This one requires some background. So… go watch this. I’ll wait. Go ahead.
Look how fantastic that is. Jessica has some kids’ stuff lying around her house. And she’s working from home. There she is being a working mom. JUST LIKE ME. (Only if I was working from home I wouldn’t be wearing that outfit. I’d be in my PJs. And oh holy shit would working from home rock.)
Now that we have all identified with Jessica, read this.
I HATE THESE PORTRAYALS OF CELEBRITIES. It makes me want to kick someone in the face. (They’d probably have to kneel down and let me do it, because my flexibility is shit. Anway…) Jessica Alba or any other celebrity parent is in NO WAY just like me. You can’t sell that to me. Ever. It’s not going to happen.
Yes, I know that no matter how much money you have if you are an involved parent that parenting is tough. Okay. I’ll give you that one. There just isn’t any comparison though to being a rich as hell parent and being…. Me. Whether you are a celebrity or aren’t, the rich part matters.
There are a LOT of parents and single parents that have it a lot worse than I do. I know that. I busted my ass and kicked and scraped and struggled and took out student loans (and by the way, those payments seriously suck) to get a college degree in a field where I could make some decent money. After unitelliglbemumblednumber years of working in my field, I make pretty good money. I make almost twice the average household income in my area – but I’m not rolling in it. A solid decade of bad personal and financial decisions also doesn’t make a positive impact on the financial outlook. (But hey – I’m dealing with it…)
I live in the big middle where the cost of living is relatively low. I have a nice house in a good school district, a car and some decent furnishings and such. I still have to have a budget. I cook at home 6 nights a week on average. Eating out is too expensive to do more than once a week or so. I don’t get my nails done. I rarely go out without the kids because the cost of a sitter and a nice meal and drinks out isn’t worth it. We have DirecTV and NetFlix and the internet. That’s our entertainment budget. Ham and Cheese go to public school and participate in school and club extracurricular activities. Sometimes the extracurricular stuff stretches the budget as far as it will go. There is stress related to the budget. Making sure that all the necessities get paid for and there are enough little extra entertaining things to prevent a mutiny.
There’s also the stress related to time. I’m responsible for absolutely everything. I have to know about and take care of every class project and party, every good and bad grade, every practice and game, when every bill is due and how much it is, cook every meal, clean the house, do the yard work and handle any household repairs. OH. And show up to my job 5 days a week on time and per The Man’s direction.
I’m sure that’s exactly like Jessica’s life. She cleans her own MANSION. She logs into her Bank of America account to pay her water, sewer and trash service bill online. She doesn’t have anyone to help her keep track of schedules. When she gets invited to the Oscars or a movie premier, she really has to weigh whether she can find and pay for a sitter for the night. Or not any of that at all.
I’m sure Jessica is a perfectly nice person. I’m not picking on her. Well, I am, but simply because this particular commercial caught my attention and irritated the crap out of me recently. This little rant applies just as much to any other celebrity or rich person that tries to tell me that they are JUST LIKE ME. You aren’t. Unless you’ve been in the daily grind of the total responsibility of a 5 or 6 day a week job, kids and home on your own, you aren’t ‘just like me’.
I’m not saying it’s wrong for her to be rich. I say good on ya. Go out there and rake in the cash if you can. I’d do it too if I could. My skills while valuable, don’t hold the same market appeal as hers. Ahem. So be it. But seriously, shut the fuck up about being rich not being completely awesome. While I haven’t had the opportunity to be rich, I’m willing to give it a try if someone wants to finance that. Obviously that would be completely for scientific purposes of comparison. My hypothesis: Meeting my daily responsibilities to my home and family without having to worry about money on a day to day basis would be a fucking shit-ton* easier.
SO INTERNET – prove me wrong. I dare you. Someone come along and offer me a gigantic pile of money so I can do a comparison for completely scientific purposes. The whole experiment would be painstakingly documented. For real. I’m nerdy as shit like that. GO!
Amen!