An Open Letter To Gwyneth Paltrow | My Thoughts
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As an actress, I like Gwyneth Paltrow. I found her so endearing in Shallow Hal, Shakespeare In Love, and even more in the Iron Man movies.
What’s not to like about her?
She’s beautiful, she has flawless skin, a perfectly svelte figure that would have every woman cursing the day she’s ever eaten a cupcake, a fashion maven, a gifted singer, a momtrepreneur! She also has a lifestyle blog and three cookbooks published (every Mom Blogger’s dream)! It’s undeniable, she has been living a picture-perfect life!
In a recent interview though, Gwyneth Paltrow said something that has earned the ire of many women from different corners of the world. She said that moms who work 9-to-5 jobs don’t have it “as tough” as somebody like her … uh… say, a Hollywood A-list celebrity who earns 16 million USD per film… and as such, her life is more difficult.
“I think it’s different when you have an office job, because it’s routine and, you know, you can do all the stuff in the morning and then you come home in the evening. When you’re shooting a movie, they’re like, ‘We need you to go to Wisconsin for two weeks,’ and then you work 14 hours a day and that part of it is very difficult. I think to have a regular job and be a mom is not as, of course there are challenges, but it’s not like being on set.” (Gwyneth Paltrow)
Well, you know that “regular” working moms wouldn’t take a statement like that sitting down. In no time, there was a massive outrage among netizens against Gwynie. Mackenzie Dawson, a writer for the New York Post and a working mom herself, wrote this (now viral) open letter on March 27th, 2014 addressed to the “consciously uncoupled” Academy Award Winning actress:
Dear Gwyneth,
I really enjoyed your recent comments to E! about how easy an office job is for parents, compared to the grueling circumstances of being on a movie set. ‘I think it’s different when you have an office job, because it’s routine and, you know, you can do all the stuff in the morning and then you come home in the evening,” you said. “When you’re shooting a movie, they’re like, ‘We need you to go to Wisconsin for two weeks,’ and then you work 14 hours a day, and that part of it is very difficult. I think to have a regular job and be a mom is not as, of course there are challenges, but it’s not like being on set.’
As a mother of a toddler, I couldn’t agree more!
“Thank God I don’t make millions filming one movie per year” is what I say to myself pretty much every morning as I wait on a windy Metro-North platform, about to begin my 45-minute commute into the city. Whenever things get rough, all I have to do is keep reminding myself of that fact. It is my mantra.
And I know all my fellow working-mom friends feel the same. Am I right, ladies?
We’re always gabbing about how easy it is to balance work and home life. Whenever I meet with them at one of our weekly get-togethers — a breeze to schedule, because reliable baby sitters often roam my neighborhood in packs, holding up signs peddling their services — we have a competition to see who has it easier. Is it the female breadwinners who work around the clock to make sure their mortgages get paid, lying awake at night, wracked with anxiety over the idea of losing their jobs? Or is it the mothers who get mommy-tracked and denied promotions? What about the moms with “regular” 9-to-5 jobs, who are penalized when their kids are sick and they don’t have backup child care?
Those women are living the dream, I tell you!
Which reminds me, child care. As you know, Gwynnie, having a staff can be a real drag. It’s so hard to find good help these days! That’s why it’s a good thing there’s all this nationally subsidized, high-quality day care lying around for the taking. It just makes things easier knowing you have such a strong support network and don’t have to pay someone anywhere from $30K to $65K annually to take care of your child full-time.
You mentioned in your E! interview that when someone has an office job, ‘You know you can do all the stuff in the morning,’ and that hit the nail on the head. As someone with an office job, my mornings are obviously pretty leisurely. Sometimes I even have time to drink half of my coffee before it gets cold! After my 6 a.m. wake-up, I have a lot of time to loll around, hopping in the shower and then throwing makeup on my face, hoping that I’ll have enough time to put my tights on before my son starts crying in his crib. Then, when he does start crying, I have to make the decision: Do I get fully dressed, or do I go tend to him with my hair still dripping wet? Talk about being spoilt for choice!
Then I have a few Bellinis and adjust my 401(k) contributions.
After I get home from work, I’m full of energy and ready to cook dinner using one of the recipes you post on your lifestyle Web site, Goop: slow-cooked kale, pancetta and bread crumbs, anyone? After that, I’ll go to yoga, spend a few hours meditating and maybe do some online shopping, picking up a pair of $350 white leopard-printed short-shorts via Goop in preparation for the “spring break” I’ll take with my husband and son.
