(1) I had not seen the Gawker piece--thank you for pointing it out. I don't particularly agree with its assessment, i.e. that Andrews' message in the Times piece was that "the evil lenders held a gun to my head." He takes responsibility for errors in judgment, and discloses that his wife has issues with spending. It is still noteworthy that lenders gave him a loan, and that a mortgage broker encouraged him to hide his past and that of his wife's from said lenders. I do agree, nonetheless that since he was writing a personal finance piece and making a microcosm of his situation, it would have been appropriate to disclose her past bankruptcy.
(2) Of course not all pregnant women are smug. Not all children are annoying. Not all republicans are delusional. I haven't read your post yet, but based on the preview, I'll launch a pre-emptive comment: enough pregnant women are smug that the video's a youtube sensation. The sanctimommy concept is one well covered in the blogosphere-- you don't need my two cents.
I will give you this, if we are doing close readings: Nobody should be asking a pregnant woman whether she wants a boy or a girl. It's an inappropriate question that calls for a cliched, formula response. A number of my friends have been pregnant in recent years, and quite a few have complained about people touching their bellies, asking personal questions, and so on. I'll be the first to agree that you have to put up with a lot of BS. Nonetheless, spare me the 'material distractions no longer matter to me' crap. See Sex and the City episode where Carrie's Monolos get stolen at a baby shower.
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My issue is that people are starting to feel that it's okay to think that all mothers are sanctimommies and that they feel that it's okay to generalize them in this manner.The Republicans are generalized as inept b/c they have pretty bad representation, but I don't think that the majority of mothers are sanctimommies. The pregnant women I know (including myself) are more scared than sanctimonious, and I think it's somewhat unfair to characterize pregnant women in this way. Oh, and by the way, just b/c something is a youtube sensation doesn't exactly make it true, it just means that it's popular to think of pregnant women in this way though I bet you 10 dollars that most people if pressed would have to admit that the majority of pregnant women that they meet do not act in this manner.
That SATC episode was very funny, but even now I would pay for the shoes and again, I don't think it's representative of most moms. I for one, just having moved to a less-hip neighborhood w/ great diversity and school districts sometimes find myself jealous that my non-pregnant friends get to buy Manolos. I would kill right now to even be able to wear high heels or even pumps as opposed to the Clarks I've been rocking since month 6.
Weirdly enough, I used to be very anti-materialism before getting pregnant. Now I'm all like, "Well you have to get the right kind of car seat, stroller and learning tools." So in my view, pregnancy forces you to be even more materialistic -- because unlike this kid's car seat, my office chair doesn't cost hundreds of dollars. So I think any mom that tells you that she's no longer materialistic isn't really looking closely at what the word means.
I don't mind the boy/girl question. I wanted a girl. Though my husband is all about the 10 fingers/10 toes response -- which I can understand since it was such a struggle for us to get pregnant. We were talking about this subject on an IVF blog the other day -- many infertiles give the 10fingers response, b/c they feel very lucky to be pregnant at all.
So I guess my big problems with this video is that it's women bashing other women, that it generalizes, and that it's just not very sensitive at all. If a white duo made the same kind of video put forth the same things about black people, I'd be just as upset -- even if it was funny and a youtube sensation.
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