Moms who run away
Also: the femme dommes of The Sims, ‘girl culture,' sex after 60, and more in the weekend roundup.
I’m about to leave for a trip with a friend for my 40th birthday. I am abandoning my family for this milestone. Truth be told, I’m only gone for three nights, and I’ve chosen to rush back so that I can be home for my actual birthday, but I’ve been thinking about maternal narratives of running away.
I read this week about Miranda July’s novel, All Fours, which comes out in May. It’s about a 40-something woman who leaves her husband and child at home in a “quest for a new kind of freedom,” as the book jacket puts it.
It also happens that TikTok just served me this viral video of a woman reacting to a news story about a missing mom found eating alone in a motel room. “I love this,” she says. Her reaction belies the fact that the woman in the news story was in the midst of a mental health crisis. I know, we’ve already had the Fleishman discourse, but what does it say about the culture of motherhood that this story gets a you-go-girl reaction?
Every mom I know longs for some form of escape. But even the smallest measure, just a few nights away, can feel like abandoning your family.
To the links
Unpacking the song in that Calvin Klein ad.
I’m gonna need someone (me?) to do an investigative piece on women who build elaborate femme-domme-esque dungeons in The Sims.