This term pseudo-housewife means a fake, not genuine housewife and if you have ever watched an episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County, you know exactly what I am referring to. Of course everyone has a different personal definition of what a housewife is, but I don’t think shopping all day while the kids are at home with the nanny (ies) fits into this category. The nannies really embody the house term, while the ladies are pretty much just wives. The closest thing relating many of them to the term housewife is that they ride on the coattail of their husband’s success and have a few kids.
For example, Alexis Bellino was introduced to the show in season 5 and explained she has three kids and TWO nannies. The show is supposed to be glamorizing housewives, but they don’t exactly take care of their own kids. Maybe these women should instead be called ‘user-wives’ because they marry rich and use his money to stay attractive with the help of plastic surgery and extravagant shopping. Housewives are supposed to be women that put others needs in front of their own, such as caring for children, but instead these women put their own needs first. In doing this, not only are they making women look bad through their dependence on males, but they are also making housewives look inconsiderate and degrading the hard work that true housewives actually go through.
Now, lets take another example. Lynne Curtin was an old housewife from seasons 4 and 5 and she represents a perfect example of not only neglecting her children, but also being a bad mother. Because her daughters are older, we do not see the nanny issue in this house, but the issue of spoiling her kids as a tradeoff for respect does come into play. I think that any mom in today’s society could vouch for the fact that bribes and no punishment for wrong doings is no way to earn a child’s respect, so check out this clip.
In this clip Lynne’s daughter explains that her parents are “going through the motions of parenting” and are not completely there for her. The clip ends with her swearing at her mother and Lynne’s response is to calm down because they are shopping. This provides a perfect example of Lynne bribing her daughter with shopping and allowing her daughter to do anything because there are never consequences for her actions. True housewives take much pride in the respect that they get from their children and for mothers who are homemakers, motherhood is at the very center of their identity” (Giele 408). These women seem to have much different centers of their identity, such as shopping, vacationing, plastic surgery and going out the other ladies.
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