The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy

I find incompetence deeply irritating. I don't think those who can't work a cellphone are charming; those with no sense of direction are a burden; I am not amused, ever, by anyone who tends to eat a few times a day and claims ineptitude in the kitchen -- everyone can boil something up, or anyone who doesn't feel like doing that can order in, it's not that hard. Not WANTING to cook is quite another thing, as is hoping someone else will work out the boring stuff. Good on you if you can find someone to do your dirty work for you, but please don't cloak it in "I'm so sweet and dopey."

I myself am deeply incompetent at all the things I find dull, but I don't try to make it into cocktail conversation. I have never balanced a cheque book (preferring to spend until the phone calls start) and have no idea really how to do taxes -- I screw it up and take the hit. I'm no good at domestic chores and can't work a power drill. So, I hire people to do those things and never speak of them.

There is a whole section of literature, if it can be called that, that is all about the cute incompetent. Bridget Jones may have started it, let's blame her. This Slummy Mummy book was excerpted in Vogue and it seemed light and funny so I bought it but sadly it is as tedious as Bridget except I have fewer things to relate to. I understand fully that the responsibility of looking after myself is as much work as I'm prepared not to do well and I already know the alphabet so I thought it best not to have kids. This book is about the incompetent mummy who just can't keep it together but adorably so. Poor thing, she's trying to flirt but discovers yesterday's underwear balled up in her jeans; she can't believe another mummy can manage a gorgeous coat without jam or egg stuck to it; she never gets out and her life is a pile of unfinished laundry. I can't stand her.

Why oh why is the ruling female in current fiction this dopey hapless woman with bad hair? (and if you doubt me let me reassure you: She ALWAYS has bad hair, the wrong outfit on, sends emails to the entire company, needs to lose weight/stop drinking/stop smoking/stop fantasizing, she needs a system. She is always a mess and the day Mr. Right walks through the door she's in sweatpants and the door falls off. Yet it all works out in the end. )

I once knew a woman who was either the first woman ever to be made partner at her law firm, or was the first woman ever in Germany to be made partner. Either way a glorious example of what to do right. When she had her baby she told me she often went to work with pablum stains on her Lagerfeld. "Well, that's it, that's my job and that's my son," she said with total confidence and she OWNED it -- she was a mother and a lawyer and the pablum stains were a badge of honour in a good way. She was not intending to be cut a break as a hapless cutey.

I am so very tired of this Bridget-type character. I don't actually relate to her. I don't want to relate to her. Please writers everywhere, let her go away and learn how to cook.