I'm sick of the crabby mom trope

Here's the truth about why moms are "crabby"

“Should we buy that book—Feeling Crabby—for Mom?”

I was standing in the checkout line at the school book fair when I heard a dad chuckle this off-handedly to his two boys.

I wondered to myself, “Am I actually hearing this right now?”

And it didn’t even stop there. He then went on to point out the book titled, The Sour Grape, thinking this commentary was witty, clever & oh-so-relatable to his sons.

This moment is one I’ve replayed over and over these past few days. I’ve wondered whether I should’ve said anything—it would have been awkward, as I know them—but also, how do we change the narrative if we don’t say something? I’ve wrestled with the reality that the largely aloof cultural sentiment toward moms is not a narrative I can single-handedly dismantle without likely being dismissed as “bitchy” or, not-so-cleverly, a sour grape myself.

More than anything, my heart broke a little in that moment. This was a tiny window into the mindset of comfortably aloof, emotionally out-of-touch dads who view themselves as the victims of a byproduct they helped create: the overwhelmed, stressed-out mom.

The Projection of the “Insufferable Wife”

When will men begin to see that the antidote to the “sour-grape wife” is not to meet her with bitterness & judgement but, instead, the very sweetness they are expecting of her? It is that exact projection from husbands that perpetuates the very problem they’re complaining about.

And the most disheartening part of it all? Witnessing the generational handing-down of this destructive sentiment to two boys—two future men. They will grow up with this discolored narrative, not only about their own mother, but one that will surely be generalized and applied to the relationship dynamics with women in their futures as well.

Dismantling the trope

It was a moment so on the nose, I couldn’t have written it better myself. It encapsulated everything moms have been feeling so heavily lately: the loneliness of holding it all together for everyone else while being branded as the nagging, cranky, or always-mad wife.

And yes, I know I’m painting men with something of a broad brush. I know not all men are like this. I know that men are good. I even know that this particular dad wasn’t being entirely serious. I know he’s a good person.

AND I know WE are being painted with a broad brush as well. This is a harmful generational pattern, a dismissive narrative, a systemic problem that is the devaluing reality of too many moms. And it’s costing us not only as women, but it’s costing men & our children just as much.

I’m nowhere near knowing how to fully dismantle this cultural programming, and maybe that’s why I chose not to say anything in the moment. But the fact that this husband’s indignation stood out to me—the fact that it’s left me wrestling with my feelings—felt important enough to hold space for here.

Finding the Language to Shift the Narrative

Surely I’m not the only one seeing this. Surely other wives are experiencing this. So maybe for now it’s about growing our awareness—of similarly dismissive-disguised-as-harmless moments that happen around us everyday (because I suspect their ubiquity has allowed us to become complacent). Or shifting the narrative with our own children. Or, at the very least, we can make it a point to talk about it with one another. We can name it, hold space for it, and, if nothing else, feel less alone in the experience of it all.

Talk soon,
Erin