#216: The gossip you’re not supposed to hear
On Chappell Roan's comments and beyond
Based on several essays I’ve published over the last two years, you might think I’d take issue with Chappell Roan’s viral comments on moms last week, but I want to tell you—and I say this with the pride of a dog who’s just learned thunder’s not his enemy—they didn’t bother me at all.
In case you missed it, Roan went on the Call Her Daddy podcast last week and said that every mother she knew was “in hell.” She was initially talking about her childhood friends who live very different lives than her, but as she went on, her statements got broader: “I literally have not met any [mother] who’s happy, anyone who has, like, light in their eyes, anyone who has slept.” Understandably and because we all in fact live in hell, this annoyed enough people for it to spiral into “discourse” (The Guardian, USA Today, Buzzfeed, The Telegraph, Fox News, countless viral social posts, some of which were linked by New York Magazine). But if I had to guess, very little will come of this latest round of women’s in-fighting except more resentment on all sides, so instead of litigating Roan’s comments, I’d like to explore why we feel called to litigate them in the first place. I’m thinking specifically of mothers: If you don’t typically worry about what a random 27-year-old thinks of your lifestyle, why start now?
I say that not to shame anyone for being annoyed by (or agreeing with) her words, but to try to reframe them in terms that reveal their true context. These are the blinkered opinions of someone who’s been thrust into fame and likely isn’t thinking about setting down roots in any one place, let alone having kids. Of course her views of family life are shallow! When I was 27, freshly living in New York City, nothing in the world sounded more depressing to me than having kids. I was too busy exploring, meeting fascinating characters, and immersing myself in the arts (or whatever I told myself I was doing while writing articles at an office). So while I think some responses related to Roan’s comments are valid—that American policy-makers are hostile toward families and that this needs to be addressed; that some view mothers uncharitably due to misogyny or profane understandings of what makes life worth living; or that mothers have overcorrected in their attempts to complicate the “blissful mother” narrative—I’m not convinced Roan’s original comments have much to do with any of that.
An important part of coming out of my own neuroticism about being “perceived” as a mother has been recognizing how irrelevant this kind of internet-based discourse is to my life, and more importantly, how infrequently it’s borne out offline. The apparent relations between parents and non-parents on the internet is one of extreme tension, but outside my apartment, I’ve rarely experienced anything but kindness, or at the very worst, indifference, toward me as a parent. On the street, people light up and coo hello. At the park, young people welcome her onto their picnic blankets with big grins. On airplanes—a place the internet would have me believe is the white-hot center of public hostility toward parents—everyone’s always been lovely and generous. When I apologize for her crying, people wave me off with a reassuring face that says, “Who cares?” I know some parents experience more antipathy, and that non-parents do in reverse, but this just isn’t the status quo the internet makes it out to be. If people have ever thought rude things about me as a parent, they’ve by and large kept it to themselves, or taken it to their cohort and bitched about it there. And that’s great—a healthy society requires a lot of compromise across the board. As long as we behave, we’re allowed to think whatever we want.
Gossip is the muscle of this compromise. We use it to cope, to explore, to vent, to say something extreme and see how it feels. The nature of our gossip evolves as we ourselves evolve, and our chosen subjects—celebrities, influencers, friends, acquaintances—are usually incidental. More often we’re just talking about ourselves: what we fear, resent, want, dread. There are plenty of things I’ve said while gossiping that more closely resembled hurling a plate at the wall, emotionally speaking, than making a valid critique. This, I’d argue, is the lens through which Chappell Roan’s comments on motherhood ought to be understood. No mothers have, like, light in their eyes. She was not issuing a referendum on motherhood that reflects reality (note the light in my eyes). She was just gossiping—working something out, I’d guess, about her own life choices. Her biggest mistake was doing this into a microphone.
As I wrote in October, parenthood has a PR problem, but what I failed to grasp at the time was that the problem was demonstrated primarily online, and then in my head because of what I’d seen online. A result, I’d argue, of gossip, like a purity vortex, escaping containment. And not just any gossip, but those of the loudest posters on the internet—a population that couldn’t be less suited to represent the masses. This reminds me of Borges’s fable about “a map so detailed that it ends up covering the territory exactly,” thereby replacing reality with its imitation. When the online bickering between parents and non-parents—corrupted by anonymity and context collapse—monopolizes our attention, we risk eroding the much milder offline tensions between these groups, projecting animus where there may be far less. Or worse, projecting animus where there exists potential for a much sweeter dynamic.
