by Linda Keenan
Even at 11:30 p.m.—no, especially at 11:30 p.m.—when I was coming home to the East Village from work at CNN, exhausted, Rob would start in on an obscure Civil War fact, or deliver the results of the game he listened to on his handheld radio, or describe the latest outing he had with girlfriend “Gladys” (her real name, like Gladys, is straight out of an old-school sitcom, just like Rob himself). Rob could and would talk about anything, and he would still be talking as the elevator doors closed. Years later, he’s surely still talking. If Rob had suddenly found himself in my suburb, an army of concerned mommies would have dragged his fifty-year-old ass in for a special-ed evaluation, because Rob might well have had Asperger’s.
So it was while pushing a baby stroller through a suburban mall (my new “town square”) that I started missing not just my urban friends and job, but especially Rob, my go-to conversation machine, and all the other random faces I would bump into, sometimes literally, going about my city life. I had gone from living vertically with dozens of couples or single people in the same building (using the same elevators, clogging the same trash room), to living horizontally, families cut off from other families in their own cocoons: self-imposed segregation in a most concrete way. Feeling so cut off surely magnified a nasty case of postpartum depression and the crushing loneliness that came with it. That’s when I turned into, well, the stay-at-home-mommy version of Rob.
I began talking to everyone, anywhere, anytime, all the time. Were people’s facial cues telling me to back the fuck off, you crazy mommy? I didn’t care. I followed a circuit of library story times with the devotion of a Dead Head (story time for tiny infants, mind you, who still don’t know the difference between you and their own hand). I ate at the same diner every morning, ordering the same two-dollar egg sandwich until the waitress busting her ass recognized me. Yeah, she recognized me alright, as the spoiled mommy bitch who didn’t have to work and wouldn’t stop smiling at her, attempting pleasantries. I became an avid student of nanny culture and racially profiled them to find the most talkative ones. My inappropriate, sweeping generalization is that Caribbean nannies seemed the chattiest, and often cattiest, and therefore most desirable to me. I swear one favorite nanny showed such contempt for the parents of the boy-prince she was caring for that I thought her eyes were going to roll out and drop on to the park bench.
I attended a ragtag sing-along at a bookstore that usually attracted just a few passersby and me, the sad-sack regular with her quarrelsome baby. The sing-along leader was Jean, a sixty-something sweetheart, who was so scattershot I thought she was either drunk or mis-medicated. She would sort of punt on her kiddie playlist after just a few highly awkward songs and one day even said, “Linda, you take over.” She seemed more unhinged than me, and that’s saying a lot. (Jean didn’t have a car, I learned, when I saw her blowing around in the rain waiting for a bus on a hugely busy, dispiriting commercial thoroughfare. I picked her up. A suburbanite without a car: the ultimate outcast.)
And, as I mentioned, I joined a Gymboree class. That’s where I met Bridget, Luv, as I called her in my head. Bridget, Luv, of course, was Irish; an older woman and a local legend among the baby-raising set for her savant-like knowledge of newborns. In my haze of postpartum depression, I had five of the worst seconds of my life in her class, when I actually forgot my beloved son’s name, Frank. After class, I was so distraught I didn’t want to leave Gymboree or Bridget, Luv, who said to me, “You have the bad baby blues, luv. I seen it a-tousand times.”
All my pent-up loneliness plus my suppressed impropriety had to go somewhere, and that somewhere was online. Google my name and in a few clickety-clicks you’ll find a sorry list of intimate grotesqueries I cataloged about myself with abandon when the meds finally kicked in, I got my writing act together, and I started submitting to the Boston Globe and the Huffington Post. I was determined to entertain myself, even if it meant looking like a self-obsessed exhibitionist begging for laughs.
