Mommy Society, Introduction


The Mommy Mafia (2005)

By Kerstin Gier





Mommy Society
Insect Estates
 Welcome to the homepage of the Mommy Society of Insect Estates.
We are a network of happy, open, and tolerant women who have one thing in common: having fun being a mother.
Whether you are a working mother or “just” a stay-at-home mom: here we talk about topics relevant to the modern woman and mother and support each other in a loving way.
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                                                                                                                                                                January 22

As promised, here is my recipe for the quick apple cake you loved from our last club meeting: my mother got this recipe from her mother! For the dough: mix together 2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of sugar, 3 eggs, some whole milk, 4 cups of flour, and a pack of baking powder, pour the smooth mixture into a springform pan, distribute and press finely chopped apples into it, and bake the whole thing in the oven at 350 degrees for one hour – done!

Just to remind you: My course “Knotting with small children” begins next Tuesday at the Family Education Center. Unfortunately, there aren’t currently enough participants registered for it. Would you be interested? We plan to knot a laundry sack that could hang from the bathroom ceiling. It saves space and looks pretty to.

Mommy Gitti

                                                                                                                                                               January 22

No offense, Gitti, but no woman watching her figure would bake this fat and sugar bomb. BTW: it should read “looks pretty too” because “to” is a preposition and this sentence actually requires “too,” an adverb that means “also.” Please remember that we must always be a model for our children. As for the knotted laundry sack: my husband would get upset if I hung anything like that in our designer bathroom. I wouldn’t have time anyway since I am currently ridiculously busy at work.

Mrs. Porschke, our nanny, told us today that she can only work until the summer because her husband is being transferred. Of course, we are sad about this. Mrs. Porschke has a golden heart, simply adores our little darlings, and is proficient at ironing, but I had my doubts from the beginning as to whether someone without a degree was really the right person for two such bright young girls. At any rate, we will need a new childcare solution after August, preferably less cost intensive. Do any of you have experience with au pairs? Have to go now, have an important meeting and then a two-day conference in Berlin, must prepare food for the family, wax my legs (because of the spa at the 5-star conference hotel), and pack my bags.

Sabine

                                                                                                                                                                January 23

We had au pairs for two years after Sophie’s birth, a total of five girls from five countries, so that I could return to work part time at first and then full time. I didn’t want to lose my edge at work – you know what I’m talking about: with your first pregnancy, you think that nothing will change and you can continue to have a career. So I thought the au pair would be a good solution, because unfortunately none of my friends warned me against one. It was only when I was stuck in the middle of it that they came to me with their horror stories. By then it was too late. Here is my warning: don’t hire any Pole, Latvian, or Russian! They can cook well and don’t complain about too much work but secretly these East European women just want a German husband and they have no problem trying to take yours. And what good does it do your kids to speak a useless language like Polish, Russian, or Latvian? You can also forget Spaniards and Italians as they are far too spoiled, complain too much about the food, and don’t know that the clothes should be ironed, folded, and stored in a dresser. The way they talk, you would think that clothes just lie in heaps on the floor in Spain and Italy. My friend Susanne had a Belgian au pair once who was always smoking pot in her room and a French au pair of Moroccan origin who rang up 4000 euros in telephone charges in one month. I know firsthand that South Africans and Argentinians are just as tricky. For her English au pair, Susanne had to prepare complicated food because she was allergic to gluten, which is practically in everything. And … gross: Irish women shave their pubic hair in the shower and you have to pull their wool from the drain afterwards.

It's not cheap either. Au pairs cheat you out of enormous amounts of spending money and you play chauffeur all day because most of them don’t have a driver’s license and want to go out every night. I would have liked to experiment with a male au pair but they are hard to come by. Better just to forget about this au pair thing as quickly as possible. If I were you, I would look for a kind, hard-working nanny like your Mrs. Porschke. With her, you at least don’t have to worry about her stealing your husband. If I had found someone like Mrs. Porschke, I wouldn’t have had to give up my job. But you need a perfectly functioning system at home in order to go back to work without a guilty conscience and to still have a good marriage. You can forget all of that with au pairs: If you come home early, your two-year old daughter is sitting in front of the TV and your husband is in your bed with the au pair. Is that what you want?

Sonja

                                                                                                                                                                January 24

To all mommies: Hooray! The OB-Gyn confirmed my pregnancy! Thanks for the shove-the-pillow-under-the-bottom-and-wait tip, Frauke! I’m super happy and super looking forward to the morning sickness! The timing is perfect: Week after next is the end of my maternity leave and when I tell my boss that I’m pregnant again I won’t need to come back. She knows from the last time that the bathroom was always occupied . . . by me, hee hee, and she (childless!) thinks that pregnant women are idiots. I only hope that she lets me stay home at full pay. Personally, I think that a mommy should take a break from her career in the first few years, regardless of how good a nanny might be. But to each her own.

By the way, I was once an au pair in the US and I can ABSOLUTELY not confirm your prejudices, Sonja. I never went out, I ate what was served and I would not have touched the man of the house with a pair of tongs. How about a GERMAN au pair, Sabine? That’s a guaranteed success.

Mommy (soon to be of two!) Ellen

p.s. Did your husband really have an affair with an au pair, Sonja? Under those circumstances, I think it’s heroic of you to have stayed together.

                                                                                                                                                                January 24

That was supposed to be an example! Of course that didn’t happen to me, but rather the friend of a friend. With a Latvian woman. By the way, my most heartfelt congratulations to you on your pregnancy, Ellen. You are so lucky that you didn’t starve away the pounds you gained the last time, otherwise all that suffering would have been for nothing.

Sonja

                                                                                                                                                                 January 25

Back from Berlin (intoxicating metropolitan feeling, even had some time for a shopping spree, Armani says hello) and irritated about your statement, Ellen. We of the Mommy Society distance ourselves from the unpleasant discussion about who the better mother is: “just a stay at home mom” or “working mom.” A satisfied mother is a good mother, something that is scientifically and adequately proven. Of course, it would be easier for me to forego my “career” if I had been only a dental assistant.

My most heartfelt congratulations on your pregnancy with full pay! (Your boss would be an idiot if she did that!)

Sabine

                                                                                                                                                                January 26

I still don’t have all the registrations for the color consultation next week. Mrs. Merkenich is an expert in her field; I am very proud to have gotten her for the Mommy Society. Her consulting can change lives, so it is worthwhile at the very least for those of us who still believe that lavender looks good on them.

Frauke

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