Mommy Cards
One of my sisters reported that she was the only stay-at-home mother in a group who did not have mommy calling cards to hand out with her contact information and children’s names.
I told Josh about it in a mygoodnessIknewtherewasareasonthatIdontwanttobeaSAHM sort of way. He responded with a simple “um, Stepford Wives?”
But, as much as I hate the world in which being a mother must be everything for a woman, and thus must be dressed up with faux business cards… they make sense to me. It is a pain to try to write down contact information on random slips of paper while keeping an eye on your children. And it is much easier to figure out which of the ten women you met yesterday you are supposed to call to set up a play-date if you have a card with a picture of the child and mother’s name and contact information on it.
So I am torn. The idea is rather sad, but the mommy card does make a bit of sense in reality.
Would you use them? Do you use them?
I think it all comes down to personal choice. If it’s based on wanting the cards because it’s “what you do” in that old, faux sense of social norms, then that’s an issue. You shouldn’t have to feel “qualified” as a mother if you have the cards. But if it’s as you said, for the convenience and perhaps even the kitsch of it (I know some moms who would love it just for the laugh, combined with the authentic desire they have to make being a mother their full-time commitment and they would, when pressed, maybe dare call it their “job” the way a pastor would) then that’s personal choice and more power to the enjoyment.
Wow, I have never ever heard of mommy calling cards. If I do become a SAHM, I don’t think I’d ever get around to making them… lol. I doubt I will be in a community full of SAHMs anyway, so they probably wouldn’t be neccesary.
it doesn’t necessarily have to be called a mommy card. i’ve seen so many ppl lately with personal cards & i think self i need to do that someday. it’s a great idea just maybe not box yourself in with the label mommy card.
I have some leftover business cards from my home business I had a while ago, and my phone is still the same…I have handed those out to give people my #. It is just easier, like you said. I don’t know if I’d put pictures of my family on there…if the person you just met can’t remember your face…then I guess it’s not meant to be…haha..but I think it’s not a bad idea to have a business card with your name and email on it.
I think it’s kind of a cute idea, for the reasons you listed. I also think that it’s only “sad” if being a mother is everything to a woman, to the extent that she wouldn’t have *any* hobbies or interests outside of her children. Mommy cards don’t seem like they’re promoting that exactly, though I can see why you’d want to snicker at them.
I agree with the commenters so far – I think a personal card isn’t a bad idea, but I don’t think I’d put pictures of myself (or my family) on it.
LOL I had never heard of that before… I don’t really get a chance to meet new people often so it would be a moot point here. I just don’t need something like that. And when I do we generally just exchange numbers into our cell phones. Easy enough even w/ kids…
Not a mama, but I do have personal cards with name, phone, email, address, etc. It makes life much simpler!!
I’ve actually got a bunch that my husband made on a whim with a photo he really liked of me and the kids. Of course I’m a introvert-hermit who never socializes, so I’ve never actually handed one out to anyone and the one time I did give my number to a fellow mom at the library, I didn’t have a card on me. I like the idea, not because it’s hip or the “in” thing– I wouldn’t know what those are; like I said, I’m a hermit– but because like you said it’s handy not to have to find pen and paper and take the time to write your information legibly all while keeping an eye on the rampaging offspring. I sort of like the idea of having my picture because I’m so bad connecting names with faces. I can see where you’re coming from about it becoming a bit distasteful if it is one of those things “everyone” is doing. I hate peer-pressure group think. If that were the case where I was, I might be a hold-out just because I don’t like giving in to trendiness.
I wasn’t sure what you mean about hating “the world where being a mother must be everything for a woman.” I found that a rather sad indictment of stay at home moms, and a sneer at a lifestyle I personally find extremely fulfilling; but perhaps I’m misreading your intent. I actually think of being a mother as my vocation and find it much more interesting and exciting than the teaching career I had prior to staying at home with my kids. It isn’t “everything” to me in the sense that I have no identity outside of my children; but I can think of nothing I’d rather be doing than spending my days with the people I love best in the world. I’m not saying everyone should do it; but I don’t like it when people pity me or look down on me for my choice.
I hate it when the one time something is useful is the time that I don’t have it with me! And I am like you in liking pictures to help connect names with faces.
I think that you did misunderstand what I meant about “the world in which being a mother must be everything for a woman, and thus must be dressed up with faux business cards.” I was not talking about simply being a SAHM. I think that one can be a SAHM without losing one’s soul. My mother and mother in law are both great examples of being SAHMs but not becoming so sucked into it that they would judge themselves and others *as mothers* based upon whether they spent hours designing cute mommy cards. What I hate is the world where women cannot even volunteer for something unless it relates directly to their children, where a woman’s entire self-perception as success or failure is tied up in her child’s admittance to the “best” college, where a woman cannot even take time to cultivate her spiritual life because the housework “just demands so much.”
I was not pitying you or looking down on your choice at all. I just loath the world where being a mother is actually *everything* for a woman, and she is merely a shell of a person (not to mention wife!) if you take away her children and perfect little house.
You and I are always on the same page – ppl can be a SAHM, but too many SAHMs that I know completely lose their identity in “mom” and forget they are wives/sisters/friends… And the mommy card goes right along with it. Now if they had a cute card – without pics of kids! – I may like it a bit more!