The Good Mommy Club

The GMC, not to be confused with the automobile and truck manufacturer, is a stealth organization that does not exist in the minds of its members - mommies. The GMC is the most oppressive force in the entire history of human womanhood, one that reduces otherwise intelligent and creative women to flesh-and-blood vending machines that their children abuse when they fail to cough up "the goods" on demand. Worse, this is also about women oppressing other women, and themselves! Knowledge is the antidote. Listen to this and gain knowledge.

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Transcript

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Hello Again folks John Rosemond here your favorite parenting podcaster on the web. I ended last week's podcast by promising to reveal this week. The existence of what is arguably the source of the most insidious peer pressure in the entire United States of America and from all I can gather the United States of America, only. To wit, the good mommy club Well, that's what I call it anyway, the good mommy club. Or, if you will, the good mommy cult. Take your pick. The good mommy club called is a secret sisterhood that consists of young and middle aged mothers mostly anyway. One child qualifies a mother for the good mommy club. But the more children the crazier. Most of the moms in the good mommy club or middle to upper class moms, rural, suburban or urban, it doesn't matter because the moms in question. They don't even know they're members of the good mommy club, the good mommy club or cult, to sort of sucks women into it like a whirlpool or a tornado once they become mothers. It's so ubiquitous, so pervasive, that new mothers don't even feel the sucking, they put up no resistance whatsoever. They just assume that what is happening to them is what motherhood is all about. And once a mother's inside the vortex of the good mommy club she plays along witlessly Not realizing that her life as anything but a good mommy is over. The good mommy club is defined by a set of good mommy doctrine to which a mother must subscribe and live every waking minute of her life and lockstep with in order to qualify as a good mommy. Now, before I get into the specifics of good mommy club doctrine, it's important for you to understand that when I was a kid growing up to the 1950s and early 1960s Yes, I am that old. There was no good mommy club. Praise God it didn't exist mind you. There were lots of good mommies back then my mother being one of them. But good mommy meant something very, very different back then from what good mommy means today. So on with good mommy club doctrine. The overarching doctrine of the good mommy club the first and foremost requirement from membership in other words is the good mommy pays as much attention to her children as she possibly can. Another way of saying the same thing is the good mommy orbits constantly around her children. The good mommy is found orbiting around her kids, no matter their ages. She orbits around her kids when they're infants. She orbits around them when they're of school age. She orbits around them when they're teens and the final analysis orbiting becomes her life. At some point she can't stop orbiting she doesn't know how to stop that first doctrine. The good mommy pays as much attention to her children as she possibly can orbits around her children constantly fascinates people my age because our mothers expect to us as children, to pay attention to them. We orbited around our mothers. Because we were paying attention to our mothers. And orbiting around them, we did what they told us to do, because that is the first prerequisite of an obedient child, the child is paying attention. When our mothers said do this, we did it when our mothers said stop doing that we stopped doing it. When our mothers said lunch was at noon, that didn't mean that beat us whenever we wanted to be fed. We came in from playing at 1230. Lunch was over, we would have to wait until dinner to eat. We might be allowed to grab an apple and go back outside, but that was about it. Back in the old school days, a mother's word was law. Today, a mother's word is subject to her child's approval. Here's a fact good people. The more attention a parent pays a child, the less attention the child will pay to the parent. That is a parenting adage, a parenting truism. The notion that parents should pay lots of attention and positive attention on that. In order to boost their esteem of themselves an anti biblical concept of their era was one became parenting doctrine in the early 1970s. That explains why so many parents since 1970, thereabouts give or take, complain that their children don't pay attention to them unless they yell. I'll say it again. The more attention a parent pays to a child, the less attention the child will pay to the parent. To a child, the need to pay attention goes in either one direction or the other. Either the child needs to pay attention to his parents or his parents need to pay attention to him. That does not go in both directions. So it's either or. So the second good mommy club doctrine is equally puzzling. It is the good mommy does as much for her child as she possibly is able to do. Again, fascinating. My mother expected me to do for myself from as early as I was capable of doing whatever it was. I was capable of doing something and I asked my mother to do it. My mother would