Hey! I’m a mom now. I don’t know if you’ve heard.
Just kidding. I know I’m writing a lot about it. It’s a much-needed angle that hasn’t been covered here on TLO, and I’m making up for lost time. As a part of the OKC mother community, I have noticed there are some interesting subgroups of moms out here.
You’ve seen these ladies with their kids all over the place, but you just didn’t know what these subgroups were called. That’s where this post should come in handy.
Here are the 10 Types of OKC Moms...
Fundies
Admittedly, I only see this mom at the grocery store or the public library, because those are the only places our lives intersect. Though, I'm shocked they're interested in the library since books carry information, and isn't homeschooling in the Christian fundamentalist community all about preventing your kids from having information? Fundie moms belong to churches that actively preach against lifestyles like mine. Or like most lifestyles, honestly.
These moms haven’t had a haircut in years, wear incredibly unflattering long denim skirts, and were genuinely surprised to find that two of the Duggar kids grew up to be child molesters. Whereas the rest of us were genuinely surprised to find that it was only two.
Crunchies
These crunchy moms are about all natural everything, from the food they feed their kids to the fabric their kids wear. They rail against chemicals, never once noting that literally everything is made from chemicals, such is the nature of matter. You can usually catch them at Sprouts or the farmer's market, and they always have an immaculate fruit snack box (definitely not made of plastic!) for their kids at the park.
They have a new thing they’re cutting out of their lives each month, like plastics or food dyes. Unfortunately, a lot of the choices they make aren’t based on what’s actually good for their kids so much as what their crunchy mom Facebook group is telling them to do.
Yogis
I don’t know if these women actually do yoga or pilates. I do know they have a pair of yoga pants for every single day of the week. And in a lot of cases, they have a matching top for each of those pairs of yoga pants. Generally, these are the women who lost the baby weight in the first six months of their kid’s life, while the rest of us just tried to get some sleep and medicate that postpartum depression. I would like to be like them, but I don’t think my family’s budget can handle the cost of that much Lululemon gear.
Admittedly, I'm a little jealous of their ability to outrun their toddlers at Target. Because my kid is too fast and too strong for his age, and I'm definitely struggling to keep up. But maybe it's the expensive yoga pants that allow them that wide range of motion...
Indies
These are the moms that all the punk rockers grew up to be. Generally, these moms still dress the same as they did when they were 15, and their kids get to dress however the hell they want. These moms are tattooed and they curse, and if you mess with their kids, well. I pray you have a solid insurance plan to cover the facial reconstructive surgeries you’re going to need.
These moms love taking their kids to art walks or any sort of outdoor free music performance. And the next time the Aquabats come to Tower Theatre, rest assured these moms will be in the front row with their kids, teaching them to stage dive before they learn how to spell their names.
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Yuppies
Women can have it all, or so we’ve been told. And these women are climbing that corporate ladder. Many of them work downtown and they own name-brand business attire. They pick up their kids from daycare in their BMW SUVs just before they're charged for being late, and they take business calls on the drive home. Their kids wear the expensive stuff, and it looks great on them for the first ten minutes of the day, right before they jam raspberries in their pockets or use their shirt as a tissue.
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Phonies
Please know this is the only mom I’m actively judging, and the only mom I’ve ever had a true problem with. (Granted, my kid is young and I’m getting more confrontational in my old age, so this is likely to change.) This is the mom who is on her phone, wherever she is. Her kids are at the park, running around, screaming at her to watch, but mama is busy watching her TikToks, McKennadeigh!
I get it. We all need a break. But other moms who aren’t on their phones aren’t there to make sure your kid doesn’t plummet to their doom while they’re trying to keep their own spawn alive. And if your big kid knocks over my toddler because no one has ever told them how to act since you were too busy staring into your phone, rest assured I will kick your ass.
Walkies
Sometimes a mama just has to get her steps in with her gal pals, gang! These mamas are at every local walking trail, trying to get their heart rate up while their kids veer off the path and climb all over the trashcans. She can keep a conversation going with a friend while yelling at her kids, and her heart rate stays in that coveted zone 2 range!
If you want to see these moms in action, check out this post:
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Hoopies
Some folks see modern life and think about all the hoops we have to jump through as meaningless. This mom sees those hoops as her child’s sole purpose. This mom is also often part of the yuppies subclass, but not always. She just wants the best life possible for her kid, and that means excelling at every single thing the education system and extracurricular activities can throw at this kid. And if little Braxlynne can be head of the sixth grade class, surely Braxlynne will see that achievement is the most important thing and stop whining about how they want to have fun or spend time with friends.
When I taught at OU, I had several of these parents email me regularly, very upset that I couldn't share any information about their adult children's academic performance without their children signing a release form. Remember, parents: You can make your kids jump through as many hoops as you want until they're 18. Then they must jump through the hoops on their own.
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Mommies
We all know these moms, and for many of us, they were a cautionary tale before we had kids. These are the moms who are just moms. They have no hobbies, no interests, no purpose other than their children. It’s easy to see how they got there, because kids need a lot from their mom. But where most of us have held onto who we were before having kids with ragged claws that threaten to break at any moment, these moms just let it go. They are the moms who give you too much information about their teenage sons, and then actively insert themselves into their adult children’s romantic relationships.
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Oldies
These are the moms that waited until the very last second to have kids, or adopted in their forties, or even did IVF at an age that made people look at them askance. While some folks were part of churches that made them procreate an absurd amount before they turned 30, these moms decided for a little buzzer-beater baby. For that reason, they have more money than the average new parent, and they’ve usually done enough therapy prior to having a kid that they don’t worry about passing down all that trauma that was heaped on them. They do, however, sometimes forget to tell people they have kids when they do icebreaker activities, simply because having a kid wasn’t part of their identity for a very long time.
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Did I Miss a Mom Type?
What kinds of moms did I miss? For the sake of transparency, I’m an Indie-Walkie-Oldie hybrid myself.
