I am a big Troy Patterson fan -- I read his TV pieces for their humor, clever writing and sensible opinions even if I know there is no chance I will watch the program. But I was disappointed in this sentence:

Stay-at-home moms from Roxbury to La Jolla doubtlessly went gaga for this; others of us were simply happy to be reminded of a fine line by William Gass: "The Pulitzer Prize in fiction takes dead aim at mediocrity and almost never misses."

Well-educated, professional women who opt out of careers to stay home with their kids have been taking heat lately for wasting their intellectual potential. Meanwhile, Troy Patterson apparently believes "gaga" stay-at-home moms don't have much intellectual capital to squander -- less, anyway, than "others of us."

ithinkso

I don't know if Patterson meant to lump all "SAHMs" into one, well, lumpen category. But let's face it, Mom: there are only so many hours in the day, and if you're watching Oprah instead of, say, reading Proust, you're going to be at a certain level of intellectual activity no matter what you think, or how uncomfortable you might be with some of the implications of staying at home. Let's not be fooled by Oprah's attempt to interview McCarthy: he won a Pulitzer, and Patterson is damn right to quote Gass's hilarious take on that, and that Pulitzer is why McCarthy's on the show. Note that Oprah also plugs The Secret, quite possibly the stupidest thing to happen in American life this year. Mom, I don't care how smart you think you are--if you really are, you'll turn this crap off.

They call it intellectual effort because, um, it's an effort.

Oprah named it the book club choice and invited him on the show before it was announced that he won the Pulitzer. Sorry, your argument is incorrect.

I do like that a woman doing labor in the household and raising children only makes your intellectual radar if she is reading, of all people, Proust. Men get intellectual reading (or writing) on/for slate - women, they always get to disappoint.

amen!

as a woman who is considering taking time out of my career to stay at home, I hate-hate-hate that my choice to do so could leave me open to belittlement by any self-important hack who can publish an article.

Glad some other people pointed this out!

I'm a part-time SAHM, and I recently got out my old French books to read Proust in the original--is that enough to establish my intellectual credentials in the eyes of the previous poster? I don't watch Oprah; the mom I know who is the biggest Oprah fan is not a SAHM at all but works full-time as a lawyer.

I do get tired of people's assumptions that if a woman chooses to stay at home, suddenly her intellectual capacity is limited.

Maybe the Roxbury to La Jolla reference isn't actually a dig at SAHM, but a dig at those places, instead. Do you live in Roxbury or La Jolla - it's a rhetorical question - and do you have some sense of what those places might represent? Patterson might be after something other than SAHM, here.

I don't know if Patterson meant to lump all "SAHMs" into one, well, lumpen category. But let's face it, Mom: there are only so many hours in the day, and if you're watching Oprah instead of, say, reading Proust, you're going to be at a certain level of intellectual activity no matter what you think, or how uncomfortable you might be with some of the implications of staying at home.

He may not have meant to lump them into a lumpen category, but that's what generalizations do, which is why they're offensive. Who says all regular Oprah viewers are stay-at-home moms? We know there was at least one non-SAHM watching the episode -- Troy Patterson. It's possible there are others who actually LIKE the show, even if they're not moms, or don't stay home.

It's also possible that some of the stay-at-home moms who saw the episode WEREN'T gaga over it. Hey, maybe they're sort of half-watching while serving the kids breakfast, anxious to usher them out the door so they can crack open their Proust. Maybe they watch while working out because they don't want to get their Proust book all sweaty. Maybe they have been fiercely lobbying for Oprah to pick Proust for her next book club selection, and turn the show on every day hopeful that their pleas have been heard.