Sara Barron Sounds Off on Unappealing Mothers

Not too long ago, Sara Barron e-mailed me and proclaimed, "I am the twat waffle victim." I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hover over the "spam" button for a few moments, thinking it some stray profession of love from a stalker (ugh, aren’t they always?). But then I chanced upon People Are Unappealing, a slim volume of nonfiction by Barron, about ugly mean people. Suddenly, her outburst made a world of sense. In many ways, People is very much the portrait of New York City, and it paints Barron to be a pleasant people person who has withstood many an unpleasant encounter.

In lieu of an exegesis about how Madonna reminds me of that giant worm from Star Wars, I asked Barron to parlay her invaluable insight into the state of modern culture’s most unappealing mothers, in order to most properly celebrate Mother’s Day this Sunday.

About her own, she says, “My mother is a wonderful woman in many respects—she refers to men who wrong me as ‘Twat Packages’ and, more to the point, pays for my health insurance plan. But who wants to get sentimental? The point here is that my mom, like most, has flaws. She has rushed me to the emergency room after I gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome from having masturbated too aggressively.” But Barron adds, “My mother [is] not alone in her transgressions.”

Sarah Palin - “She’s earned her spot as the nation’s foremost G.I.L.F. Of course, this presumes you actually want to fuck someone who tows the line of ‘Do as I say, not as my daughter does,’ in the first place. The double standard inherent in that sort of approach follows a person everywhere, and that means to the bedroom. And that means a certain someone is way worse at giving than she is at receiving. And that means I don’t know why anyone would want to fuck her in the first place.”

Bristol Palin - Ditto.

Tori Spelling - “In Tori Spelling’s most recent attempt to horde the limelight, she’s starring alongside her husband Dean and their two small children in the Oxygen reality show Home Sweet Hollywood. In this particular manifestation of self-promotion, Tori filmed her children’s every move for public consumption. A brilliant lesson on how best to provide for your family while simultaneously ensuring that they grow to hate you.”

Olivia Newton-John - “Despite the squeaky-clean, abnormally normal image Olivia’s maintained since her star turn as Sandy in Grease, the woman’s parenting style is deranged enough to warrant this and also this.

Kate Gosselin - “This name isn’t familiar to many of you, and that’s because Kate Gosselin is not important. She scored a TLC reality show called John and Kate Plus 8 as, clearly, the mother of eight. A choice she brought upon herself, it’s resulted in a woman so blatantly angry, the general public’s response to her husband’s recently discovered infidelities has been a resounding chorus of, ‘Well, duh.’ Honestly, if you ever want to feel better about the way you, as a human, conduct yourself, you ought to watch her on this show.”