🤎this week on the Spoiled Girlie Support Group🤎
the PICKME mom and NPC dad epidemic - daughters used for FAME AND MONEY
5050 men are in survival mode [generational wealth, free bird theory]
weak men hurt women bc they’re women adjacent [men* punching NYC women]
📖besties book club📖
“I've seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write... and you know it's a funny thing about housecleaning... it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she "should" be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.”
—Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., Women Who Run With the Wolves
When a woman goes home according to her own cycles, others around her are given their own individuation work, their own vital issues to deal with. Her return to home allows others growth and development too.
—Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., Women Who Run With the Wolves
🍵the tea 🍵
the PICKME mom and NPC dad epidemic - daughters used for FAME AND MONEY
this tea was inspired by Jennette McCurdy’s book “I’m Glad My Mom Died.”
The book details her experiences as a preteen all the way to being an adult woman, navigating child stardom, her oppressive mother, NPC father, and having to be the thankless breadwinner for her family. Jennette writes of her experience:
“She wanted this. And I wanted her to have it. I wanted her to be happy. But now that I have it, I realize that she’s happy and I’m not. Her happiness came at the cost of mine. I feel robbed and exploited.”
—Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
Throughout the book, Jennette credits her own need to please her mother as the main driving force in pushing her to do well in Hollywood despite being at odds with the job itself, the hyper-fixation on appearance, and losing a normal childhood. Jennette has been conditioned from birth to always seek validation from her mother… and have this unquestioning undying loyalty to her mother… but as Jennette grows up, she realizes her mother is not well in the head… that her mother is self-centered, selfish… A NARCISSIST.
“She was a narcissist. She refused to admit she had any problems, despite how destructive those problems were to our entire family. My mom emotionally, mentally, and physically ab*sed me in ways that will forever impact me.”
—Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
Jennette had all these realizations as a grown adult… way after all the hurt her mother has done to her and their family… and this gets us into why certain mothers fail their daughters like this… it’s because they’re pickmes
a huge part of Jennette’s mothers frustrations stems from being unable to marry rich. she writes…
“… she could have had anyone she wanted back in the day before she had children, which has made her less appealing. I told her I was sorry, and she said it was okay, that she’d much rather have me than a man. Then she told me I was her best friend and kissed me on the forehead and, as an afterthought, said that she actually did go on a few dates with a doctor, though: “Tall and ginger, very financially stable.”
—Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
It is obvious that Jennette’s mother mourns her loss of youth and mobility… and resentment at not having been able to secure a more financially stable husband. She’s utterly miserable having a low-earning husband, living in a hoarder home with her elderly parents and three young children. And on top of all that, she never go to fulfill her own dreams for herself.
and i say “pickme” not only in the context of male validation… but also in the context of fame and money…
i know this is such a nuanced conversation because aren’t we all pickmes for fame and money??? at least money as we are all living under capitalism… but because fame allows you to scale so you do less work for more money, those two are often intertwined whenever we talk about pickme mothers exploiting their daughters… FAME AND MONEY.
anyway, don’t we all need to shake the booty for the patriarchy to get that male validation which informs capitalism? and we need to shake our booty for that too… for capitalism to get resources for survival
but this is where individuation comes in… individualism would predict that people would stop at nothing to gain fame and money… but individuation is seeing that you can do that… but not at the expense of others… especially not at the expense of your own daughter
women who have unmet goals and needs and wants cannot see past their own hunger to see that in their quest of piecing together their own shattered selves… they shatter their daughters in the process. the pickme mothers are never fulfilled, never satisfied… and this drives them to exploit their daughters more no matter the consequences…
just to be clear, pickme mothers are mothers who operate on their individualistic desire to attain their selfish goals at the expense of their daughters
these mothers with unfulfilled dreams and unmet needs use their daughters as conduits to fulfill these unfulfilled dreams and unmet needs. they fail to see their daughters as individuals and instead, see them as mere extensions of themselves—a new chance to live their lives.
Jennette writes,
“Maybe it’s because she didn’t want to be a dancer growing up, she wanted to be an actress, and maybe Mom only sits in when I’m being the thing she wanted to be.”
—Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
but by living vicariously through their daughters, pickme mothers rob their daughters of innocence, of happiness, of childhood… and sometimes… of life
and this could not be any more true for Gypsy Rose who suffered under the hands of her mother Clauddine Blanchard who is the poster mom for Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
Clauddine faked illnesses for Gypsy Rose unbeknownst to Gypsy, of course… so not only did she make others believe that Gypsy was sick… Gypsy believed it too! up until Gypsy was in her mid-teens, Gypsy believed she was trapped in a frail sickly body… completely dependent on her mother.
Clauddine would sabotage Gypsy’s health plans, overmedicate her, shave her head, come up with various dietary restrictions, switch doctors like underwear so no one would catch on, and the list goes on and on and on… and if you’re a normal human being who isn’t afflicted with this syndrome… you may ask yourself WHY??? why would a mother harm her child like this?
Clauddine Blanchard is yet another example of a pickme mother
… a woman who so craved the attention and concern of others she would maim her child to get it.
