Mommies Who Drink is a humorous book about Brett’s experience with early motherhood. A year after she gave birth to her first child, Brett found herself still reeling from the demands of motherhood, convinced that she was terrible at the job. She and a few friends started meeting each other for happy hour every Friday at a local bar. Those Friday afternoons became an important way for her – and for the other moms – to process their new roles. And they had a blast along the way. For two hours a week, they would gab, laugh, drink, and reclaim their true rock and roll selves.

TIME OUT FOR MOMMIES
Brett and her friends are not alone as Mommies Who Drink. While these Fridays may appear on the surface to be temporary escapes from the responsibilities of parenthood, studies show that by bonding with female friends, women can actually reduce levels of killer stress. It’s one of the reasons why women (especially those with close friends) live longer than men, and it’s an instinct they’re born with.

Going back to our cave-dwelling roots, men would go out and hunt while women would gather and raise the children, working together in groups. When faced with imminent stress (like hungry attacking saber-tooths or a maniacal shrieking infant), men’s brains produce chemicals that crank up the flight-or-fight reaction, whereas the female response is to stay -- to tend-and-befriend.

A UCLA study noted an incident when several female scientists realized that their male counterparts- when confronted with stress - isolated themselves, while the women cleaned the lab, had coffee and bonded. Looking back on past research, these scientists discovered that previous stress studies were based on mostly male test subjects, prompting a new study, which examined the specifically female response to stress.

Although Mommies Who Drink was not written to expound upon any scientific thesis, the book does show the tend-and-befriend dynamic in action. New motherhood can be an exhausting, nerve-wracking, and isolating. It stands to reason that Brett Paesel’s weekly sessions with her friends arose in part from an instinct familiar to moms throughout history – they need to be reassured by other women that they’re not going insane.

TAKING MOM - LIT SERIOUSLY
Mommy-lit has long been the redheaded stepchild of literature. It tends to find itself in the more utilitarian sections of the bookstore, somewhere amongst the Self-Help and Japanese Gardening books. Type “Motherhood” into a search on Amazon.com and you’ll get a list of titles that suggest motherhood is either the cutest, cuddliest, happiest time of your life. Or you’ll find titles that proclaim motherhood a mountainous burden, unappreciated by anyone who hasn’t walked a mile in that mother’s Keds.

As a literary subject, Motherhood is quickly emerging from its rosy pastel ghetto. There will always be a place for those earnest and cutesy books. But Mommy-lit is starting to come into its own as its authors write about it with as much skill and complexity as contemporaries write about war, crime, politics, and history.

And Mommy-lit doesn’t have to have a G-rating. “Slow to Warm,” a chapter from Mommies Who Drink, was included in an anthology called Toddler: Real-Life Stories of Those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent, Tiny People We Love, which won the Independent Publisher Book Award 2004 for “Best Book” in the Parenting category. The book’s editor, Jennifer Margulis, got an irate phone call at her home from a woman who thought Paesel’s story was filthy and should be excised from the book. In “Slow to Warm” Brett listens to other moms chat about the virtues of melting cheese on broccoli, while fantasizing about sex – graphically.

Margulis found that “Slow to Warm” elicited strong reactions from readers, spurring discussions about the myth of mothers being sexless and concerned only with the details of day-to-day childrearing. Paesel’s writing offers a richer portrait of the modern mother – one who has an active adult life while raising her children.

NON-TRADITIONAL MOMS
While Mommies Who Drink is primarily the story of Brett Paesel’s experiences with new motherhood, it also tells the stories of some so-called non-traditional mothers as well. Paesel could be defined demographically as a happily married mother of two, but her Friday circle of friends includes a lesbian mom, a single mom, and mom who is raising a child with her boyfriend. While these mothers differ in circumstance, they are bonded by the universal concerns of motherhood

More and more children are being raised in non-traditional households outside of the typical mother-father setting. According to a 2003 U.S. Census Bureau report, single-mother families increased from 3 million in 1970 to 10 million in 2003. Even if a child comes from a traditional home, he’ll grow up in an increasingly non-traditional world.

PARENTING IN LOS ANGELES
Mommies Who Drink also looks at the peculiar lifestyle of being a parent in Los Angeles and pursuing a career in entertainment. Being a mom in Hollywood is downright surreal. The lives of celebrity moms we see in magazines don’t reflect what it’s like to be a regular actor in the trenches juggling career and motherhood sans nanny.

Even before the baby was born, Brett Paesel found herself in situations that could only happen in Hollywood, like taking a yoga class with the “Prenatal Guru to the Stars” (whose prenatal resume includes Cindy Crawford and other celebs).

Los Angeles is the body-image capital of the world. Imagine enduring pregnancy and entering motherhood in this, the most unforgiving terrain. What all moms go through becomes oddly and often hilariously distorted when viewed through the prism of Show Business. Brett’s friends, Lana, Michelle and Katherine, are also involved in the entertainment industry and are challenged daily by this eccentric city.

After she became a parent, Brett began to see the lunacy that accompanies the industry with different eyes. From the cable show she appeared on, featuring porn stars and comedians (Ms. Paesel was in the latter category), to the preschool fundraiser where items up for silent auction include a facelift and a guitar signed by the members of U2, Brett became acutely aware that she had somehow chosen to raise children in The Dream Factory. Motherhood may be universal, but Mommies Who Drink is filled with stories that could only happen in Hollywood.

MR. SHOW
Brett Paesel is not your traditional housewife, but she’s played a lot of them on TV, most notably as a cast member of HBO’s Mr. Show with Bob and David. She spent three seasons on the show playing a variety of roles alongside Bob Odenkirk and David Cross (Arrested Development), as well as Jack Black, Sarah Silverman, Margaret Cho, Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants) and Mary Lynn Rajskub (24).

Ms. Paesel’s bio in Mr. Show – What Happened?! (the official book of the show) includes the following: “Of her roles on Mr. Show, Brett is most proud of portraying housewives. ‘Most of the time, to be honest, I would be cast as prostitutes and whores. So suddenly, for someone to see me as a housewife was really fun. Usually, I’m playing some bitch with a heart of gold, or something like that.’”

Brett has also appeared in the Mr. Show feature film Run Ronnie Run, playing ‘Infomercial Nancy,’ who was unfortunately impaled by a flying chopping blade in a kitchen gadget infomercial gone horribly wrong. Other credits include playing Carol Brady in the long-running cult hit The Real Live Brady Bunch in Chicago and Off Broadway, as well as appearances on Six Feet Under, Gilmore Girls and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

THE MOMMY WARS/CAITLIN FLANNAGAN
Brett’s opinion is best summed up in an Op Ed published by The Los Angeles Times:

We're having the wrong conversation. When did the choices concerning work and childrearing become the exclusive territory of mommies? Didn't we agree years ago that fathers, lovers, gay uncles, grandparents and employers should pitch in? I thought it took a village. Now I'm being told it takes just one person — Mom — and she's furious.

(Copy cut)

Stay-at-home moms (and stay-at-home dads) are furious because society undervalues their work, not because working moms are lobbing insults. Dads, lovers, uncles, teachers, pastors, friends — all of us — must promote the happiness and health of our nation's children. And we can do that most effectively through legislative and social change, through seeking real solutions in our educational system and in the workplace, not by jumping into the fray of a mommy war that barely exists.

I can only conclude that not enough moms are drinking. Everyone looks better after a couple of beers, even the uptight membership chair-mom at your son's preschool. Get together, knock back a few and gab. Then go home and write your member of Congress.

For the whole article, visit www.latimes.com