Much of the indignity happened on Facebook, which is just vastly more diverse than my real life in suburbia. (Please friend me, Linda Erin Keenan, on Facebook if you’re so inclined. The crazier you are, the better. I genuinely love it.) Like other lonely souls out there, I fell into that vortex of making Facebook my real, not-real community. How could snow-white suburbia compete with this picture? I realized it could be my own massively Awkward Facebook Family Photo: the homeless artist, the Pakistani mariner, the military fetishist, the Renaissance faire–loving transsexual lesbian massage therapist, the evangelical Republicans, my fashionista Mormon, the very sweet Sikh, the homeschooling pagan, two home-birthing doulas, the Texas BBQ restaurateur who promotes “burnt end sandwiches” right next to the hard-core vegan telling us that, say, my beloved Hot Pockets are killing me. All there and much much more in my wonderful Facebook nuthouse. Oh, and Buddy the Elf. He’s there, too. He works for Santa. Says he’s a real bastard.
In private, I pushed my boundaries further and began writing fake news satire, because eventually I went from bored to fascinated with the habits and fixations of upper-middle-class suburban life and parenting culture—like the bubble-wrapping of the affluent child—and what that says about America. Why do so many of the world’s luckiest people seem so damn anxious?
I’m fascinated by the way some women mercilessly judge other women’s choices, and what motivates the harshest proponents of the “pure” and “natural,” especially in terms of breastfeeding. I see a lot of gory, competitive masochism in this area, like, say, “My nipples bled more than your nipples.” “No, MY nipples bled more AND I got mastitis and then septic-shock!” Well, at the risk of having frozen bags of breast milk pelted at my door, I really don’t get why people are so passionately interested in how I feed my child or how I use or view my own breasts. As I recall, they are my breasts, and that baby is my baby, and it’s actually quite an intimate act to press on others with such vigor. I also don’t understand the many women and men who vocally trash those who breastfeed their kids publicly, or for years and years. None of your business.)
I do have friends who believe strongly in breastfeeding, but they are lovely, advocate for all women, including the poor here and around the world, where breastfeeding can be a life-and-death choice for a baby if water is dirty. These activists are not toxically judgmental like, say, the “Breastfeeding Nazi Really a Nazi” I write about in the book. But vicious invective from others can be found all over the Internet. And passive-aggressive, thoughtless comments on breastfeeding, C-sections, epidurals, circumcision, staying at home versus working, and organic-food eating can have ugly impacts on fragile moms who choose to do things differently, or who might not even have a choice. It sure did on me, and on innumerable other friends.
Sadly, I think some of these movements inadvertently add to the yawning divide between rich and poor, or educated versus less educated. Not because the underlying goals of breastfeeding or eating organic food are unworthy, but because we are simply not set up in this country for subsidizing healthy food or fully supporting working mothers who breastfeed, poor or otherwise. Really, how does a woman working at low pay afford a souped-up Medela breast pump? How many women have jobs that will allow time to pump? Breastfeeding is only free if you don’t put value on a woman’s time.
Michelle Obama can exercise her ass off all over the country (and God love her for it), but until we end, say, distorting food industry subsidies, the poor and middle class have every incentive imaginable to eat cheap crap, and many of the “well meaning” make the less fortunate feel guilty about it. Eating like a locovore is all good and great, but it’s often expensive, time-consuming, and simply impossible for people of average means.
So the poor and middle class seem to be getting less and less healthy, while affluent suburbia (and “urbia,” too, for that matter) plies itself with every high-priced age-defying product, time-consuming betterment program or Whole Foods supplement, and basically jogs itself straight into its hale and hearty future. These days, Fa
t = Poor = Shame, as seen in “Woman Shops at Wal-Mart to Feel ‘Pretty, Thin,’” among other pieces. Class, race, and religious collisions in mostly monochrome suburbia really interest me.
In a broader way, I also began thinking about America’s diminished place in the world and how it might translate to the everyday business of raising a family; this whole idea of “living the dream” and maintaining a kind of phantom affluence in the so-called Great Recession.
For instance, why did Amy Chua’s tough-parenting Tiger Mom book strike such a chord? Do we fear she may be right, that we Americans are coddling our kids into mediocrity? I wrote “Indian Child Taunted as ‘New Jew’ at Middle School” several years ago and thought Chua’s “shaming” as an overdemanding mommy-shrew was quite similar to what happens to my overperforming immigrant Chaudry family.
