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Macy's Pulls 'Mom Jeans' Plates After Internet Outrage


You may have seen a controversial plate making the internet rounds this week: a recent tweet from comedian Alie Ward spotlighted a dish with a design that features three concentric circles: the smallest is labeled “skinny jeans;” the middle, “favorite jeans;” and the largest, “mom jeans.” Macy’s is hardly the first retailer to sell something as clueless as portion control plates—Google the phrase and you’ll get about 125,000,000 results—but this version is very, very stupid. Especially for a mom jeans-loving mom.

The implication of the design appears to be “lol, moms all let themselves go and eat way too much! Disgusting! Don’t be like them! Keep your food fitting inside the very tiny circle in the center of the plate and you’ll never have to wear mom jeans!” Aside from the frankly concerning disordered-eating messaging that these plates encourage with their attempt at portion control, these plates also don’t make any real health sense. The amount of space a food takes up on your plate means, absolutely nothing. Having a cauliflower steak for dinner? According to this plate, you’re doomed! Stacked your tiny cheese cubes into a Jenga tower? Congrats on your well-balanced meal.

But the most offensive thing about this plate is the implication that being the owner of “mom jeans” is something shameful. Or that all “mom jeans” are being worn by people—presumably moms—who are not, I guess, taking care of themselves? Who are daring to stuff their mom bodies into jeans? As a mom myself, it’s offensive and also almost laughable.

Honestly, these plates are so bafflingly off-base that I don’t really know what the designer thought mom jeans even were. My favorite “mom jeans” are high-waisted and difficult to sit for long periods in. I would definitely take them off if I was going to eat a big dinner, not put them on—which I would do whenever I wanted to, because a plate is not telling me what to do!





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This Conservative Blogger's Chart Shaming Working Moms Predictably Sparks Outrage


A blog post from a conservative Christian mommy blogger is taking over the parenting corner of the Internet, a place that often has more discord than the halls of Congress. Lori Alexander, a.k.a. The Transformed Wife, posted a chart titled “Should Mothers Have Careers?” in which she compared her thoughts on working moms versus stay-at-home moms—and it’s really something.

Alexander is a full-time homemaker who has been married for 39 years and has four grown children and nine grandchildren. Her About section on Facebook reads, “Learning about marriage, raising children, homemaking, and being a godly woman who desires to be transformed into the image of Christ!”

In the flowchart, she directly compares and contrasts her perception of the lives of working and stay-at-home moms. For example, in the SAHM column she writes of dinnertime, “Dinner is from scratch, nutritious, and delicious” whereas with working moms, “Dinner is usually fast food or microwaved.” She also says working moms lack time for intimacy and that their lives are “falling apart,” whereas SAHMs spend weekends at the beach and are totally fulfilled.

It’s easy to see why people are angry—and the ire coming from both sides of the mommy aisle. (Not to mention that staying at home is not a financial option for many families.) “Motherhood is not a competition. Moms in both groups have challenges to face that are not more important than the other,” wrote one commenter on the Facebook post. “Also, welcome to 2018 where dads are like, fathers and stuff now, who also help with domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning and! (Are you ready for this? Clutch your pearls) help take care of the children. ?” Another said, “I have been a stay-at-home and work-from-home mom for the last 16+ years. This chart is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Staying home with a three-year-old makes me feel like more of a failure as a mother than working out of my house EVER did! Also, if this stay at home mom is resting when the children do, when is she preparing that from scratch meal and cleaning so she is free to spend weekends at the beach?” another commenter remarked.

People are Twitter were equally upset.

When Glamour reached out to Alexander, she said she did not intend to shame working mothers but “I simply want them to ponder their life paths.” She explained that she is “teaching Christian women biblical motherhood according to Titus 2:3–5 in the Bible, where God commands older women to teach younger women to be ‘keepers at home.'”

“No one can take the place of a mother in a child’s life. I was a career woman for the first two years of my first child’s life, and I could totally relate to the left side of the flowchart,” she told us. “I knew I was the one that was supposed to be at home raising my own children. Most women aren’t even told that this is good! Homemakers are embarrassed when asked what they do. What can be more important than raising the next generation?”

As for the viral backlash, Alexander says she’s had it since she started writing in 2011 and won’t let it “steal her joy.”

“I teach what I am called to teach and leave the results in the Lord’s hands.”





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