Do you address e-mails to Pet, Sweetie pie, or Lamb chop?Has one of your electronic communications ever expressed confusion about modern technology or the identity of a pop-cultural figure?
Are your non sequiturs the stuff of legend?
If so, you are probably someone’s mother.
A new website called Postcards From Yo Momma (postcardsfromyomomma.com) allows people to share the sweet, bizarre, bossy and sometimes brilliantly insane missives from their mothers.
Since it launched last week, the site has already received more than 500 submissions, a hilarious array of e-mails, instant messages and other maternal communications, including one provided by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody.
Your blob is very funny and clever, her mother writes in reference to her weblog. You have so much fun with it no wonder everyone Love’s it.
The idea was born when Doree Shafrir, a writer at the New York Observer, and Jessica Grose, an associate editor at Jezebel.com, began exchanging funny e-mails they had received from their moms.
I get a lot of e-mails from my mom, usually prefaced with the sentence, %26#39;You know I rarely ask you to do anything but …,’ said Ms. Grose, 26.
Ms. Shafrir, 30, believes anyone who has ever received a letter, text message or card from their mother can relate to the particular brand of humour they contain.
The posts submitted so far cover a wide range of topics, from political opinion to recipes and direct requests for contact.
Ms. Shafrir’s favourite is a mom’s reply to her son, who has asked her to run an errand for him.
Believe it or not, I’m busy and I’m not your hand maiden, Mr. working, blogging, greenpoint hipster, your still just my stupid little child!!! she writes, before signing off xoxomom.
But no matter how chiding, strange or mundane the subject matter, it is impossible to ignore the loving tone employed by mothers writing to their kids.
Hope all is well after this pigeon fiasco, one mother writes. Do you have a vacuum? That might help.
Michael, I think you do too many drugs and say too many disparaging things about women. Love, Mom, reads a comment one mother posted on her son’s blog.
Others e-mails are simply bizarre questions (Have you ever wondered whether lions have hairballs?), requests for attention (Hi. I suffer. Please be in touch.) or demonstrations of technical naivet%26#233; (an instant message reading: HELLO CAN YOU HEAR ME?!?).
Some messages include passive-aggressive suggestions to change jobs, apartments or boyfriends, or direct appeals for a change in lifestyle or behaviour.
There are a lot of new jobs here. NO PRESSURE. Would you rather I never sent stuff like this. Say so if so. Love you, Mom, one mom writes.
The e-mails are sent in by sons and daughters alike, but Ms. Grose said there is a slight difference in tone depending on the recipient.
The letters to the daughters are more chummy, while the letters to the sons seem, I don’t know, bossier? she said.
Many of the messages start off with pet names for their child, including Ms. Grose’s favourite, pot pie, and one mother ends a message to her children with the egalitarian: love you all (equally) mom.
Ms. Grose and Ms. Shafrir said that sharing the messages is not meant to embarrass moms, but to celebrate the distinct style and sound of communication between members of a family.
Our moms know we love them, Ms. Grose said. My mom thinks it’s hilarious, because she has a mom, too.
And so far, mothers who have visited the site seem to be taking it in stride.
Some readers have even shared e-mails from mothers who have discovered the site.
Some of them really do sound like me! reads one message. We are a strange lot, though, aren’t we? But, you like getting my emails; they’re chock full of handy information and helpful hints, words of wisdom and words of warning. And love!!!!! Blame it all on love! MuM
Tags: egan, family, job, vet