Dear Gwyneth Paltrow,
I understand that you have recently spoken with envy, if not wistfully and romantically, about the ease and regularity of a 9-to-5 working mom's life, rather than the grueling life of an Oscar-winning, multi-millionaire, one-movie-a-year mom, like yourself. (Among other things, apparently, you think we get all our work done in the morning....why can't I leave at noon every day, then? Oh, wait. There's more work in the afternoon.)
Mackenzie Dawson said it best in her Open Letter to you in the NY Post, but I feel compelled (me being "The Working Mom," and all) to throw my two cents in.
So, Gwyneth, dear, please click this link to get a feel for just how "easy" my 9-to-5, work-a-day week is. Boy, don't you envy doing that EVERY WEEK FOR 20-TO-40 YEARS? Doesn't that seem so easy to do FOR DECADES?
Don't get me wrong. I love my life. But it is a balancing act -- standing one-legged on the seat of a bicycle perched on a tightrope under which there is no net.
A loved life, full of joys, but not easy-peasy.
So, Gwyneth, I'm going to give you a break and assume that you're just out of touch, having lived your entire life in Hollywood privilege such that you can't understand that it's not just a simple thing to be a regular-old-9-to-5 working mom... and I will not, tempting though it may be, automatically assume that what you actually are is a total, um, a word that rhymes with "May Pole."
I choose to believe that you just don't understand, not that you're utterly callous. (But maybe you should avoid 9-to-5, working mom roles in your movies. Especially if you're method? Are you method? I don't know, and I'm too busy to go look it up. Is "method" even the right term?)
Chin up, Gwyneth, because even though I don't know what your world is like, I feel your pain at being separated from your kids for weeks at a time by your filming schedule. That would be terrible. I feel it every day when I send The Boy to preschool. And you are right, being able to come home to him every day makes my work-a-day world a little more bearable.
Love, The Working Mom
P.S. I really liked you in Sliding Doors.