It goes without saying this applies to basically infinite tensions online, offering us ample opportunities to fulfill our human destiny of touching grass. Of course some internet commentary is worthy of genuine exploration and debate, but far more of it is just gossip—the kind of blatantly biased hip-shooting we do among friends and retain the right to revoke when we grow up or figure out what’s actually been bugging us. When it comes to this kind of gossip, in other words, we’re allowed to be wrong. It may even be the point. All we have to do, then, is avoid doing it on one of the most popular podcasts in the world.
Years ago I learned that you’re not supposed to hear shit-talk about yourself, and I’m finally learning the same applies to shit-talk about mothers—or any other polarizing group that happens to include you. That’s not to say it’s never worth unpacking. I’m sure plenty of the responses to Chappell Roan’s comments have led to rich and interesting conversations. But I think it’s important to place her words in context and understand the limits of making discourse out of gossip. I’d put money on Roan disagreeing with her own phrasing in hindsight—if not today then definitely in five years. In light of that, it’s worth asking whether her comments deserve the attention they’re receiving, or if we wouldn’t be better off just going outside and seeing whether or not they ring true.
My favorite article I read last week was “The Last Face Death Row Inmates See,” by Brenna Ehrlich for Rolling Stone. Last Friday’s 15 things also included my new water bottle, the most gen-z thing I watch online, some toddler essentials, and more. The rec of the week was hacks for making cleaning more pleasant.
Last week’s discussion thread was on TATTOO REGRET, which now has over 100 fascinating comments!!
Hope you have a nice Sunday,
Haley
Cover painting “Les Parau Parau,” 1891, by Paul Gauguin via Getty
I had my son in June 2023, which means he’s almost 2 now and I’m **almost** through the baby stage.
I was the MOST reluctant mother on earth. I live in Utah and am absolutely steeped in the culture here, which has had religious messaging for years of: “Nothing you ever do will be as important as raising children, so get started as early as possible and have as many as you can.” I did marry at 19 (not something I’d recommend generally but has worked out shockingly well for us), but my husband and I waited a whopping 12 years before choosing to become parents. I don’t regret waiting one bit. I also don’t regret becoming a parent one bit, even though it’s seriously the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
At 25 or 28, I felt very similarly to what Haley describes. I was too busy doing cool stuff, and the amorphous concept of motherhood seemed to have very little to recommend it. Around 30 though, I started observing older adults in my life who never had children and those who did (both are valid and happy! I was just charting my own course for what I wanted!), and had the realization that even if I didn’t actively want to HAVE children, I did actively and very much want to become a person who has HAD children, and who has a family.
Spoiler alert: HAVING the child was incredibly rough at every turn. The entire first year I had very, very little light in my eyes. But being a person who HAS a child? It’s still super hard but it’s also one of my favorite parts about my life. And I myself am braver and more capable now, which is an added bonus.
It took about two years of pretty intense therapy to get me from point A to point B on the in sorting out my thoughts on having kids. At one point, my therapist told me to go ask mothers if it was worth it, and if so, why. Every single one said sincerely and emphatically and thoughtfully and in a way that wasn’t flippant or automatic that it was worth it. Not a single one could tell me why.
That unnerved me then. But now as a mother myself— I GET IT! It’s completely worth the (often huge) costs of sharing my life with an amazing little person who I love more than I thought possible. But the day to day is so mixed that is impossible to sum up why. Just yesterday, my kid threw a bowl right at my face and did a funny little dance move that lit my soul up and made himself vomit because he couldn’t figure out how coughing works and snuggled me with his whole strength and whined forever about nothing and made me happy just looking at him.
How the hell do you sum up a life of THAT and communicate it to another person in a way that captures the multifaceted reality in a way that actually reflects your broad experience? I don’t blame anybody for not getting it. And like you, I don’t particularly care anymore, unless someone is asking for my sincere advice.
I am in my late twenties, childless, with no strong feelings about kids yet and no sense of urgency to develop those feelings in one direction or another, and must say I have never felt condescended to in any of your writing- on marriage, on motherhood, on your thirties, etc. In many cases I was shocked at what I didn't know, a feeling you have described encountering too. If anything, it feels to me that you have been generous in acknowledging how much readers may or may not know about the topics you investigate, and noting that others may arrive at different decisions or conclusions than you do. The proof is that your work has made me a much better friend. My best friend got pregnant last year in a sort of abrupt way and gave birth in December. I have to say, without your writing, there is no way I would have had the language to talk through her decisions with her and support her, or possibly (embarrassing to admit or think about) even the empathy for someone close to me choosing something so different from what I have chosen at our age (which is not actually that young to have kids in most places haha). Because of your work directly, I have been able to be a better and kinder friend and supporter, much better and more thoughtful and more helpful, she recently admitted to me, than she ever expected lol.