Page 17

I’ve never seen any of them in person of course, but I recognize a few from my scrolls.

The so-called tradwives, the most controversial of the influencers.

The worst thing to happen on the Internet since planking.

I don’t really give a damn if someone wants to play dress-up and service their husband.

I do care when they start spouting off about how this choice is a new offshoot of feminism.

They cook and they clean and they talk about how a woman’s place is in the home and how she must submit to her husband.

They homeschool their kids. They claim that women who work in the corporate world have been sold a lie, that it’s toxic for women to focus on anything but motherhood.

I pray they’ll descend into the graveyard of Internet trends past, like the Mannequin Challenge and dabbing, before my daughter gets a phone.

@BarefootMamaLove gets lumped in with the trad influencers a lot online. I think about Bex’s captions that claim motherhood is her own highest purpose. Just make it Little House on the Prairie instead of Betty Draper. A false nostalgia for a different century.

Marsden is still going on and on. His acolytes are rapt. But most of the crowd is doing what we’re doing, whispering in side conversations and tapping away on laptops.

But then, as if Marsden has intuited that the majority of the room has checked out, he decides to go all in.

“Do you want to know why I’m really here today?” No answer.

“I am here for you! All of you are doing God’s work. Motherhood is the highest vocation for a woman to aspire to.”

I see Katie look up from her laptop for the first time and fix a steely gaze on the stage.

“I know that a lot of you were raised in a world that told you to lean in and climb the corporate ladder and grab that brass ring. But y’all know that just made women miserable. You all want to have your babies and live the good life while your husbands take care of you. Am I right?”

Silence.

Dead silence, even from his biggest fans. They must know this is the wrong crowd for him to preach this kind of gospel to.

“I don’t think he knows what this conference is about,” Katie says, not even in a whisper.

“To be fair…it is called MomBomb,” I mutter. “It’s fairly innocuous. It could be about any number of things. It could be about your pelvic floor or promoting nuclear energy.”

“The women in this room command billions in advertising,” she shoots back. “It’s a business conference.”

“Still sort of a dumb name. Like Marsden,” I say, mostly to myself, before turning my attention back to him.

“You all chose to quit your jobs and focus on the most important thing in the world. Being a wife and mother.”

“No, we didn’t,” someone yells.

“We are running companies here,” another chimes in.

Marsden is slightly shaken but undeterred, like a robot vacuum programmed to continue moving forward despite running into a brick wall.

“Sure you may be doing your little side hustles and posting your cute pictures and videos. But your true dedication is to your husbands and those little angels. And that’s where my new innovative app that you can find on the phones comes in.

It’s called Stay. Yes, Stay. For all you stay-at-home moms .

This app will have everything you need to keep staying and momming and loving those little ones. ”

“I know words are coming out of his mouth, but they don’t seem to be doing what words usually do,” Katie says. “None of it makes sense.”

Before he can explain what exactly Stay does, something whizzes by the side of Marsden’s head.

“Was that a waffle?” I ask.

“I think a petite pancake,” Katie says. “The Dutch kind.”

Marsden is a professional baseball player. He has excellent reflexes. But even he can’t dodge the deluge of pastries that are suddenly being slung his way.

“I think some of these women played softball in college,” Katie says admiringly, as she picks up a croissant from her own plate and underhands it toward the podium.

Marsden stands there in disbelief. Why are these women, these moms, so angry? What could possibly enrage these tender creatures in such a profound way? his confused expression begs. And then he says out loud what’s in his brain.

“I am honoring you. I am venerating you.”

“You are a condescending prick,” one of the moms I recognize from outside the elevator yesterday wails. “I made three times my husband’s salary last year and now he works for me. Who do you think you’re talking to?”

A splash of vanilla custard drips down Marsden’s cheek, forming an obscene trickle.

You can feel the energy pulsating through the entire space.

It’s contagious, to be honest…and electric.

I want to throw a croissant too but my plate is empty.

Even while pastries sail through the air Marsden still has an idiotic smile plastered on his face and his shoulders thrown back with the true confidence of a decently attractive white man who has never been told no.

Suddenly there’s a loud thud. We all turn to see men in uniforms streaming through the now open doors.

The police have arrived.