Yesterday I came across a copy of Martha Stewart’s magazine called Living, circa 1990. Boy, did that send me reeling back to my days of new wife and motherhood. Although this one was actually published a couple of years before I became either.
When I did get married (the first time) and have kids (two) I was a twee bit obsessed with Martha and what I considered then to be her absolute genuis. The ways she set a table, cooked from scratch, made candles and her own cleaning supplies! Back then I wanted desperately to be Martha. Or, at the very least, I wanted her to live next door to me so I could ask her for help when I needed it.
Which, as it turned out, was all the time. Because no ever tells you, or at least they didn’t back then, how mind-numbingly boring and unfulfilling it is to clean a house, throw a dinner party and play with babies all day. No one wanted to reveal this terrible truth (until Annie Lamott wrote Operating Instructions and we could all breathe again). I entered the field thinking it was going to be amazing, that I would have all the time in the world to do everything and make everything and throw amazing gatherings and host the family for every holiday.
Martha made me believe it was all possible.
I would make my own baby food, sew my own diapers, clean with natural ingredients. I would chop down trees, for christsake and build a swimming pool with my bare hands. And my gardens would be the envy of all the ladies in town.
I would do all of this while caring for a toddler and a baby, naturally.
I recall all too vividly looking at Martha’s Thanksgiving tablescapes and trying to recreate them. I wonder now what I thought would happen when we gathered the same motley crew of family members around the perfect table, the perfect dinner. Would everyone magically transform into clever, thoughtful people? Would the conversation be endlessly scintillating? Would all of our old ways disappear under the magic spell cast by the vintage flatware, the linen napkins that I made, the meal I started preparing a week ago?
Everyone in my family and my then-husband’s family is deeply flawed and wonderful and great and funny and messy; the linens, decorations, flatware, candles changed nothing (thankfully). The only thing that happened as a result of my obsession with Martha was that I became exhausted and depressed, paying attention to all the wrong things.
In looking through this magazine I realized that Martha Stewart has done probably one of the greatest disservices ever to women. There is page after page of her (and kids … when the hell did kids ever sit still long enough to make a wreath?) making stuff. In Martha’s world you must choose the perfect tree, bake the perfect cookie, make gifts for everyone on your holiday list and look fab doing all of it: perfect hair, great clothes, a clean kitchen. There’s even a story in this issue where she encourages folks to stay home to celebrate new year’s eve: “the babysitter called to cancel and the car’s in the shop …” Guess they didn’t pay their writers back then. Serve a simple meal of stuffed lamb chops, broth with floating pasta stars and black currant ice cream with caramel sauce (made by you, bien sûr, never mind black currants are totally out of season).
A couple of pages later generous Martha has included stencil cut-outs so you can make your own tablecloth, too.
Which you will gaze upon with pride until the toddler goes for the lit candles on the edge of the nearby table and burns the whole shebang down.
I think that back then I definitely came to believe that I was less than because I couldn’t make an eighteenth century wreath and I couldn’t gild leaves for Christmas wrapping. I couldn’t execute perfect topiary nor could I make special oils and vinegars for my in-laws. In Martha terms I was a massive failure.
I did, however, manage to keep my kids alive. And they’re so cute!
And later I made another kid! And they all met interesting people they love and the awesomeness grew and grew.
And I crawled out from under the ever-present narrative of oppression that tries to convince women that staying at home and making things, wearing an apron, executing the perfect dinner party, decorating a pumpkin to make your own tureen, lining your mantle with antique glassware filled twenty different kinds of flowers, cutting felt rounds to give to your friends so they can stack their antique dinnerware safely will be so very amazing!
The question the magazine never answered was why?
For what?
So people would think you’re brilliant?
What was the point of all that hyper-domesticity?
The answer was right there on page 109: we needed to be sure our husbands and fathers didn’t have to be faced with a dirty glass! Or messy children or unkempt wives. Because they work hard with their ties and bowties on, so we wanted them to have fun!
I suspect now that either the American Family Association or the John Birch Society was funding Martha’s phony lifestyle.
All I could think after looking through this piece of crap, thirty years after I was held prisoner by the Martha Stewart mindset, is that the woman deserved to do jail time— the ultimate Time Out. Not because of any financial shenanigans she pulled, but because of what she made millions of women believe. Five months, however, wasn’t nearly enough. I hate you, Martha Stewart, and I hope you have to spend all of eternity gilding leaves, tracing stencils and painting pumpkins.
And cleaning glass with your very special ammonia-free concoction.
While the rest of us gals are busy breaking it.
I’m hysterical here! We all did this, Martha or no Martha, and I didn’t even have a husband!!!LOL
Something we had to prove we could do for our families. The best holidays are on paper plates! 😘
I had a friend who worked for Martha. The unseen behind the images is the team of workers that put everything together so she could step in the frame and look good. She was arrogant, demanding and generally not nice. Things are rarely as they appear to be. I hope this makes you feel better💋