That One Time I Joined A Book Club

Okay, so here is a story I need to tell carefully. Let me lay out a few things before I launch into the narrative: two of the people in this book club were lovely, and not all stay-at-home moms are freaks. Okay? Keep these things in mind.

One day, my friend Jenn asked me if I wanted to join a book club. I like Jenn a lot, and I have met a number of her friends, who seem cool. I have never been in a book club, mostly because I generally breeze through a book in a day, and retain no details more complex than, “It was about a family, and it was good.” Jenn, however, assured me that the book club would be more about wine and sociability than hard facts about books, so I said okay.

I can’t remember the title of the first book that we read, but it was about a family, and it was good. Actually, I remember more than that. There were, like, ten kids in the family, they were Finnish-American, and they belonged to a religion that discouraged drinking, music, nail polish, unkind thoughts, and dating outside the religion, among other things.

Aside from me, Jenn, and another nice woman, there were two women who I can only describe as the Stay-At-Home-Clintonville-Moms (or SAHCMs). Immediately upon sitting down (ps, there was no booze. I was promised booze!) the SAHCM began talking about how hard their lives were, you know, being SAHCMs. Now, at this point, I had not mentioned the fact that I had nearly two decades of experience in momitude, so anything they had to say about their spawn was nothing I hadn’t gone through. Not knowing this, they schooled the rest of us on how difficult it was to raise children. “You don’t know the pressure,” the head fuckwad (HF) said at one point. “I have to keep this child ALIVE.”

I believe that, at this point, I rolled my eyes. Lady, put a few door knob covers on doors, get a safety gate, and call it a day. Don’t sell your child on the internet. There’s not a lot to it beyond that. However, the HF SAHCM continued to lament about how the time children spend with their parents in their formative years (I am still, by the way, unsure about which years are formative for a child. I think 20 – 26 are formative years. I am guessing that’s wrong) shapes whether or not the child will become a success or a serial killer. Thoroughly fed up by this point, I said, with a level of dryness that I normally only reserve for very special occasions, that I’d managed to get a child to age 19 without him serial killing anyone, and I’d done it while a) being a single parent, b) working full time, c) getting myself an undergrad and law school degree, d) not buying organic, e) working out five days a week, and f) not acting like a total freak about it. I also mentioned that I’d read somewhere that children who get five quality minutes with their parents every day generally come out well-adjusted and secure.

I could see the SAHCMs look at each other. The other normal woman threw in that she’d read a book about how French parents are totally chill about child-rearing, and how their children end up awesome (and able to pull off slim-legged pants, flats, and red lipstick flawlessly).

There was tension from there on out. In addition their unhealthy obsession with their children, the HF SAHCM was also totally stressed about her marriage. “I get NO time with my husband,” she lamented. Because she was so busy, you know. What was she busy with? Over the next hour, she discussed the three books she was reading, her blogs (yes, she had several), her twitter account, all of her Facebooking duties, and pinning shit on pinterest, all of which centered around how difficult it was to be a SAHCM. At this point, I was in the early stages of PTSD.

Needless to say, I quit the book club a short time later. Furthermore, I've crafted a few simple rules to determine whether or not I will join a book club in the future. They are:

1. People actually have to read and finish the book
2. If one person monopolizes the conversation, they pay the tab
3. It's a book club, not a therapy session
4. Anyone who gives anyone else PTSD is immediately kicked out 
5. It really has to have wine