A Mommy Story

Wow, what a difference a few days makes. I disappear for two days (due to working and starting clinicals for my nurse aide class, leaving me only time for sleep) and during that time Forbes first pulled the inflammatory article, and then brought it back, but now with counterpoint essay.

It seems that word spread fast through the blogosphere – a little too fast for the comfort of those at Forbes.com. The backpedalling has begun, and I’m not sure they’re finished yet.

The counterpoint provided by Elizabeth Corcoran is good, but still falls short in addressing this issue. She hints at calling out his misogynist ideas, but then falls back on simply telling how her marriage, as a career woman, doesn’t fit his guide. I guess I was expecting her counterpoint to have more bite to it.

She does make an excellent point in this paragraph:

The essence of a good marriage, it seems to me, is that both people have to learn to change and keep on adapting. Children bring tons of change. Mothers encounter it first during the nine months of pregnancy, starting with changing body dimensions. But fathers have to learn to adapt, too, by learning to help care for children, to take charge of new aspects of a household, to adapt as the mothers change.

Absolutely. Marriage takes change and adaptation from both people. Mr. Noer took pleasure in declaring how women should change when they become wives in order to make their marriages successful, but implied that men should make no changes to their own behaviors and actions. Instead of worrying that his wife won’t take care of his health if she works full time, a man should be capable of keeping track of his own medical needs. Surely he did it while he was single, or did his mother do it for him, even when he was on his own?

And what about the wife? Should she expect her husband to work less and spend more time worrying over her health and well-being? I thought marriage was a partnership, where things may not always be 50-50, but equality is always a goal. (The frightening thing is, I know men who subscribe to Mr. Noer’s guidelines, and I’ve seen hints of it from the stories some mommy bloggers tell of their husbands, too.)

I didn’t care for the wrap up that Ms. Corcoran provided, though:

So guys, if you’re game for an exciting life, go ahead and marry a professional gal.

Game for an exciting life? What? I was a career woman, and I can say I had an interesting life, but it wasn’t exciting. (My life now? Far more exciting. Living with a toddler is only slightly less exciting than wrestling with a bear.) Plus, what about those women who aren’t career women? Are they boring? I’m sure you didn’t mean it this way, but that sentence nearly confirms Michael Noer’s assertions. Exciting could equal dangerous or risky, right?

While Elizabeth Corcoran’s counterpoint was good, I just don’t think it went far enough to really challenge the original article.

My primary question to Forbes is: who thought this article was a good idea? If I’m not mistaken, writers generally must get their article approved before it is released to the web on a supposedly prestigious site for the world to see. So not only did Michael Noer write a misogynist article about why career woman are bad wives because they won’t cater to their husband’s every whim, but someone else read it and said, “Hey, this looks good!” Did this come across the desk the afternoon the editors had an end-of-summer margarita bash at lunch?

So if I’m still not happy, what can be done to make this situation better? I don’t know. I’ve already lost a lot of respect for Forbes, which I’m not sure can ever be won back. An apology might help. Pulling the article wouldn’t help – it would only serve to hide the evidence of what was done.

My suggestion to Forbes? Be a little more careful with what you publish, and don’t let inappropriate content go out to the public. Oh, and you might start with getting rid of this article. A list of “hot” billionaire heiresses might be a better fit for Spike TV.