OBJECTIVE: To obtain enough knowledge about the gender politics of the 1995 novel Kristy and Mr. Mom to eliminate major critical lacunae in the fields of a) feminist theory; b) queer theory; c) sociology; d) Baby-Sitters Club studies; e) Michael Keaton studies; f) Mr. Mom studies. This study is particularly timely because of the current prominence of the Oscar-nominated film Birdman, which stars Michael Keaton as a disgruntled actor who can’t live down his success in the 1983 film Mr. Mom.
PROCEDURE: I will review the facts now available to scholars of Mr. Mom studies, and articulate a series of questions and conceptual problems provoked by those facts. I will then attempt to retrieve my copy of Kristy and Mr. Mom, which I may have left in a coffee shop, and use it to answer these questions. If further funding is available, I will procure and screen a copy of the 1983 Michael Keaton film Mr. Mom.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE (WHAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW):
1. Kristy and Mr. Mom was book #81 in Ann M. Martin’s popular Baby-Sitters Club series, published in 1995 by Scholastic Books. Although Martin is listed as the author, the book was ghostwritten by Jahnna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner.
2. The cover depicts Watson Brewer, Kristy’s millionaire stepdad, standing in his family’s well-appointed eat-in kitchen. He is dressed in a chef’s hat and a red-and-white striped apron and wielding a wooden spoon. Beneath his apron he wears pressed khaki slacks, an Oxford blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to bracelet length, and shining brown leather dress shoes. Thirteen-year-old Kristy Thomas, the president of the BSC and the book’s narrator, perches on a kitchen bench, one ankle crossed casually, if somewhat stiffly, over her knee. Kristy is dressed in her signature “uniform” of turtleneck (in this case, hunter green), jeans, and white Keds. Her glossy brown hair is pulled into a ponytail with a red Scrunchie. Kristy appears to be in the process of violently clapping her hands together. She and Watson are laughing with delight as David Michael, Kristy’s little brother, reads with intense concentration from a piece of paper. David Michael is wearing large white basketball sneakers; in every other respect he is dressed as a rooster. Kristy’s two-year-old sister Emily Michelle is clinging to her father’s apron pocket while staring blankly at David Michael and attempting to execute some kind of jig. Emily Michelle is impeccably dressed in large white basketball sneakers, a pair of puffy red overalls with jaunty yellow embellishments, and a coordinating yellow turtleneck and Scrunchie. Watson is protectively cupping Emily Michelle’s Scrunchie with his left hand. Behind him, gleaming copper saucepans hang from the ceiling. Steam rises from a blue enamel Dutch oven on the stove. A bouquet of lilies and a freshly-frosted cake brighten up the counter.
Superimposed over this image are the words Watson’s got a brand-new job! More data needed: Unconfirmed reports from WEIRD SISTER editor Marisa Crawford claim that the original tagline was Watson’s got a brand-new bag!
3. This is the DVD cover for the 1983 film Mr. Mom:
Note similarities in Mr. Mom iconography over the twelve-year period that separates Mr. Mom from Kristy and Mr. Mom:
More data needed: Did the Scholastic team intentionally plagiarize promotional images from Mr. Mom? Or was the red-and-white apron a culturally recognized icon for the combination of masculine strength and feminine tenderness required of Mr. Mom as a generic figure?
4. More data needed: I have not yet viewed the Michael Keaton film Mr. Mom.
5. The phrase “Mr. Mom”
- makes us laugh because it’s alliterative and an oxymoron: a man can’t be a mom! Many men do give birth to babies, sure, but on the other hand men never wear aprons, which all moms have to wear at all times. Also, a mom would never deserve the noble title of “Mister.”
- reverses traditional gender roles, allowing for the possibility of mothers achieving professional satisfaction without feeling guilty for not staying home with their children.
- expresses cultural anxiety about what happens to men when women achieve more professional success outside the home and/or wear hypermasculine clothing such as shoulder pads.
- foregrounds the artificiality of gender roles in our culture, demonstrating how neither masculinity nor motherhood is a biologically determined trait, but rather a socially constructed role that any person can theoretically inhabit.
- enforces a heteronormative gender binary through its reversal of that binary.
- implies that it’s impossible for a dad to be a nurturing parent.
- marks domestic and affective labor as low-status, feminine work, and the men who perform that labor as comically feminized and pathetic.
