I’m a suburban mom, aka housewife. These things are interchangeable, just like my blonde children and my husband’s entire wardrobe. You’re probably startled to hear from me because suburban housewives are usually ignored while we go about our days making mac n’ cheese and driving our minivans to stock up on Target decorative pillows. And that’s okay! We got more than enough attention during our attractive years.
But you can’t pretend we don’t exist anymore, because Trump needs our vote. Now, all we hear is “suburban moms this” and “suburban moms that” and “suburban moms, your way of life is about to be obliterated by radical Antifa Marxists, so if you don’t want to hear rap music in the local park, better vote for the racist.” It’s fun to be in the news for something besides refusing to wear a mask at Walmart.
As our husbands could tell you, however, we don’t put out easily. If politicians want to woo us, we need to be pandered to or, at the very least, given a new Cuisinart. And because I have a few minutes before Montessori school pick-up, I’ll tell you how to secure the coveted Middle-Aged Yoga Pants vote.
1. Stop stereotyping suburban moms
We’re not all the same. Why, just the other day, while I was taking Jayden to Pre-K Zumba class, I heard President Trump on the radio calling my entire Bunco group of white women “housewives.” Boy, did that comment set off my neighborhood Mommy Facebook group of white women. We’re not all Stepford Wives clones. In fact, all the white women in my Barre Method class are nodding their heads and agreeing right now.
2. Stop assuming that suburban housewives don’t have jobs
You think we live in this five-bedroom Center Hall Colonial on the money my husband brings in from his dermatology practice? Don’t make me laugh. (Really — I just had a Restylane injection and it’s painful to show emotion.) I’ll have you know that we renovated this marble kitchen island masterpiece with the Benjamins I brought in from my six MLM companies and my Etsy/eBay/Shopify side hustles. Let me know if you’d like to try this week’s essential oils.
3. Be someone we’d like to invite over for a beer
It was hard to imagine drinking beer with the 2016 candidates because one was a pussy-grabbing liar, and the other didn’t like baking cookies. But in this election cycle, polls show that suburban moms favor Joe Biden. That’s because we know Joe wouldn’t call us dogs or horsefaces, and he’d also probably trim our hedges after his beer.
4. Help us achieve the American dream
Trump says the American suburban dream is under threat because of low-income housing. I dunno. In my suburb, “low-income” housing starts at 400k, so Obama’s Fair Housing Rule hasn’t exactly put a dent in our lifestyle. You know what would keep suburbanites safer? An economy that wasn’t cratering. Also, a school I wasn’t petrified to send my kids to because they could bring home a deadly virus or get shot by an AK-47. As long as we’re vision-boarding, if their college years weren’t going to set us back 200k per kid, that would be helpful. Look, all I’m saying is that our civilization is destroying itself because of climate change inaction, so maybe our biggest fear isn’t diversity. Just spitballing here while I wait for Jayden’s orthodontist to work her magic.
5. Stop teargassing Doris
Can Doris be irksome with her mason jar gift ideas Pinterest board and her gluten-free matcha green tea protein bars? Sure. But that’s no reason to deploy secret militias against her, against my friends Megan, Meagan, and Meghan, or against any Wall of Moms protesters who aren’t scared by the “low-income” boogeyman dog whistles. Besides, we don’t need teargas to cry; we’ll just look at our wrinkles. (I stole that joke from Meghan’s humor Pinterest board.)
6. Get familiar with suburban values
We suburbanites aren’t like the big city liberals with their freethinking ways and their white truffle reduction foam and their outdoorsy Tinder profiles. We have old-fashioned, traditional values. Just this morning, my kindly neighbor, Ed, was telling me how he was saving up for a porch swing and a backyard patio so that his husband, Esteban, could host the annual LGBTQ labor union potluck. And then he trimmed my hedges.
7. Please accept our apology
Four years ago, white suburban women mostly voted for Trump. Gosh, we’re sorry. If only we’d known he’d cage children and destroy our democracy and bungle a pandemic response causing 200,000 American deaths. We thought he was an eccentric businessman! Sure, we might have been less clueless if we’d been paying attention to the news during the wine o’clock hour, but things usually work out for us, so we weren’t worried. Our bad! We’d like to make amends this time with a morally correct vote and also this tray of gluten-free matcha green tea protein bars.
I hope all of that was useful. Remember: not all suburban white women housewives are the same. In fact, all the white women in my Biden for President group are nodding their heads and agreeing right now.