Women With ‘Mom Gene’ Are Better Mothers, Minivan Drivers

10/01/2012 12:00 pm by

OMG with the mom jeans, again! Alright, look, I’ll admit to owning a pair of Lee Riders that taper at the ankles and are high enough to hide my pooching muffin top the week before my period….

Oh…wait. That’s “genes” with a G, not a J. Let me try this again.

OMG with the new study on mice that pinpoints which mice sign up their kids for soccer and piano lessons, and which mice eat their progeny while their bones are still soft – something, BTW, that all good parents threaten at least once during their children’s teenage years.

Ana Ribero at Rockefeller University in New York authored the study on mice and says:

“Once the (“mom”) gene was silenced, not only did the moms not nurse or lick their baby pups, but they wouldn’t even move the baby mice back into the cage or fight off a strange intruder. In other words, our study shows that, without this gene, the skills to be ‘a good mom’ were lost.”

Listen, I wasn’t the best parent of newborns, either, let me tell you. Babies are loud and demanding and poop a lot and can’t work a coffee maker. Thank goodness for alloparents (all those grandparents and aunties and that other parent…Whosit? OH RIGHT, THE BABY DADDY) who were around to help out when I wasn’t channeling Michelle Duggar. I wasn’t a cold mother. I bonded and stuff. But I really hit my stride when the kids were out of the incessant “your house is my toilet” stage.

Mom Jeans Mom Genes Women With Mom Gene Are Better Mothers, Minivan Drivers

If you don’t have The Mom Gene, there’s still time to return your kids for a full refund with receipt, or store credit without.

And when I was a wee tot myself, I never felt the urge to dress baby dolls or pretend to breastfeed our cat. I think I turned out to be a pretty good mom (although, don’t ask my kids this week. One is grounded from her iPod, and the other has been threatened with “monastic accommodations” if she doesn’t clean her room). These days I still don’t nurse or lick my older kids, nor do I whoosh them back into their cage, but after children are about 8 years old we call that behavior “Free Range Parenting.” So, you know, all good.

Okay, yeah I get it—a lot of women don’t want to be mothers. And unfortunately for them, lots of other people still think that a woman without the urge to devote part of her life to someone else’s emotional, social, psychological, intellectual upbringing is somehow a Bad Woman.

Well, that’s bull-oney.

mom gene whit mouse Women With Mom Gene Are Better Mothers, Minivan Drivers

HEY HUMANS! I HAS MOM GEEN AND CAN BABYSITS UR KIDS FER YOU! HANTAVIRUS GOOD WAY TA BULDS UP IMMUNE SYSTUMS!

Raising kids is a tough job for sure, but it shouldn’t be some criteria or credential to measure ourselves against each other, especially when we start the whole Real Woman/Less-Than Woman/Bad Mom/Good Mom junk. Enough already.

Now about that “Good Dad Gene?” I don’t think men should wear pleated pants with their stomachs hanging over their belts. Oh…wait.

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About Josette Plank

Josette is a coal miner's granddaughter and mother of three kids living in the deep suburbs of Central Pennsylvania. A former writer and actor with DQD Comedy Theater, Josette now shares her down home Appalachian kookiness at josetteplank.com.

Filed Under: Family and Parenting, Feminism, Gender Issues, News, Olympics, Parenthood Tagged With: , , ,


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  • http://www.shuggilippo.com Jess

    I’m going to be brave here and tell you that I was, what The Society would consider, a less-than-perfect mom during the infant stage of the munchkin’s life. I was there. I cuddled and snuggled and doted, sure. But when the “house as a toilet” thing started and the “refusal-to-communicate-by-any-means-but-screaming-and-tears” kicked into full, unforgiving gear, I was like “WHA?!?! I DIDN’T SIGN ON FOR THIS SHIT!” Does that mean I have like half a mom gene? I think it’d be pretty funny lookin’ to waltz around with only on Jordache pant leg…maybe I’m like a one-legged, cyborg mom? I’d be down with that if it came with a bionic nipple…or three.

  • http://www.josetteplank.com Josette Plank

    Exactly. There so many – SO MANY – reasons why any one particular woman might not feel particularly maternal for an hour or a day or years. Again, I hate when people judge women who don’t have children – who don’t want to have children – as somehow “less than”. On the other hand, this whole “mom gene” steers dangerously close to things like “math gene” and the assertion that women overall just don’t got it.

    Also, “mom gene” can sound so hopeless. Can you imagine a mother of a newborn struggling with post-partum depression wondering whether she’ll ever be capable of feeling different? And then hearing something like this? “Maybe I don’t have the gene to ever feel love or joy in motherhood.” How awful!

    I’m guessing that a good number of women AND MEN aren’t naturally hardwired to hear biological clocks ticking, and that’s okay. But good gravy, Mom Gene sounds like one more way to judge each other and ourselves. We are more than our physical makeup. We are mind and soul as well. We are our experiences, good and bad, and the bad can be overcome. I hate stuff like this that pigeonholes. Blech.

  • http://ninastimeout.blogspot.com/ NinaN

    Let’s not forget that mice are animals. They operate on a different level than humans. They are instinctual beings. Their thought processes are different from ours. So for a mouse, or other animal, it may be something as “simple” as a gene that makes one a “good” mother. It can never be that simple in humans. There are far too many other factors that affect who we are and how we think and react.

    And those people who judge others for deciding not to have children, they are nuts. Is it really a good idea for someone to have a child if they don’t want to??? I have 3 children. It is a lot of work. And it is not for everyone. I do not think anyone should be pressured into making that commitment if they do not want it.