You might be a White Trash Mom - Virtual Book Club Day

When, exactly, did we become white trash?
How come we've got seven dogs living in the g'rage?
How come the only eight-track in our car is Johnny Cash?
When, exactly, did we become white trash?

Fred Eaglesmith

The hilariously funny white trash mom (Michelle Lamar) who I also have the honor of sort of kind of blogging with (she's a Deep South Mom) wrote a parenting book (The White Trash Mom Handbook by Michelle Lamar and Molly Wendland) so it's got to be good. We'll be discussing it over at previously mentioned Silicon Valley Moms/Deep South Moms blog so we all got together and read it over a can of beer. Okay, not really, but that would have been fun.

It's been described as the girlfriend's guide for older kids, and my kids are indeed getting older, damn them. I loved the chapter on lying. My kids are passed the lying as wishes stage (we went to Disneyland) but thankfully have not quite reached sneaking out to a party lying, it's more along the "I didn't spill the milk" level. The book is for us less than perfect moms, moms who have no desire to even strive for molding the perfecto child (she assures us not to fret, they'll end up in therapy no matter what.)

The whole Muffia thing was entertaining, but call me in total denial, I may just have found the one school without these type A PTA mommies. First of all, our PTA president is a dad. My husband is at our school way more than me, and for our biggest fundraiser ever, my sole contribution was to call a couple DJs, and I was profusely thanked. Of course I'm at a school with a slew of ESL kids, mostly working moms and three completely different schools on one single campus. Makes it tough to form a posse. Somehow we (and I use the term "we" loosely, as it's sure not me) manage to get enough volunteers with very little designer duds or passive-aggressive jabs. I am willing to bet I'm one of the few that would pick a job based on the alcohol involved, but haven't quite figured out if there are any. I'm thankful I don't have to fake the ol' homemade brownies, and I actually got such kudos for alphabetizing the homework by name it was a little embarrassing.

Now this is not to say there are no whakos at the school, and I'd love to hear Michelle's take on them. Does anyone else find that these parent yahoo group lists allow people to step right up there are on their soapbox, saying things they'd in no way reveal in person? We had one guy who decided to spend 10 minutes every morning picking up trash, and he wrote no less than 5 very long emails documenting his daily haul. Included of course were guilt-inducing pleas for help, including telling off one guy who dared to thank him but not help "because he had to work" and dissing the after school programs for leaving their juice boxes around. If you can believe it, this became a huge discussion, with many attempts to nicely tell him to shut the f*ck up and pleas to take it offline, which they eventually did, in the form of a trash blog, it was just too funny. My husband, who is not one to keep his mouth/fingers shut for long, finally could not take it and went on a rant about how his child is there to learn and socialize and not pick up trash. He immediately got put on moderation status, but did receive with about 15 replies to him in support. One woman came up to him and thanked him for taking the heat off her, as she'd been less than diplomatic in the PTA meetings.

But really, for the most part, it's all good. The book was a joy to read, really funny, and I'm keeping it around to look back at some great gems as my kids get older and wiser.

Head on over and join the discussion.