Mother Tells You How: Essential Life Skills for Modern Young Women by Unknown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love these comics very much and devour them whenever I come across them. They’re beautifully constructed things and the amount of knowledge they pack into six frames (six! frames!) is incredible.
The only thing that really very much annoyed me here was the introduction and blurb which sets this up as something to laugh at: “[it] appears to be an over-the-top 1950s spoof but is in fact a wholly genuine period piece”. I just don’t find this a productive or even interesting way to frame these texts (and yes, I know I’m coming from a very particular angle and have a very particular interest but I do just find it … dull? reductive?).
What I think is much more interesting here is a reading which recognises the ferocious capabilities of Mother and how, even in a time when she’s not allowed to escape the domestic (or even given a name), she’s still the most capable woman on the planet. This woman can sort everything. She’s amazing. Her knowledge covers everything and she does it all by herself. Father pops up in one strip to kind of marvel at an awe-struck distance before then firmly retreating. Auntie also pops up every now and then but she’s pretty much just here to go “god, Mother’s amazing”.
And isn’t there some interest in that? Isn’t there interest in recognising how Mother’s power and agency is still power and agency despite it being something quite unfamiliar and different and even funny when read from a modern day perspective? Perhaps we need gentler readings of women’s agency, more flexible interpretations of what it meant back in the day, kinder ways of relating to that. I don’t know, particularly when it comes to things like this. I think I’m longing for gentleness a little bit.
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Daisy May Johnson 