Today is the big day! Confessions of a Scary Mommy hits the book shelves everywhere. I shall start by assuming you all know about Scary Mommy. If you have somehow lived under a cyber rock for the last few years, here’s the rundown:
The blog: Scary Mommy: an honest and irreverent look at motherhood — the good, the bad, and the scary. Thousands of moms flock to her site religiously for a daily dose of wit with a side of mom-bonding.
The woman behind it: Jill Smokler, a Maryland mom of three, and the reigning queen of dishing out motherhood’s dirty little secrets. “Erma Bombeck-style insights…about the underbelly of marriage and parenting…to a new generation of women.” …yeah, yeah, yeah… She’s funny, she’s real, you’ll wish she lived next door so you could vent together over margaritas.
Now that we’ve cleared that up, Jill Smokler wrote a book. A pee-in-your-pants, snort-coffee-out-your-nose, funny kind of book. Confessions of a Scary Mommy, hitting stores April 3rd, is not a highbrow work of literature. It’s a book about stretch marks, snot, and shitting on the delivery table. It’s also about cutting yourself some slack, having compassion for fellow moms in the trenches, and maintaining a sense of humor as necessary skill for survival. It lifts the sacred veil off the face of motherhood, revealing that none of us really have any clue what we are doing. It’s about REAL life.
The book’s twenty-seven chapters cover everything from delivery room dramas to competitive birthday party planning. Each is only a short snippet — kind of like a Reader’s Digest or Men’s Health article — perfect for a quick read while hiding in the bathroom with a sleeve of Oreos and a shot of tequila.
Each chapter starts with a round-up of “Mommy Confessions,” anonymous admissions taken from Smokler’s highly poplar blog boards where moms air their dirtiest laundry. Many will make you laugh, some will make you gasp, and most will make any mom nod her head in agreement while shouting, “Hell, yeah!” because, well, we’ve all been there. (And yes, there’s even an App for that.)
As to be expected, Confessions of a Scary Mommy doesn’t sugarcoat any aspect of modern motherhood. If you are not a mom yet, you may be outrageously offended by some of the off-color confessions and candid reality checks. How dare some mothers think these things, let alone say them! These women are EVIL and don’t deserve to raise a child! Ditto that on the brand-spanking-new first time moms still jacked up on the delicious new-baby-smell high. They’ll fall from their pedestals soon enough, and they will come crawling to this book and to the blog to get them through the day.
If you are a mother and you cannot find something to relate to in the first chapter alone (even if you are afraid to admit it) you LIE. Or you are a cyborg, Stepford Wife, or on some really, really good grown-up drugs. From the dreaded mommy guilt to aching ovaries and swearing at our children when they act like little shits (in our heads, of course) — we’ve all been there. And it is an utter relief to realize we are all a part of this vast sisterhood of Scary Mommies.
This book will scare some people — absolutely— there’s foul language and feces and brutal honesty. Confessions of a Scary Mommy may terrify my expecting cousin, but I’ll buy it for her because she deserves to know what she’s getting into. And for my mom, so she realizes I now understand all the crap I put her through. And for my Mother-In-Law for — nope, never mind — she’d drop this book like a flaming shit bomb at the first “fuck.” She’s of the generation who believes some things just aren’t said. I think these things should be screamed from the rooftops, so this generation of moms can be saved from a lifetime of self-flagellation and vodka tonics at 10 a.m. They need to know it’s okay to not like your children every second of every day, even though you love them fiercely. They are okay. Scary Mommy said so.
The only thing missing from this book was a few more pages. I would have loved for the chapters to be longer, explored in more depth, but then no busy mom would be able to sneak in enough time to read it. Call me selfish, but I just didn’t want Confessions of a Scary Mommy to end.
So buy it. Yourself. It would make a fabulous Mother’s Day gift, but you know your husband won’t remember, so just put a nice bow on it and call it even. Consider it a belated Push Present. Because you fucking deserve it.
Confessions of a Scary Mommy
by Jill Smokler
Gallery Books, 208 pages
$10.20 [hardcover] $9.99 [Kindle]
