How To Look Smart, According To Woman's Day

I stumbled across this link yesterday, and could only read about a third of the suggestions before I started getting a headache. This list of "Simple Tricks That Make You Look Smart" is, you might notice, mostly about cleaning. In fact, here is how it breaks down:

Cleaning: 16 tips
Serving or Preparing Food: 5 tips
Sewing/Crafts: 4 tips
Social Contact/Networking: 2 tips
Fixing Things: 2 tips
Gardening: 1 tip

I don't object to this list per se. Woman's Day is skewed strongly towards the stay-at-home mom, who probably does spend 45% of her time cleaning, and 15% of her time serving or preparing food.

Cleaning things and preparing food are both important jobs, which is why you have to pay someone a lot if you want to hire them to do that for you. A British study recently reported that if a stay-at-home mom were to be paid a fair wage for her duties, she would earn about $45,000 USD per year.

What I object to is Woman's Day framing this list of clever household tips as "ways to look smart." The word "smart" to me doesn't imply "knows how to remove price stickers with a hair dryer." Smart implies onboard intelligence, life experience, observational skills, and book learning.

If this list wanted to help MAKE readers smart, it could delve into the science behind its clever tips. You could write an interesting article about any one of these 30 tips, explaining the physics behind why it works. This would actually make people smart.

But what the presumed audience wants is to LOOK smart. After all, if she wanted to BE smart, she'd be reading Nature or The Economist, not Woman's Day, amirite?

Probably the best way to look smart is to follow up on news stories and things you hear people talking about. If someone tosses around the phrase "anthropogenic global warming," make a note of it and look it up when you get home. Once you have a handle on it, A) you can use that phrase yourself in the future, and B) you can say something smart about it when the topic comes up in conversation.

Or pick a popular book, read it, then go online to see what other people thought about it. Do you agree, or do you think they got the wrong end of the stick? And why?

Even a little bit of research into the scientific method, what it means, and how it works will put you head and shoulders above most people. If you can spot a double-blind study from ten feet, or the lack thereof, you'll be able to look smart in all kinds of situations. It's surprising how often the basic scientific principles can be helpful, from deciding which recipe is best, to evaluating the crazy-ass slug repellent trick your neighbor won't shut up about.

Oh damn, I just told you a few ways to BE smart instead of just LOOKING smart.

The thing is, it really isn't that hard to be smart. You don't have to spend your entire life locked in a dusty book-filled dungeon. You just have to keep your eyes open, be willing to learn, and look something up in Google or Wikipedia when you don't understand it.

But, sad to say, it has little to do with how to keep your windows streak-free.

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looking smart

Kari Byron

just let the windows get dirty

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You wanna look smart? Get

You wanna look smart? Get with the program and slap on a pair of these:

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/5a52180b80/forehead-tittaes-w-marion-co...

This WD article should have

This WD article should have been titled something else, like "Simple tricks to save time" or something like that; the title is just plain silly.

That said, SAHMs don't have to do any of the above to "be smart," seeing as there are too many types of intelligences in the world to fit people into such a narrow scope. I've always hated that kind of assumption; I grew up with a boyfriend who was in a remedial class while I was in honors and had friends who thought that I was above him as such, which is ridiculous. The man is much smarter than I am about many things, and vice versa.

A SAHM is likely able to balance a budget, cajole a preschooler into eating, prepare meals while taking caloric content and nutrition into consideration at least three times a day (usually plus snacks for most of the household), carpool and manage multiple children, schedule and maintain events and all of her family's activities, records, doctor appointments, shots, etc. help with homework (or teach, period), nurse minor wounds, play pretend with dinosaurs and tea saucers, manage family birthdays and other get-togethers as well as holidays, make sure her children know how to use the potty, brush their teeth, get dressed, etc.---all on top of cleaning. So I'd argue that cleaning isn't 45% of a SAHM's time, maybe more like 25 to 30%. So I think the WD article is also insulting in that it assumes that much of a woman's life is devoted to learning cleaning tricks, too.

All of that said (haha), many SAHMs--all of the ones I know, including myself--also work full or part time and/or attend college on top of all of that. In fact, I don't know any parents who don't work, though I know plenty who work separate shifts or from home so they can care for their children, too. Yes, it's a choice, but it's also very necessary sometimes, especially when a single income just won't cut it... So I think WD needs to add a little bit more substance to their articles (especially if they title them as such), perhaps give their demographic just a teeny bit more credit, and acknowledge that a woman's day today is in 2010, not 1950.

* That is, I don't know any

* That is, I don't know any parents of young children who don't work; I do, in fact, know some older parents who are either retired or never worked outside the home while raising their now-grown children. :)

Sing it!

I used to have the usual kind of prejudicial assumptions about SAHMs until I met my friend Dorothy. She has a PhD in mathematics (!!) and is an all-round awesome person - and a SAHM!

But yeah, Woman's Day is totally stuck in the 50s. And the publishing industry wonders why magazines are failing?!

um, er being a friend of

um, er being a friend of Dorothy mean something else altogether, but I get the point!

Hee!

Honest, I have a friend, and her name is Dorothy! A sad collision between life and euphemism.

Pity the salads which are no longer tossed, but simply jostled lightly to mix the greens!

well played!!!

Wow

My mom was a SAHM. I credit her efforts to both my brother's and my own success in this world. Thank you mom for not taking a career to seem important and instead giving us a better chance to have our own careers. Thank you for building a family, not being a materialistic hedonist. Every time a feminist has to call me "Doctor", I will think of you.

"Not taking a career to seem

"Not taking a career to seem important"? What are you, a caveman?

FYI, in today's economy most parents have to work, especially the single ones. As a SAHM who also works full time from home (I also finished college doing both), I happen to know that women are strong enough to do both, by the way.

:)

While the state was busy taking care of your children for you or while they were off taking their cues from peers and role models who never loved them, my mom was teaching me how to read.

I don't think you read my

I don't think you read my comment. My daughter has stayed at home with me since day one. I work while she is asleep, as well as when her father is home. Guess what? It works. I think you underestimate the strength of the modern family. Funny how you can make such wide assumptions about things you know nothing about.

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