Love, Mom

The authors would like to thank Gretchen Young and Elizabeth Sabo at Hyperion, for getting the project from day one; Kate Lee and Larissa Silva at ICM and Elisabeth Weed at Weed Literary, for shepherding us through this process; Brad Walsh, a great photographer; Lauren Le Vine, the best de facto research assistant; Pamela Peterson, for her publicity know-how; Eric Rachlin, who designed our website and patiently answered all our mom-ish tech questions; Christopher Silas Neal for illustrating our cover; Anne Schoknecht and Anna Knoell for designing our beautiful proposal; Alex Pareene at Gawker; Kerry Miller from Passive Aggressive Notes; the Foggy Monocle boys, Jimmy Jung and Erik Dane; Lindsay Robertson and Gabe Delahaye, for letting us perform at Ritalin Readings; Diablo Cody, for being so supportive; and Sara Vilkomerson and everyone at Very Short List.

Doree would like to thank Marc Kushner, Niharika Desai, Jessica Pressler, Alex Balk, Choire Sicha, Emily Gould, her colleagues at the New York Observer, her brother Michael and her sister Karen, her dad, Avishai, for not being jealous that there wasn’t a book about him, her mom, Roberta Steinberg, for being the inspiration for this whole crazy project, and most of all, Sam Cooper, for his support, love, and laughter.

Jessica would like to thank Anna Dever-Scanlon, Liz Stevenson, Lizzie Goodfriend, Mary Lydecker, David and Charlotte Winton, Anna Holmes and the rest of the Jezebels, her brother Jacob, her dad, Richard, for believing in the concept of blogging-as-career, her mom, Judith Ebenstein, for always having something smart and sassy to say, and Mike Winton, for always being there at the end of the longest days with warmth, kindness, and love.

And of course, the thousands of people who submitted their moms’ emails—and the moms who took it all in stride, good-naturedly. Without them there would be no book.

IT ALL STARTED so innocently: a Gchat conversation in which we were discussing the emails our moms send us. “I’m sending you a hilarious email my mom just sent,” typed Jessica, “because I think you will like it.” “Ooh yay,” Doree wrote back. “I love hilarious mom emails.” After we shared a good laugh over the content of that email (which, to protect what little privacy Jessica’s mom has left, we shall keep forever secret), Doree sent Jessica an email from her mom (the contents of which shall, alas, also remain private). “The one thing you need to know,” Doree wrote, “is she’s told me this story FIVE HUNDRED TIMES.” “That makes it better!” Jessica responded. “My mom always tells me the same stories too.”

A few minutes later, Jessica wrote: “Also our moms still both have AOL email addresses.”

Then: “OMG,” Doree typed. “OK. I just thought of a brilliant idea. We start a website called emailsfromourmoms.com and get people to send us emails from their moms.”

“OMG THAT IS AMAZING,” Jessica wrote back. “Let’s do it.”

We mulled over a few different names, and then Jessica suggested Postcards From Yo Momma. And thus a website, and a phenomenon, was born.

There was no way we could’ve anticipated the absolute deluge of emails we started getting as soon as the site went up. To get started, we sent out an email to a few of our friends, asking for submissions from their moms, and within twenty-four hours we had received over fifty emails from best buddies, distant acquaintances, and new fans. At that point we realized we might be onto a sort of essential mom-ness that wasn’t just idiosyncratic to our own mothers—we had inadvertently stumbled on something that was universal in the modern mother-child relationship.

By the time Postcards was one week old, we had been interviewed by the largest newspaper in Canada, been blogged about from Australia to Texas, and had gotten hundreds of submissions from adult children everywhere eager to share their moms’ particular brand of humor and wisdom with the rest of the world. The floodgates had certainly been opened—but why? What was it about emails and texts and instant message conversations with moms that was so amusing and yet so touching? We turned to our own moms for some answers.

Jessica’s mother, Judy, called dealing with her adult children a “constant negotiation.” “You have this overwhelming love for your children, but you realize that as they get older, it’s natural for them to pull away,” she said. “So, as a mother you’re always completely comfortable expressing the unconditional love, but your children sometimes need to distance themselves from it.”

And email makes it easy for moms to express this love in a chatty, off-hand way. According to Judy, who is a shrink and prone to making grand sociological pronouncements, “Even though the subject matter of our exchanged emails is gossipy and very much about the moment, it is precisely this kind of ongoing interaction which is very important in maintaining a meaningful social network.”

Doree’s mom, Robby, also noted that there’s definitely been a generational shift in terms of how parents communicate with their adult children. “When I was a college student, my parents would call on Sunday morning, and the conversation would go something like this: ‘Hi. How’s everything? Have a good week? Speak to you next Sunday.’ Long distance was ‘expensive,’ and there was no chitchatting or calling at whim because we didn’t have cell phones, and I had to be in the dorm room at a certain time,” Robby said. “I’d certainly like to think I have more frequent and meaningful communication with my kids than my mother had.”

These days, email, personal blogs, and cell phones allow moms to have an ongoing—even if sometimes one-way—conversation with their grown children 24/7, as if they were still living in the same home. When Jessica’s mom emails her, she says it’s “kind of like walking through the living room and seeing you sitting there. Something comes to my mind about what I need to tell you—something that’s not important enough for a phone call, but I can get it right off my chest. If I really thought it was emotionally relevant, I would talk to you in person.” And as Doree’s mom pointed out, “When I email you or your brother or sister, I know the email will at least be glanced at. Since there’s caller ID, you can choose not to take my call, but I—perhaps naively—believe that the email will be seen.”

Technology also helps moms keep track of kids who are reluctant to be found. Intrepid moms who find that their kids have suddenly stopped responding to emails and phone calls can also turn to the Internet and find their kids’ blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds. As Doree’s mom told her, “I check your blog several times a day and restrain myself from posting comments. I did the same when your brother had one. I love it, and it really helps me feel that I’m keeping up with you.” Likewise, Jessica’s mom reads her blog daily. “I love seeing what you’re thinking about,” she said. “And that’s what makes me feel very close to you. In a not particularly intrusive way, I can be part of your life.”

When we started Postcards From Yo Momma, we worried—briefly—that our moms might think we were just mocking them, that they wouldn’t grasp the site’s subtext of sweetness and genuine affection. But we underestimated them. Not only did they totally get it, they continue to find it hilarious, and take solace in the fact that there are thousands—if not millions—of moms around the world who have very similar relationships with their adult children.

Since the launch, both our moms have been only slightly more self-conscious about what they’ve been emailing their kids. Jessica’s mom said, “I’m more aware of making sure you know when things are confidential, but I don’t care if you make fun of what I’m writing. I’m just being myself. I’m just being your mother.” And Doree’s mom added, perhaps optimistically, “I do see that I email you guys less. Maybe we’re talking more.”

Besides, our mothers know deep in their hearts that they’ll have the last laugh. One day in the not too distant future, we’ll have similarly ungrateful children who will click open their inboxes to find an email from us. They’ll take one glance at our maternal missives and groan to themselves, oh Mom.