say, you can do that for yourself with kind of a shrug or shoulders. Or she would sometimes say you have me mistaken for your servant. Don't ask me to do that sort of thing for you unless you're willing to pay me. Now, a mother who talks in that sort of no frills, straightforward way to her children today is not welcome in the good mommy club because another doctor to the club is thou shalt always be nice. Telling a child the sorts of things my mother sometimes told me like, you have me mistaken for a servant. Do it yourself, but it's not nice. Therefore, mother's speech of that sort will get a mother tossed out of the good mommy club. She will be shunned. She won't be invited to play dates, for example, and that's a biggie. That's a biggie in the good mommy club. Being invited to lots of play dates affirms a mother's membership and the good mommy club. Not being invited to lots of playdates means she's done something wrong and she's violated one of the doctrine. Other mothers don't want her around because she reminds them of the Freedom they've lost by becoming good mommy club members. My mother mother's of her day in time and before my mother understood her mission, her purpose in my life. Her purpose as a mother was not to make me happy that was my responsibility or boost my self esteem, she insists that I respect to others or make sure I was fully equipped for professional and financial success again, that was my responsibility in sure my admission to Harvard No, no, no, no. My mother's mission or purpose in my life was simply to emancipate a responsible and compassionate citizen. She used to tell me what her mission was. In fact, although not in those terms, I'd asked her to do something for me and she'd say, John Rosemond. My job is to help you learn to stand on your own two feet, which you will never learn to do if I let you stand on mine. Unfortunately, and once again, a mother in the year 2020 through 2020 23, who has the gall to talk to her child that way using language of that sort is not welcome and the good mommy club No way. The next good mommy club doctrine is the good mommy solves all of her child's problems. If he has a problem at school with a teacher or another student, she solves it. He goes to the school and demands thing. If the other kids won't play with her child or give him a problem of any sort, she goes outside finds the other kids and demand that they include her child or stop giving them a problem. And she acts very scary so the other kids cooperate. Any insult to the child of a good mommy is an insult to the good mommy herself. Any problem her child experiences she experiences, his failures or her failures, and so on. That's called codependency which none of the good mommies will admit of course, but when all of a sudden done. The good mommy club consists of mommies who are in codependent relationships with their cluelessly codependent children. The problem solving the good mommy does for her child is never ending by the way because the more problems she solves for her child the more problems her child wants her to solve. To convince her that he's helpless to solve his own problems he whines he cries the drop of the proverbial Hattie throws tantrums he acts depressed catatonic so on. Again, fascinating the mom of the old school days expected her child to solve his own problems. For example, when I was in elementary school, another boy named Danny bullied me I'm I mean, he bullied me incessantly. I told my mother about it. And she said, I mean, I remember her exact words, I can't solve that problem for you. If I try and solve it, it will get worse to stay away from Danny. Luckily, I could run faster than Danny not as fast as far as Forrest Gump mind Jouvet faster than Danny and that was all that mattered. The next good mommy club doctrine is thou shalt make every effort to make sure your child is a straight A honored student. Even if he's far from being one being awarded the my child has an honor student sticker, and putting it on the back window or bumper of your SUV is a sign that one has reached the upper echelon of good mommy dumb it's like the good mommy club equivalent of an Olympic gold medal it says that the good mommy in question is a championship good mommy like the Muhammad Ali have good mommies. Actually the my child is an honor student bumper sticker is a testament to the mind numbing effects of being a member in good standing of the good mommy club because I mean, let's face it, folks, this is common sense here driving around with a sign on your car. telling everyone that your child is better than theirs in some respect, is about as rude and disrespectful as rude and disrespectful can get but on with the good mommy club doctrine good mommy club doc for number six have you been counting? Is the good mommy transports her child who has many developmentally enriching, intellectually, enriching, artistically enriching, athletically enriching etc, etc. After school and weekend activities that she can carry I am in to her frantic child oriented day. These after school and weekend activities are supposed to make him smarter and more talented. But if they don't, it's the coach's fault anyway. Besides the stone cold fact is that 90% of these adult organized, adult micromanaged activities a child is enrolled in will be irrelevant to anything he's doing when he's 30 years old. Folks, I played little league one year. That was