Amidst this anxiety, I feel like in wealthy suburbia we not only Bubble-Wrap our kids from the broader world, but also ourselves, even as wars are being fought in our name by our less fortunate, rural, urban, and not comfortably suburban countrymen.
Meanwhile, I have seen the insistent creep of anti-Muslim, anti-“other,” anti-teacher, and anti-union resentment that has been percolating since 9/11, but really seemed to explode as the economy collapsed and when President Obama was elected.
I was actually asked if I would prefer another doctor because the one I selected, a Sikh, wore a turban. You’ll see that story, a Sikh gyno’s desperate bid to keep patients, in an op-ed titled “I Am Certified Not Muslim … And I Love Your Feminine Area!” I labeled these op-eds Shout Outs.
On a more personal level, I’m interested in the way we transmit our biases and neuroses (especially my own), like female body self-hatred, to our kids. If you see pieces attacking women, just know that, very often, I am attacking myself. Not to be hopelessly cliché, but I love how a child’s unspoiled view of the world challenges our own jaded beliefs and often leaves us flummoxed. If I used to call bullshit on the Taliban, my own son now calls bullshit on me; and if you’re a parent, you surely get what I’m talking about. And I see the way we rewrite our sometimes sketchy pasts once we get to suburbia, because You’re a parent now, and that old life is over—especially the dirty, sexy parts. I am fascinated and frankly sad that Suburgatory seems to be where sex goes to die, or at least gets suppressed. Well, it comes pouring out in this book, so get your raincoat!
I have also included history’s worst advice columnist—Dr. Drama—who gets earnest questions and wants nothing more than to stir the shit out of your already messed-up life. This was inspired by the often riotous and toxic comment sections of real website advice columns, where anonymity lets people project and splay their crazy any which way.
And it should go without saying that anything labeled Paid Advertising Content is not a real ad. Believe me, I wish those were real. That would mean more money for me and my amazing agent, editors, and publisher. Also, as I mentioned above, I have lived in three suburbs in two states and have gotten ideas and themes from friends who live in a dozen more, mostly white, mostly affluent suburbs.
Suburgatory is not the town where I live now. I wouldn’t stay here if it was, because some of the fictitious people you’re about to meet are truly awful—and, hopefully, awfully hilarious. Any of the real people mentioned are, of course, used solely for parody purposes; Cynthia Nixon, a great actress and public school advocate, did not suddenly move to suburbia with her partner. Blogger Perez Hilton did not take a job as suburbia’s zaniest new “Manny.” New York Times columnist Tom Friedman did not threaten an all-powerful high-school guidance counselor with a nasty column. And surely, Wolf Blitzer did not really report “Live from the Lactation Room,” though I’d give my left nut to see that actually happen for real. It’s all satire and I’d hope Wolf, an anchor I long admired from afar at CNN, would get the joke.
So do I think of myself as a Big Fat Zero, like the Social Security Administration thinks I am, a no-paycheck parasite? No, because I neglected to mention that the Big Fat Zero did include a Plus One, and that would be the love of my life, my son, Frank Keenan Mendes. I only hope he never reads this book and realizes how sick and twisted his “Best Mom Ever” really is. Maybe after my funeral! And so I begin with a piece that’s in large part true (though not the baptism part) about the near-year I spent as a secret atheist surrounded by simply wonderful Baptist believers. It is no exaggeration to say that these ladies helped save me from the abyss of postpartum depression. But sadly for them, they did not save me from hell.
Atheist Mom So Lonely
She Accepts Christ
Suburgatory, USA—Overwhelmed by the isolation of being a newly suburban stay-at-home mom in a town “not cool enough” for her, a local atheist has accepted Christ so she has someone to talk to.
Nonbeliever Mara Scully says her path to Christ was paved by the relentlessly friendly Baptists she met at Redemption Hill Church soon after moving here from Manhattan’s East Village with her young son and husband. “They were so friendly and cool in a really weirdo kind of way and not at all like those plastic mommy-drones in my neighborhood. And I was so lonely. When I heard there were other moms all gathered in one place, I didn’t care if it was a Baptist church or a crack house. The crack house would have been edgier and more my speed, but, you know, whatever.”
