Monday, May 5, 2008

The Chelsea factor

Polprint heartily recommends "Too Solemn For Her Generation", an article about Chelsea Clinton's campaign style by a Washington Post reporter. The piece observes that Chelsea rarely uses the obvious tools of 20-somethings--humor and sarcasm--to answer or deflect questions.

Instead, her stump speech is earnest, dull and repetive. When she is not wonking out (to use a verb that is not in Polprint's dusty copy of Webster's), she says things like: "I'm so proud of my mom. I hope that your daughter is as proud of you or your children are as proud of you as I'm proud of my mom."

What 28-year-old still refers to their mother as "my mom", anyway?

5 comments:

Jean said...

I think most 28 year olds (and thirty-one-year-olds) refer to their moms as "my mom". What do you call your mom?

Beecham said...

I know too many 28 year olds (and thereabouts) who do worse and simply say, "mom." But I agree she might say "my mother."

I hesitate to suggest that she might just refer to her mother as "Hillary." To me, it would signal Chelsea's status as an adult as well as a daughter. But in my own experience when I refer to my mother by her first name (to those who also refer to her by first name), people seem to think it's really odd!

Kate said...

To Jean--Certainly this 33-year-old calls her mother "Mom". But when talking to the wider world, I use "my mother". It sounds more grown-up. Maybe when you're 33, you'll understand.

And Beecham--I agree that Chelsea calling Hillary "Hillary" would be interesting...but a stretch.

Jean said...

I can only respond by sticking my tongue out at you ...

Unknown said...

Eek! My mom might think this is descending into the old, Hillary-style kind of discourse.