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If you haven’t heard yet, Gwyneth Paltrow went on the record with E! News and implied that her lifestyle as a 1 movie a year multi-millionaire mom is much harder than the lifestyle of the classic 9-5 working mom who is not a multi-millionaire.
Yes, folks, let that sink in for a moment, even check out the interview for yourself– please do not take my word for it.
Now that you’ve taken the time to educated yourself, will you join me in saying “EXCUSE ME, GWYNETH?”
Originally, I was going to write a scathing reply to her and then I found another mom had beat me to it in the New York Post, A working mom’s open letter to Gwyneth. No one really expected a privileged actress such as Gwyneth Paltrow to come out swinging at the average working mom and not see an angry reply published in a high-profile publication, did they?
The surprising and disturbing part of this whole story to me were the nasty comments left for the average working mom on the New York Post editorial. People were nasty, accusing the writer of being jealous of Gwen.
Jealous of Gwen? Um, DUH!
Not very long ago I read an article in People Magazine about Gwen. In that article, she talked about her website Goop and how she spends an average day. What I recall from the article was she exercised a lot, picked her kids up from school and ate dinner.
She mentioned that she had to spend a lot of time in the gym because that is “her job.”
Pardon this 8-5 working mom for saying this, but yes Ms. Paltrow I am extremely jealous of you for having a leisurely lifestyle in which you choose to work on one movie a year (and thus choose to be away from your children), while you blatantly disregard the horrendous implications that your not-so-innocent comments have on real working moms.
What Ms. Paltrow doesn’t realize and what the nasty people who commented on the New York Post editorial don’t realize, is that the working conditions for the average mom in this country are far from ideal. It would appear that the elite is under the assumption that the average working mom in this country is afforded such things as healthcare, paid time off, paid maternity leave, top of the line nannies to pick our children up from school while we “choose” to work our traditional 9-5 office jobs and lets not forget the wealth of affordable quality daycare options. We can save the inequality of pay that still exists for another day.
Ms. Paltrow, I would respect you a lot more if you used your platform to help your fellow, less privileged working moms by supporting and talking about such causes as the FAMILY Act. A little humility would go a long way in preventing your ignorant words from damaging your high-stress career.
Sincerely, the 8-5 (please don’t forget that extra hour nor the 2-hour commute on top of that) working mom
Great points! I saw your blog on top mommy blogs. It caught my eye, because I just wrote a post about this same subject this morning!
I normally find her pretty insufferable, but I don’t think she meant to imply that she has it tougher than non Hollywood millionare working moms. What she’s saying is, for the three months she works on a set, she has more difficulties within that three months of seeing her kids then three months in the life of the average working mom.
I am sure she’s not really saying, “oh poor me, what I wouldn’t give to sit at a desk for 40 hours a week making $40K a year while squeezing all possible errands into a lunch hour and getting up at 4 am to exercise so I don’t feel bad about spending more time away from my kids, and it’s also super fun to spend your whole weekend cleaning and preparing for the upcoming week because stuff has to get done and the laundry isn’t going to fold itself.”
Then again, this is the same woman who wondered aloud why all mothers don’t make 3 organic meals for their kids every day, so maybe she is.
I love your thought pattern here Abby, you stole the show with the last comment 🙂