, but I found the whole idea very fascinating. That people could make a living out of marketing their lifestyle.
I kind of want to segue into what has happened in the world of mummy blogging at this point, but, hm, I think I'll just leave that one dangling.
Scatter cushions are pointless. They would definitely be in my Room 101 (I used to love that programme).
I really loved this post.
That didn't come across in my previous wittering comment, so I thought I'd just come back and say it properly.
I love the post, and I found myself saying “yes, yes, yes” throughout it.I can't bear the whole feeling of being told what we ought to be like, and who we ought to be like. It makes me want to go back to the Middle Ages, with everyone dressing in peasant garb, and just being thankful if the turnip crop isn't ruined by rain. Do you think they cared if there was a Cath Kidston table mat to put the pot of turnip soup on, in those days?
Thing is, why would anyone want to spend hours cleaning and polishing their house and garden, when there's blogging to be done?
Too funny and a brilliant post. I'm so far removed from a Yummy Mummy…..I do however have a Blackberry, mainly to check my e-mails when I'm at the park with the kids!!!!
I like your new phrase 'live as if no one is watching'! Sums it all up really. Do what makes you happy I say but yes material happiness lasts just seconds so it is important to search inside and seek food for your soul. Mich x
It's a stupidest and most infuriating things, isn't it? no wait, the stupidest and most infuriating thing is the way so many women push this myth on each other, it's not just the marketing and advertising, it's gone way beyond that now I think.
The worst thing about it all is the magazines and media don't even have to push this idea much anymore, in my opinion, women do it themselves, they have become, with the snotty nosed ways, cliques, and looking down on people, a perpetual machine for this nonsense, marketing this 'perfect way of life' by pretending to live it. It's all ridiculous.
Do you feel that this lifestyle, this 'cult of domesticity' is similar to what is happening with the whole yummy mummy lifestyle? This time to me it feels less chauvinistic, in that it seems to be women pushing it on women and not men doing it. What do you think?
Hear hear!
We are of a similar mind, i think. I've never really gone for the whole domestic bliss thing, just trying to live my life as best i can and not clutter it with so much unneeded crap.
it must be a killer, you poor dear. What you need is a weekend away at the spa to recover, you poor thing, you.
Not entirely sure that image of me would hold up if you met me being over weight with unbrushed hair, no make up and a lawn full of weeds at knee height, but sweet of you to say
But seriously though, my problem with it is not that people would like to have it, sure, wouldn't we all like a clean well decorated house, but that some women think it is essential to happiness and that anyone that doesn't have it is somehow substandard. I think that as ladies we often lack perspective and have a tendency to over idolise certain things. just look at the breastfeeding/bottle wars or the SAHM/working mum battles for examples of going off the deep end about issues that aren't the be all and end all of life. And yet at the same time as we are viciously fighting these battles between ourselves, and how much time, effort and energy some people put into these things is mystifying, we are turning a blind eye away from the things that really matter, allowing men to wage wars that are killing people in their thousands, starvation and cruelty throughout the world. Us women have so much passion and drive I just think that so many point it all in the wrong direction.
Sorry, i didn't mean to go all ranty on you there. I'm not blaming you for wars and starvation. Lol
It is probably because i live in the sticks and perhaps all would be different if I lived in a more cosmopolitan place but I don't really care much anymore what people think of me. i used to when I first moved here, back then it was important to me but these days I couldn't give a shit if they think i look scruffy. Bollocks to them.
Thank you my love. It's amazing where some people find the time and energy for this stuff, huh?
I love the concept of that film! how clever and terrifying. And it does make you wonder, since there's a film about it, does it really happen? Oooh, creepy. Shame the film was rubbish – there are so many great concept films that turn out to be a bit pants aren't there? I loved the idea behind The Trueman Show but thought the film was terrible.
You know what's really depressing is the number of women already doing that job, already selling the lifestyle by pretending to have the perfect life and yet they are not even being paid for it. i'm not even sure that we really the advertising industry and media to keep it running anymore, it has taken on a life of its own where we are doing their job for them, pushing it on other women, trying to make them feel substandard if they don't have it all. It the dumbest thing and such a big step back for us.
