Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 2004)
z may 21.2004 BOOKS .............. ▼............... Yo mama Portland’s hippest queer p aren t tu rn s 10 by cS A u u ism cf c( j i { t s G ina D aggett ¿>r c vZomaniio sAccessmies/ Corner of Sandy and NF 64lh White house with picket fence 503 280 8080 3 106 NF 64th • Pbrtland. OR 972 13 OUR PLANTS ARE 6 ON THE KINSEY SCALE ClSTUS NURSERY 22711 N W GILLIHAN ROAD SAUVIE ISLAND w e d - s u n i o -5 C o v e n t r y ' Cycle (V W orks Professional Service C om fortable B ikes Recumbents a Specialty! (COME SEE WHY!) Open Tuesday-Sunday (503) 2 3 0 -7 7 2 3 2025 SE Hawthorne f Hip Mama magazine is, as is oft quoted, “conservative Americas worst nightmare,” then Ariel Gore is Freddy Krueger. I Since Gore turned in her senior project just over 10 years ago at Mills College in Oak land, Calif.— issue No. 1 of Hip Mama maga zine— she has become the ultimate hip mama. "1 sort of slapped a subscription form on the back to make it kxik real,” she says. "Then people subscribed, and 1 was like, ‘Oh.’ ” By accident, Gore gave mothers permission to take back their lives and provided a plat form for nontraditional parenting. Before the 33-year-old conceived Hip Mama she gave birth to her daughter, Maia, now 14. “At the time the whole family values campaign was just starting,” she explains, “and st) as a teen welfare mom, 1 was Satan." She wanted an alternative to the parenting press, which, she says, is completely inane and totally apolitical. "They’re just stupid service magazines to tell you what brand of cream to put on your kids...they’re stupider than women’s magazines." Whoa! But it was more than just coming up empty-handed at the magazine rack. “Becoming a mom can be such an isolating experience,” says Gore, who is raising Maia in Southeast Portland with her partner, Maria. “Especially if everyone in your com munity isn’t having kids at once— like in queer communities.” Gore says that she felt like a “big dork" when she had Maia and that she couldn’t really connect with other mothers. “You try and find this world of mothering and...they’re all just talking shit, and it is super-isolating. The hard parts (of motherhcxxl] are totally glossed over. There is this sort of dark humor among moth ers, but there’s also a Prozac pretty face that everybody puts on it,” she remembers. So Gore decided to become, if you will, one mother of a mother. And Hip Mama— a mostly reader-written forum packed with more person al essays than expert advice— reflects the shift. txm Hip became a hit. Time magazine called Gore “the reigning mother superior.” The New Yorker said she “provides succor to moms who cannot relate to our culture’s S W hatever , M om : H ip M ama ’ s G uide to R aising a T eenager by Ariel Gore with Maia Swift; Seal Press, 2004; $14 95 softcover hirtysomething Portland mom Ariel G ore— the quiet and unassuming publisher of Hip M am a magazine— has several books under her belt: birth and parenting helpers The Hip Mama Survival Guide and The Mother Trip, the memoir Atlas o f the Human Heart and the co-authored anthology Breeder: Real-Life Stories from the N ew Generation o f Mothers. The queer author’s new book, Whatever, Mom: Hip M am a’s Guide to Raising a Teenager, was written at the shock of daughter Maia turning 13 and declaring her cool, alternative, tattooed mom to be a “major freak.” Maia’s journey to independence has just T W rite u s! ju s tria welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be Accompanied by a phone num ber for verincatlon purposes Anonymous let ters and letters without sufficient contact Information will not be published mawkish notions of motherhixxl." These flat tering remarks are not smoke and mirrors from friendly reviewers but, rather, badges of honor for Gore. “As a feminist, it took me a really long time to admit that 1 define myself as a mom,” she ex plains. Part of Hip Mama’s vision was to remind her that it’s more than OK to be herself. “The fact that it’s really difficult some days doesn’t mean that I’m a weak, degenerate person...[mother- h(xxl) is really rough and really joyous.” The scope of the magazine has changed since her days at Mills College. “When I first started the zine, I thought it was going to be for young welfare moms and urban moms. But right away, that’s not who it was,” Gore notes. “All of a sudden they were people I’d never dreamed o f...I didn’t foresee or understand that everybody felt the same way— that they weren’t allowed to tell the truth.” Even though Hip Mama is a maga zine for nontraditional moms, Gore has realized along Ariel Gore celebrates the way that her the 10th anniversary of ideas about what’s her groundbreaking traditional and magazine and publishes nontraditional a new book to boot often doesn’t quite match up with real life. “The thing that’s surprising to me all the time is that super-suburban people are just like m e...and then there are crazy queer moms who are really secretly conservative.” The dyke publisher and author believes that parents are usually the worst sex educators and that it’s vital not to add to the shame kids can feel about sexuality. “It’s important not to be weird about your own sexuality," Gore proffers. “It’s tricky; an important part of someone’s emerging sexuality is privacy and boundaries...I think the main thing is to be comfortable with your own sexuality, which is a long process.” In between each quarterly Hip Mama issue, G ore’s not far from her computer. In the past 10 years, she’s penned four books— the latest, W hatever, M om : Hip M am a’s Guide to Raising a Teenager, is co-authored with her daughter. (Gore playfully says M aia’s getting a chance at a rebuttal.) In the end, Gore hopes Hip Mama, this year celebrating its 10th anniversary, will be a part of the expansion of people’s concept of being a mother. “It’s a constant effort to share our stores and be real and remembering the super-obvious things like totally sacrificing yourself to your kid’s alleged happiness isn’t going to get you anywhere,” she shares. “As kids grow up, they want to feel like they have interesting mothers. They don’t want to feel like somebody gave their life for them. T h at’s a bad place to be." J H Visit HlP M a m a at www.hifmiama.com. GlNA D a g g e t t is a Portland free-lance writer. Reach her at www.ginadaggett.com. REVIEW begun, and that robs the book of a host of personal experiences, stories and insights that will still be provided to Gore during the next few years. Still, Whatever is well- Hip Mama’s guida to rounded by Raising a Teenager thorough research and statistics, as well an abundance of chapters with voices of teens of all ages, including Maia’s. Topics tackled are common teen issues like drinking, curfews, sex, drugs, suicide and, of course, uncool parents like Maia’s: “There isn’t Whatever, Mom Avid '¿oixi really anything you can do about your mom or dad embarrassing you.... I think it’s something that can never be properly fixed.” What is most appealing about Mama Gore is her tmthfulness. Her parenting txx)ks are intimate kx)ks into daily joys and painful moments that come with raising a “woman child,” and she is never afraid to admit that she’s on unknown territory, searching and dcxibting, stmggling to let go and thrive in transition. W ith a healthy dose of humor and panache, Gore volunteers gentle guidance for the journey to come, always exposing the limits of the society that bred us. And truly groundbreaking is her reassurance to all mamas in mama-bashing patriarchy that being and doing the best they can is enough: “Whatever is going on, you already have everything you need to meet this moment in your life. You do not require a makeover.” That is the beauty of Gore in a nutshell. — Els Debbaut