Gypsy Rose did survive the ordeal but her mother didn’t… and the reason why we are all so fascinated by this case is because this time, it is the mother who met death’s hand… not her child. and also, this story is so shocking to all of us as a society because we expect mothers to be these kind, tender-loving creatures… and when they don’t act like that… it’s shocking… but newsflash… women can be bad mothers too
this whole notion that mothers cannot be criticized for harmful behavior… not by other mothers, not by other women who are not mothers, not by their daughters… it’s created this atmosphere that perpetuates the ab*se of their daughters…
why is it that whenever mothers get criticized for harmful behavior towards their children, it’s all of a sudden, MOM SHAMING?
i get it, mothers go through so much and no one will understand that until you have been through that. but there’s a difference between unnecessary mom shaming… and pointing out ab*sive behavior. this is yet another one of those extreme pendulum swings that at the risk of being told we are mom shaming, we have driven down the bar for motherhood so low… that we are excusing ab*sive behavior…
and this quote from Jennette’s book sums it up perfectly
“Moms are saints, angels by merely existing. NO ONE could possibly understand what it’s like to be a mom. Men will never understand. Women with no children will never understand. No one but moms know the hardship of motherhood, and we non-mons must heap nothing but praise upon moms because we lowly, pitiful non-mons are mere peasants compared to the goddesses we call mothers.”
—Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
anyway, we shouldn’t shy away from mom-shaming when necessary to protect children… and we shouldn’t shy away from dad-shaming either…
let’s get into how absent fathers whether in the figurative or literal sense fail their daughters just as much as pickme mothers do. i wanted to talk about this because i never hear people talk about where are these girls’ fathers when their pickme mothers were essentially mistreating them.
where was jennette’s father when her mother was teaching her a body perception disorder? when her mother was forcing her to provide for the family? when her mother robbed her of her childhood? when her mother emotionally tormented her?
apparently, he was physically around…
“Mostly I remember Dad not being present. Seeming uninterested. I remember him trying to read Stan the Hot Dog Man to me and Scottie every night for what must have been a three-or four-week stretch until eventually we gave up on him reading it because he couldn’t get through the children’s book without falling asleep. I remember him forgetting dance recitals and falling asleep during the family watch parties Mom would have for my TV performances.”
—Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
Jennette’s dad was essentially an NPC father
basically, NPCs are non-playable characters. they’re the characters in video games who just stand there and have some preprogrammed dialogue and that’s all they’re ever going to be. they literally exist just to exist.
Jennette writes,
Dad doesn’t do stuff like that. He doesn’t even seem aware of stuff like that. He just kinda… exists.
—Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died
and let’s talk about this because i have heard this sentiment from other women… that they had NPC fathers… like they’re just there… things happen TO THEM. they don’t make things happen… and if whatever happens to them is not what they wanted, they take it out on their wives or their children… or they do nothing… like they are literally just background people. and i hate to talk about people this way… but this is how they act…
it’s the clueless father stereotype, the fumbling lumbering dad, the weaponized incompetence video-game addicted basement dweller dad… and a lot of the times us wives, us daughters excuse this lack of awareness, lack of agency, lack of motivation because they’re “nice”.
like let’s talk about it… the bar for men is so low… the bar for fathers is so low that when our fathers are “nice,” when they don’t physically mistreat us, when they’re not mean to us… yet they make bad decisions at every turn, they sabotage the family finances because of their addictions, their lack of competence in the system built for them is putting the family below the poverty line and forcing their wives to provide on top of running the household fully… and showing their daughters a poor example of what a husband and father is…
the bar for men and fathers is so low that at the end of the day, we still consider these NPC fathers “good dads” simply because their malice doesn’t come in the form of physical violence.
they’re 2 sides of the same below bare minimum low effort male coin!
like why does no one talk about NPC fathers? just because they’re mild-mannered, they’re “safe,” they’re docile doesn’t mean they’re good fathers. they’re still incompetent, tormenting their wives and daughters… just in a more insidious, socially acceptable way.
it’s absolutely disgusting in itself… and absolutely disgusting that we have thought this to be a lesser evil… but a lesser evil… is still evil!
now another question: where was gypsy rose’s father when clauddine was sedating her, medicating her, shaving her head, making her eat baby food as a teenager, confining her to a wheelchair, using her for donations and housing?
well, he’s alive but once again, absent for most of Gypsy’s childhood.
do you know how many fathers don’t even know their children’s eye colors their birthdays? shoe sizes? primary care physicians? and i’m not talking about separated, divorced fathers… absent baby daddies…
i’m talking about fathers living in the home.
this is the state of fatherhood today… and one would say, it has always been the state of fatherhood. when i tell you men are the lower investment parent… it goes way beyond biology
so this whole situation with Gypsy Rose being medically abused by her own mother was made possible because no other adult bothered to look into her medical life… not her father… who should have been invested from day one.
men are the lower investment parent biologically… but they don’t have to be societally. you would think that because they don’t have to physically bear a child, they’d be more involved in the rearing of said child outside of biological constraints… you would think that because they didn’t have to be torn open and stitched up and hooked up to a pump at all hours of the day, they’d have more time to organize their child’s care, wake up at night, do feedings, set up stations to make it easier for the mother…
oh no… they think their job is done… and that’s true… biologically, their job is technically done… but we don’t live in a petri dish, an isolated mating experiment. we live in society where real human beings are born into and raised to the same thing for the next generation.
it’s time we hold men accountable for their part in raising the next generation IF THERE IS TO BE A NEXT GENERATION.
we can talk all day about pickme mothers, narcissistic mothers, mentally sick mothers… but where are the fathers?
both these people are failing their daughters and it’s time we talked about it. not every parent deserves children and this is proof.
absolutely SICK
bestie, wake up