UPDATED JULY 11: This post is suddenly very popular. The full list of Ickler links is here. You may want to start with the post that explains why I hate her.
UPDATED AGAIN JULY 12: I started to feel bad for Eckler (yes, it's true), so I pulled down the text that used to be here. I have replaced it with a summary of the post.
My American readers are wondering who Rebecca Eckler is and why anyone would hate her so much.
I linked to Ickler's blog in the post below this one. She's the Canadian writer who is suing Judd Apatow for ripping off her totally original book about getting pregnant. She used to freelance for the Globe & Mail, but it appears that they've dumped her.
Ickler has an unusual talent for turning her readers into tightly-wound balls of seething fury. She started writing for the National Post about ten years ago, and I used to read her columns, thinking that she was a satirist. Nobody could be that shamelessly self-absorbed. It had to be a joke.
I was wrong. Ickler's real, and she's still around. It got worse after she had a baby. Narcissism is always distasteful, but it's hard to describe the feeling I get from seeing it in a person who is responsible for a small child. I want to call Child Protective Services. She calls her daughter The Dictator, apparently without irony.
The Canadian media, for reasons I cannot fathom, have decided that Ickler is the voice of young moms in Canada. This is even worse than when they thought she was the voice of young women in Canada. Back then, I could at least imagine that perhaps she spoke for really dumb women in Toronto.
Here is a sample of her writing. She has deleted this post from her blog, but the wonder of the Internet is that these things never really go away. You might want to have a bucket nearby as you read this.
______________________________________
UPDATED: I have removed the text of Ickler’s original post, complete with its lousy grammar and bad spelling. In its place, I offer the following summary:
Ickler’s feeling really good about herself, because she almost never spends a whole day and night alone with her child. Usually, one of her two nannies is around, or her in-laws take the child at night. But now everyone is leaving, and it’s just Ickler and her daughter. Everyone is worried that Ickler will not be OK alone for 24 hours – they keep suggesting that they could change their plans and stay to help her out.
Ickler’s offended at the thought, but acknowledges that the nanny makes life a lot easier, because she:
- Puts suntan lotion on the baby
- Changes her diapers
- Gives her a bath every night
- Feeds her all her meals.
Ickler suddenly realizes that there IS a lot of work involved in taking care of a baby. She wakes up one morning to discover a note on her door: Her child woke up hungry and needed a bottle. Ickler doesn’t sleep nearby, of course, so she didn’t know about it. Even after she figures this out, she still sleeps in the next day.
Ickler has watched the nanny feed the baby and knows it can take up to an hour. However, she doesn’t have that type of patience, so she makes pancakes, turns the TV on and “shove(s) the pancakes in her mouth without her even noticing”. It only takes ten minutes.
They head off to the country club, where Ickler is careful to note that membership costs more than $100,000. Fortunately, the baby pool is set up so that Ickler doesn’t actually have to go in the water.
Then they go shopping and out for supper. Ickler asks her readers if she should buy a Coach bag.
Ickler’s really proud of herself, because her child didn’t cry once the entire day. Then she backtracks and admits that there was indeed some crying, but, as she says, “I don’t why (sic) everyone is so worried that I can’t take care of my child all by myself”. In fact, she thinks she might kind of like being a mother, and “might even have to get more involved in it”.
3 comments:
I...am...astounded. You're right, we people to your south had no idea. At least I didn't. People like that make me want to kill. "Woe is me for never having to work," she says.
If you'd like to cringe more, read The Nanny Diaries. The main character works as a nanny for someone just like Eckler. It has an interesting message and ending.
In my books, Icky replaces Oprah as the number one Candidate for Assassination.
Where is an assassin when you need them most?!?
I want to kick her in the box soooo badly.
ninegrambrain.blogspot.com
Post a Comment