- suggests a man who is struggling to hold on to a shred of masculinity and self-respect, despite the fact that he has to do all this low-status, feminine work.
- marks domestic and affective labor as apparently low-status, feminine work that men occasionally perform under unusual circumstances, during which they come to appreciate that women’s labor is difficult and should be respected; then everybody goes back to their natural, preexisting roles
- makes literally everyone imagine a guy wearing a red-and-white apron.
6. Before I left the book in a coffee shop, I learned the following facts about the plot of Kristy and Mr. Mom:
- Watson Brewer, CEO of Stamford-based Unity Healthcare, works hard and plays hard, drives a red sports car to work on a snowy Saturday after pushing said sports car out of a snowdrift, and plans to watch football and eat pizza with his brood of children and stepchildren that evening.
- All that pizza, working, and playing takes its toll on Watson’s health. He has a heart attack, is forced to take it easy and stop eating unhealthy food, and develops a new, sentimental appreciation for his family.
- Watson decides to indulge this sentimental tenderness and become a stay-at-home dad, or “Mr. Mom.”
- Watson is unruffled when Kristy calls him “Mr. Mom.”
- Kristy’s grandmother, Nannie, who had been living with the family and helping with cooking and childcare, moves out when Watson starts to take over her role.
- Although Watson is a millionaire, lives in a gigantic mansion with up to seven children and four animals, and is married to a woman who works full time, all domestic labor appears to be performed by family members—or, on rare occasions, by middle school students who presumably do not receive minimum wage, but who earn enough money to purchase an unlimited quantity of push-down socks. These middle school students appear to provide ninety per cent of the childcare in Stoneybrook, CT.
- In the book’s babysitting subplot, the baby-sitters struggle with some bad single moms who want to get two baby-sitters for the price of one so they can go to Jazzercize class and drink coffee after and probably pick up some hot millionaire CEOs.
7. For some reason, I got the impression (maybe from the back of the book? Maybe from something someone told me?) that Watson’s “Mr. Mom” days are numbered. What will drive him back to the cold embrace of his Stamford, CT, computer terminal? His own incompetence? A bad investment? The resentment and confusion of his family members?
8. Watson himself is not threatened by the phrase “Mr. Mom.” He is apparently secure in his role as patriarch, perhaps because he has already generated untold wealth for the family.
9. Kristy’s grandmother, Nannie, is threatened by Watson becoming “Mr Mom.” Nannie often appears to subvert cultural expectations of older women: Kristy cites Nannie’s funky pink car, love of bowling, and tendency to do high kicks around the house as evidence that she is not a typical grandmother. But Nannie’s resistance to Watson’s new domestic role reminds us that she still buys into—must buy into—a narrative in which older women are only valuable as typical grandmothers, wise caretakers.
10. Kristy’s mom does not appear to be threatened by the theory or practice of “Mr. Mom.” Kristy’s mom, who at the beginning of the series was a deserted single mother who “had to” work to support her children, didn’t stop working when she married portly-but-lovable millionaire prince Watson Brewer. Did Watson’s heart attack give her the opportunity to finally, guiltlessly become Mrs. Dad?
11. More data needed: Is it worse to be Mr. Mom or Mrs. Dad?
12. What is Kristy’s role in all this? The syntax of the novel’s title both unites her and places her in opposition to “Mr. Mom.” A self-described “tomboy” and a blossoming butch jock who has kind of come around to the value of mascara, Kristy is no stranger to the complex network of gender roles that Watson is just starting to juggle. As a skilled nurturer (she’s the president of the Baby-Sitters Club) and a brilliant, aggressive entrepreneur (she’s the president of the Baby-Sitters Club), she has already done away with any contradictions between the roles of high-powered executive and tender shaper of young minds and hearts. She commands total respect (Mr.) and enduring love (Mom). Like Jo March, Kristy seems to have become the “man of the house” in her father’s absence—even though Kristy had three brothers. Is Kristy the true “Mr. Mom”? Must Watson return to his sterile Stamford computer terminal in order to make way for Kristy to forge a new world for us all?
I will publish my ultimate findings on this blog. In the meantime, what do you think will happen to “Mr. Mom”? What implications will the novel’s ending have for the gender politics of the Baby-Sitters Club universe? for your own life choices? for all of our futures? Let us know in the comments.