the extent of my involvement in adult organized and adult micromanaged activities when I was a kid, Little League for one year. After one year, I'd had enough of being organized and micromanaged by adults, so I didn't go back for a second year. Even though I was the most valuable player in the league I led my team to the league championship I was the home run king of the league. I didn't go back for a second year because I'd had enough of adults telling me how to play that said children should be playing and adults don't need to tell children how to play. Playing comes naturally to a child. Anyway, good mommy club doc her number seven is the good mommy make sure her child is good at everything he does and if he isn't, she hires tutors and coaches to give him a boost of more coaching and tutoring doesn't work out she has him tested you know by a psychologist like me. Yep, I'm a psychologist. If you haven't tuned into this podcast before, I don't believe in psychology. I think it's a farce but I'm licensed as a psychology by the state of North Carolina. Anyway, if more coaching and tutoring doesn't work out the good mommy has her child tested. And the tests find they're always gonna find something. The test fine. He has a bogus psychological diagnosis. They're all bogus. Which gives the mommy in question a free pass. When good mommy club members get together, they talk about nothing but their children. You've probably been around or in these conversations, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They talk about the amazing things their children are doing and the amazing things they're doing for their children. It's a subtle game of one upmanship, or up mommy ship really. One mommies says her six year old has been accepted into Harvard Medical School. Another tells the group that her five year old has been accepted into NASA's astronaut program and is going to become the first five year old go to Mars. And another says her four year old has been tested at Stanford and found to be smarter than Einstein. And on and on and on the up mommy ship goes the understanding subtle as it is being that the best mommy is the mommy with the most amazing child. Very strange, very strange indeed. I thank God every day that my mother was not the good mommy club being the child of a good mommy in the contemporary sense of the term must be suffocating after all. The child of course that No, he's suffocating under the micromanaging oppression of his good mummy clubbed mummy, he likely thinks that a state of oppression is normal to being a child sense after all, nearly all of his peers, as far as he can tell are similarly oppressed by their good micromanaging mommies. A frequent complaint I hear from mothers is my children won't leave me alone, John. The children in question are found constantly complaining to their mothers about something wanting them to solve some problem or another. constantly asking their vending machine mothers for something constantly asking their mothers for help with something constantly interrupting their mothers and so on and so on and so forth. All of that is indication that the mother in question is devoting herself day in and day out to good mommy club doctrine. The more problems she solves for her kids. The more problems they want her to solve, they want her to solve their boredom. They want her to solve problems they come up against while doing their homework. They want her to solve problems they have with siblings, peers, teachers, coaches. And all the while their tolerance for frustration of any sort is diminishing by the day. So they wine which is a symptom of a low tolerance for frustration, a wine which drives the good mommy nuts, so she does whatever she has to do to turn off the whining, which means she solves more problems. It's a vicious cycle of never ending, always increasing codependency. There's one more good mommy club darker is number eight, which is the good mommy is exhausted by the end of the day, which means when the day is done and the kids are in bed, she has no energy left to be a good wife. After a few years of being a good mommy she even begins to forget how to be a good wife. Which is as sad as sad can be for herself and her husband and her children. This is a woman's liberation issue for sure. In the 60s and 70s women marched for liberation from the so called patriarchy warning. I'm a member of said patriarchy. Today, women need to get together and liberate themselves not from the patriarchy, but from the oppression of the good mommy club. And I've talked with women who've done exactly that. Usually after hearing me talk somewhere, or after reading something I've written on the subject. They come up to me and they want to talk and they all tell me it's the best thing they've ever done. resigning from the good mommy club is the best thing they have ever done since becoming mothers. They also tell me that upon resigning from the good mommy club, they had to find all new friends which simply proves there is a price to pay for everything. That wraps up this week's podcast folks. I'm John Rosemond heretic psychologist. For more information on me and my mission slash ministry. Go to parenting guru parents guru.com subscribe to my weekly sub stack where I give practical parent parent parenting advice practical parenting advice to the weary. And now my alter ego Louisiana blues man extraordinaire Beaujolais beaucoup hit it