God, i could rant about this subject all day but i'll spare you and cut myself short
i loved room 101 too – awesome program. Also stepping clear of the blogger analogy… 
God yes! If we could go back to simpler times, wouldn't life be easier. It stands out so much to me living here because there are so many older ladies just getting on with their lives here. they grow their own food, wear clothes than keep the warm or cool but don't care how they look. Their homes are filled with love and trinket the kids and grandkids have made, and do they have anxiety that the woman two doors down has something they don't? Or that they don't have the latest handbag or shoes?
This is a big question. and the ones that blog as well…how do they find the time? Do they not sleep?
I have a fancy smancy phone too. I'm such a gadget geek.
Perhaops this is some of the problem, the pleasure gained from buying something is so fleeting that they need to keep buying to keep feeling it?
Darn-guess I should give up being a yummy mummy. I am yummy and a mummy but not a yummy mummy.
I definately think it is women forcing it upon other women, but then the worst bosses I've ever had in the corporate world have also been women! Modern women are almost overwhelmed by the not only the choice they have to make between career and home, but by the pressure to do both perfectly! I know of women who project manage having their babies, organising their children's hobbies, and school life. I know women who take on the burden of 'my housework' even if they are fortunate enough to be able to delegate this task to a cleaner. I completely reject housework as any part of my wifely duty. I feed him because we have to eat and he's a hopeless cook, I sleep with him because I like it, and I tidy up after him because otherwise I'd fall over stuff! It is not my raison d'etre. It is not my life or the definition of my talent, or ability. The pressure on women to be perfectly 'turned out' irrespective of life is largely foisted upon us by our peers (sadly) both male and female. I have absolutely no idea what to do about it. Should I grow my under arm hair in protest?
*rolls eyes* being a yummy mummy has, in my opinion, nothing to do with weight or perfect hair! (I have a warped world view!) I describe those frazzled looking mums as yummy mummies, they wear the dishevelled look so well it makes me jealous.
I totally agree that we spend FAR too much time attacking each other for what are, essentially, insignificant choices, but I think, or hope, that it comes from a place of just wanting the best for the children. It would be far better if we all just supported each other, understood that everyone's circumstances are different and got on with it! That's the advantage men have; they pull together and stand up for one another!
I'm surrounded by Yummy Mummies, they're thin, blond, drive SUVs and look miserable most of the time. Being perfect must be sooo stressful. Cool? I think not. Doing your own things is cool. I keep the grass out front short and kill the weeds to keep the local Yummies off my back and inside the front door I do my own thing.
Love this article – I hate hate the term yummy mummy – and I get called that by folks who don't know better. I may be tall and slim but how does that effect how I am as a Mum – the honest answer is it has nothing to do with it so please leave how I look out of it.
You'd hate Fulham. It is full of blonde, skinny, attractive mummies driving 4WD, with cleaners, gardeners, nannies and perfectly turned out children, not a hair out of place. Go there if you dare.
They are afraid to sleep, because if they do, their nightmares come back. Nightmares in which their Cath Kidston mugs don’t match the Emma Bridgewater coasters, or their autumn-themed table decoration clashes with the wallpaper which they chose in the springtime. So no, they daren’t sleep. They stay up all night polishing the windowsills.
I’m so bitter and twisted. Perhaps I mind about not being a YM more than I realise.
Oh wow, you’re going to hate my latest blog post – my eternal quest to become a yummy mummy!
I’m not doing it for anyone else & I don’t see being a yummy mummy as bad. Of course when I say yummy mummy I don’t mean these stick insect idiots who foist their kids on nannies so they can do lunch & shop.
To me a yummy mummy is someone who is comfortable in their own skin, who projects exactly the image she wants to project, is happy, secure and loves life. That’s the kind of yummy mummy I’m aspiring to be.
Yes. Underarm hair is the way to go.
Revisiting this awesome post…
I love that you could rant all day about this. So could I. We’ll have to have a get-together.
Why isn’t disqus notifying me of your replies to my comments any more? It used to. I wonder if I’ve ticked some box to opt out. Or have you changed settings? Ah, yes, a little box says “subscribe to all comments by email” and I’ve ticked that. Hope that doesn’t mean I’ll get ALL comments in my email.
So glad you wrote this. Now I know you would be happy in my home if you ever came to visit me!