Maternity words
“Leaning in” is all well and good for the type-A Sheryl Sandbergs of the world, but for Mother’s Day this year we decided to kick back and relax with a couple of magazines long synonymous with ... well, slaving over a hot stove and making those bathroom tiles gleam. Sounds fun for a change, right?
What better way for a mother to get culinary tips than from a well-publicized homewrecker? This, at least, appears to be the thinking of Better Homes & Gardens Editor-in-Chief Stephen Orr, who looks for advice on putting together a Mexican-style mother’s brunch from Marcela Valladolid, whose steamy affair with Paul Hollywood, host of the “Great British Baking Show,” broke up his marriage a couple years back.
True to form, Valladolid strides into the photo shoot looking like a 1950s movie star in her long coat-dress. She suggests stirring up some hibiscus mimosas and throwing a Mexican blanket on a low table. Sounds like a party, Marcela! Still, we’re pretty sure our mom would be poking at the chilaquiles and wondering if they weren’t a little too spicy.
Elsewhere, the Meredithowned magazine offers up two feature ideas for Mother’s Day. The first is a template to help you make pink paper-flower posies. It’s nice to see a homemade craft idea versus the usual spread of expensive products. But to be fair to mom, we’re pretty sure she’d want something a little less glue- stick and bent-cardboard — like a Coach bag, perhaps.
Launched in 1885, Hearst’s Good Housekeeping still feels young and fresh. Don’t get us wrong: If you’re looking for ways to escape, this one will tell you instead about the best irons on the market, how to fold laundry or the best way to de-fuzz a sweater. Moms love that stuff ! Indeed, you know this magazine is catering to a certain kind of mom when an article about staying safe while traveling suggests opening the toilet door on an airplane with a paper towel, and winding up your windows in car traffic.
That said, we loved the feature on volunteering vacations and suggestions of how to help local communities even if you can spare only a few hours. Want to read to local kids, or hang out with people with life-threatening illness, or dig a trench for a drainage system in Ecuador? Good Housekeeping offers some companies that will help you give your time. We know a lot of selfless moms who’d jump at the chance.
The highlight (and maybe a bit of a downer) for mom’s day, however, is the first-person story about a woman who grew up almost alone with a mother who was psychotic and kept her daughter from making friends. Instead, mom had insisted they read cooking magazines together for parties they would never have. The story follows the lady’s struggle to throw her first-ever dinner party for friends.