How many times have you been irritated at headlights blinding you as a car rides your ass on 95, or even a side street in Stamford or Greenwich? And how many times does that car turn out to be a Volvo station wagon driven by a woman? If you’ve been in the FC a while, you’re not surprised. This area revolves around women, many of whom are moms.
There’s a stereotype in this area of a blonde driving an SUV who terrorizes parking lots with her mediocre spatial relation skills. I don’t care for stereotypes. I don’t think that way, and neither should you. Keep an open mind: that woman could have brown hair, or be driving a BMW. Either way, watch out. 
Most mama drama occurs in the private sphere, but you can get a glimpse of some major drama on the website I Saw Your Nanny. If people think they see a nanny cheating with a husband, they post a description of when and where. The site happens to be run out of Greenwich, a hotspot for FC mama drama. I found the site in October, when my google search for Stamford turned up a lurid nanny sighting at Crabshell. Da-rama!!!
Other mama drama topic: schools. Men don’t care about the test scores and teacher-student ratios of their kids’ elementary school. It’s up to the moms to rampage about that. Sure, the parent websites for saving Toquam are run by men, but the internet is a skewed sample because it’s dominated by men… men that women shamelessly exploit for their computer expertise. Men are but tools in mamas’ dramas.
If you’re out during the day in Stamford, or in any bar in the evening, you might wonder if some of the FC drama involves men. How could it not, with so many of them out and about? Well, watch those men for 5 minutes and you’ll understand that men, without women, are boring. Men don’t provide drama. They don’t act over the top at bars. They don’t wave their diamond-covered hands as they laugh raucously. They just stand there talking and drinking beers. That’s not drama.
That’s not drama… and that’s OK. Someone’s got to be stable and staid, and someone’s got to be an audience for the drama after 7pm. Someone’s got to drive defensively. Someone’s got to administer the websites. Men don’t provide drama, but you know they're secretly glad to be included.
Related Stamford Talk posts:
--I discover the site in "Blog for Paranoid Parents Across the US"
--I find out it's based in Greenwich in "Nanny Craze Hits Stamford"
--I tell you what you already know (men are helpless without women) in "Stamford's Single Women: Where Are You?"
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
FC Saves Its Drama for Its Mamas
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6 comments:
Well, as a working mom myself, I have to say a bit of drama can be the spice of life.
That nanny website is hilarious. I also have to say, I have limited sympathy for those bored Greenwich houswives that don't have jobs, but STILL get nannies anyway so that they can go to lunch and get manicures. no doubt terrorizing their fellow drivers with their huge, gas-guzzling Escalades on the way to the salon.
My husband complains about the wealthy dowagers at Whole Foods who rudely boss around the Whole Foods employees as if they were talking to their own household staff. The parking lot is a disaster, and filled with SUVs practicing the "get-outta-my-way-NOW" method of navigating tight spaces.
A friend of mine who is very crunchy shops at Whole Foods and was having trouble getting her toddler back into the cart so she could check out and leave the store. After watching my friend try to reason with, negotiate, and cajole her son back into the cart, a Nan Darien type with pince nez and furs imperiously pronounced, "YOU are the parent. HE is the child. SURELY you understand that."
I love it!
Ahhh... yes, the Whole Foods would provide some good mama drama! I wonder how your crunchy friend responded. I assume she was calm, but... maybe maybe moms should rampage more so people will stay out of their beeswax.
Lambira, you sound so bitter! When I get my nanny, I will send her over with Starbucks to cheer up you and your pasty coworkers.
I have to laugh. I would love to say "NO NO NO NO NO - you've got it WRONG! WRONG! ALL wrong, I tell you!" Alas, my day today proves I cannot.
Dropping off at my own beloved much-posted-about Stamford school that shall remain nameless , I couldn't help but notice the woman behind me. RIGHT behind me. She was in a mid-size SUV (though not a Volvo). She was wielding something white as she tailgated me on the way in. What's that? A cigarette? Can't possibly be. Nope. As we pulled up to the curb, it was clear it was some kind of a permission slip (or maybe a teacher's conference slip - which I have thus far neglected to return myself. OOPS!). She filled it out against the steering wheel as she brought her vehicularmanslaughtermobile to a stop, mere inches from my bumper.
Freed of the paper, she then wielded her mobile phone (no headset in sight) as she tailgated ever-closer during my trip north to Starbucks.
In lame defense of my gender, my workday brought drama from both sexes. But at the end of the day, it was my FEMALE dog (my male is far too well behaved to remotely consider this) who inadvertently bit my finger as we roughhoused in the back yard.
With but one gender-neutral work drama bookended by two gender-specific incidents, my day proves your point. In the case of my dog, it's the beyotches of the FC who have the upper hand. Or paw. Or, ouch, tooth. Just don't give her a mobile phone or (god forbid) the keys to my Volvo.
Haha! You guys are hilarious, especially the comment about how the bored housewives don't work yet still need nannies. Why interact with your kid?
I also agree with the nightmare that is the Greenwich Whole Foods. The customers, the parking lot, the size of the placee...everything about that store is frustrating. I'd much rather go to White Plains when time allows, and I really really really hope they approve the Stamford store. I'd be ALL over the honey-roasted peanut butter.
Don't even get me started on oblivious phone-talking dingbats in 6000-pound death machines. I drive an Eclipse, so I'm virtually invisible to them.
I do have to add my 2 cents to this. I see just as many men driving deathmobiles while on their mobile phones without a headset.
My favortite mama drama moment, however, happened last year in Costco. It was the day before my sons birthday party and I was in Costco with my 2 year old daughter. She decided that she did not want to be in a shopping cart in Costco so she started having a tantrum. I was not going to give in and give the wrong message that she could get what she wants by crying.... so I (as quickly as possible) went through the store getting cake, plates etc. Most people gave sympathetic looks and saw I was doing the best I could...some even offered to help. Right as I was about to finish and checkout an overweight, trashy lookiong middle age woman walked up to me and told me I was a horrible mother who could not handle her child and was ruining everyone eles's Costco experience. I was on the edge of tears and told her she obviously was not a mother. Then she told me she was and rammed her cart into mine (with my daughter in it). Several other people who saw what happened told her where she could go. I was so upset I burst into tears and cried as I swiped my credit card. What was I to do? Thats mama drama!
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