Scully enjoyed the weekly church play zone, despite what she described as “a lot of crazy Christ stuff on the walls.” She stresses that she is open-minded. “Just because I’m an atheist doesn’t mean I’m bigoted. Is bigoted the right word?” It was nothing like what Scully recalled from her Catholic girlhood. “No ‘scary Jesus,’ no gory wounds at all! Their Jesus is sooo happy, and you know what? So are they!”
“They” are the members of Redemption Hill, who are puzzled by their new recruit. “She’s not very pretty or turned out or ‘New York,’ is she?” whispered Pastor Kevin Barnett’s wife, Karen. “And we’ve tried every polite way we can think of to tell her to stop swearing. Can you tell her?”
After attending the church twice weekly, enjoying potluck dishes like Tater Tot Pie, and developing warm if casual friendships, Scully said there were some contradictory feelings. “Sure, I find their views on abortion, gay rights, and a woman’s place in the home repugnant and all. But after a while they began talking more and more about living a Godly life and I knew where the train was going. What was I going to do? Lose my only friends out here in the middle of Bumblefuck Nowheresville?”
Scully said she met with the pastor, talked about the Glory Christ can bring to a young family, the eternal paradise awaiting her after the Rapture, and then proceeded with the ritual Baptism. Is she now a believer? Scully laughed heartily. “Not me. I’m still an atheist even though I did ‘technically’ accept Christ,” she said, using air quotes.
“Of course I feel a little bad. But who’s really getting hurt here? My Baptist buddies are thrilled that I’m saved. It would have hung over every conversation if I hadn’t accepted Him, like when I wouldn’t get a tattoo with my old girlfriends in Syosset. So awkward. Now I know how to talk the talk and we can keep having these nice coffees and playdates and, seriously, you gotta try that Tater Tot pie. Can’t find that in the East Village! And since nothing happens after you die, no one’s ever going to find out, right?”
“Breastfeeding Nazi” Really a Nazi
Suburgatory, USA—A “Breastfeeding Nazi” is an actual Nazi, combining her fierce lactivist advocacy with her membership in the American Nazi Party.
“You know who is really behind the formula industry? The Jews. Why don’t you hear this on the news? The Jews. Why can I only buy my organic meat here at Whole Foods rather than hunt for it myself, as my White ancestors were able to? This one is a trick question. No, just kidding! It’s the Jews again!”
Janie Tipton is a young mother with four children under the age of seven who believes that “Aryan Americans” need to repopulate America. This is one of two key tenets of National Socialism: t
he struggle for Aryan racial survival. “We believe in the Fourteen Words,” said Tipton, while searching the Whole Foods aisle for sprouted grain bread. “The Fourteen Words are this: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for White children. And I personally would add six more: Breastfeed your babies, lazy White bitches.”
How did her involvement in the American Nazi Party lead to her breastfeeding activism? “Oh, you’ve got that backwards. The breastfeeding came first. After I had my first son, I became possessed with the power of natural birth, and saw that there was only one true, pure method of feeding your child: at your breast, and nowhere else. Anything less is a corruption, a defilement. I became frustrated with my lactivist sisters who were too accommodating, too easy on those weak and inferior bottle addicts. And the more I investigated who was enabling the addicts, I finally discovered the real enemy of breastfeeding: the corrupt Judeo-Capitalist system.”
Does her husband believe as she does? “Oh yeah, he is just trying to make enough as a money manager for a few more years and then we’ll move back to the land to unchain ourselves from this horrible suburb, the teeming savages right across the town lines, and from the Jew-gamed agribusiness industry poisoning our bodies and babies.”
Tipton is disturbed by the casual use of the term “Breastfeeding Nazi” to refer to anyone with a harshly judgmental attitude toward bottle feeding. “Some of them think they’re all badass for saying ‘You should need a prescription to feed your baby formula!’ You know what’s badass? Telling bottle addicts to turn over their White babies to people who actually care about their health and future and freedom from allergies, their strength and purity and intelligence, which is what we will base our educational system on in our National Socialist future. If you don’t believe that, stop patting yourself on the back by calling yourself a Breastfeeding Nazi, get out of the way, and let a real White woman handle this.”