If there’s one thing I look good in after having a child, it’s short-shorts.
So, Gwyneth, you’ve figured out the secret of working parents everywhere: Livin’ la vida desk job is a breeze compared to the 14-hour days of a film set. Fourteen hours? Who in New York — especially those in the finance, law and tech professions — could possibly work 14 whole hours?
Luckily, those 9-to-5 “ordinary job” hours grow on trees here.
And if you lose one, all you have to do is find another.
Yours,
Mackenzie
My Thoughts
Without trying to minimize where Gwyneth Platrow might possibly be coming from as a mother, I would just like to say that I could not disagree more with her opinion about moms who work regular 9 to 5 jobs “having it easy”, compared to celebrity moms like herself. In my own humble opinion, I think that’s an unfair statement.
You see, when you have a job that earns you 16 million USD – whether it’s for a few months (if shooting is only done during weekends) at a time, or stretched over an entire year – you’ll have a lot more options available to you. That’s just the way that it is, whether we like it or not, whether we choose to acknowledge that fact or we don’t. There aren’t many challenges these days that money can’t solve in one way or another. Now, I’m willing to consider that maybe Gwyneth was referring to some aspects of motherhood that money can’t buy like time spent with her kids, and “just being there”… in person… to share precious memories with her kids, when she’s away shooting a film for 14 hours a day. However, who’s to say that “regular” working moms don’t have that same dilemma, or maybe even worse?
When you have more money, you have more options, as I already pointed out. Most “regular” working moms out there have no other options than to be away from their families because they need the extra income. For some, theirs is the only income upon which they can rely. Given the choice of being away from their families for 14 hours a day (and going home with a fat check worth even half the money Gwyneth earns per film) versus being away every single day from 9 to 5 all for the humble amount they get to take home, I’m sure a lot of women would jump at that opportunity – if that means the paycheck will give them more options such as:
- buying a vacuum cleaner, a dishwasher, or a laundry washing machine so that she (the “regular” working mom) won’t have to do all the cleaning and washing by hand
- hiring a babysitter or a nanny and other household help
- buying a car that will take her and her family to school and work in half the time
- starting her own home-based business so that she won’t have to slave away in an office, working for someone else for the rest of her life and she can actually make money without having to be away from her family
- being able to afford better quality meals for their family (or the expensive brands of ingredients recommended in Gwyneth’s recipes)
- being able to take her kids on trips to exotic places
- being able to send her kids to expensive schools that promise better education
- being able to buy a beautiful, secure house
Again, in the same way that I have no desire to invalidate Gwyneth’s own struggles as a working mother, I also don’t think it was right for her to minimize the struggles of the mothers who have “regular” 9 to 5 jobs by saying that those women “have it easy”.
Needless to say, to the good moms of the world, money isn’t everything in life… and so as tough and exhausting as it may be physically, emotionally, mentally and financially, they are unlikely to trade their complicated lives with anybody else’s… not even the glamorous one that Gwyneth Paltrow seems to be living.
The bottom line is this: I just don’t think it’s right for her (or anyone) to compare her journey with someone else’s. Whether you think you’re more blessed or you think the exact opposite, just appreciate what life has handed down to you, fix your eyes upon the road you’re traveling, and mind your own journey. We each have our own set of challenges and along with it, resources and opportunities to help us rise above those challenges. It’s not our place to judge how tough or how easy other people’s circumstances are because we don’t really know what their struggles, frustrations, failures, hopes and dreams are. You’d probably give anything just to be able to take your kids to Disneyland this summer, while to simply be able to tuck the kids in at bedtime might be at the top of someone else’s prayers.
Our views on life – what we consider hardships and what we count as huge blessings, what we view as achievements and what we regard as failures, what appears to us as a hurdle and what shines out as an opportunity – are all relative, don’t you think?
About The Author: Myla “MyMy” Upshaw
Myla “MyMy” Upshaw is a stay-at-home mom who prides herself on her status as a Filipino Christian wife and mother and “domestic goddess”. She blogs about popular subjects for stay-at-home moms such as fashion, family, beauty, relationships, entrepreneurialism (“mompreneur”), movies, self-improvement, health & wellness as well as about her faith as a follower of Christ.
To learn more about Myla Upshaw, please click here:
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