Today in FAIL

About two weeks ago, NPR posted this on Facebook:

Which, when I read the comments (there were only 300 or so at the time), produced some fairly interesting answers with only a few ridiculous responses. Most of the responders (at that point), men and women, stated their basic stats and that their arrangement worked for them. A few replied that there was some adjustment in thinking, at first, but it's been great.

To which this was the end product published by NPR today:

Modern Marriages: The Rise Of The Sugar Mama

What I said out loud when I read it: Are you fucking serious?

"Sugar Mama" and "Sugar Daddy" imply an unequal, non-emotional, business-like relationship where one partner is little more than a bank account (or a dupe) and the other partner little more than a someone in search of that account. Neither partner is particularly painted in a good light. The terms are antiquated and offensive. They have no business being used to describe a partnership where one partner simply earns more money or has more formal education than the other--for those situations do not make for an unequal, non-emotional, business-like partnership. I mean, honestly.

While the article has a small amount of interesting information, as comparing 70s PEW studies to now, it's just a whole lot of little fail under that great big fail-filled headline: that old hoary "joke" about women getting a M.R.S being in the article, using the term "marriage market" (again with the business references), the use of just three couples and choosing two who have issues with their situation, having the gumption to criticize "pop culture" for antiquated ideas when using the term "sugar mama" in the headline, and referring to these relationships as "the new economic order" when it's 22% of marriages--hardly a "new order". Oh and we can't forget this which accompanied the article:



Yes, really. That's what they chose to go with this article.

Also, at the very end in the three whole lines devoted to the idea of the husband being the stay-at-home parent, this was said:

Monnig says his wife would love to be a full-time mom. But financially speaking, that just wouldn't make sense.

Now, I have no idea if Monnig used the term "full time mom" or if it was NPR. Either way, though, it's wrong. You never stop being a parent, no matter if one works outside the home or not. One doesn't go to "part time" status once the parent goes out the door to work--or the kids go out the door to school. The old line of thinking that a parent (particularly a mother) isn't a "full" parent simply because they work outside the home is flat-out bullshit and needs to go away just as quickly as the Sugar references.