Ariel Gore interview in Mutha Magazine by Michele Tea
“The Hippest Mama: MUTHA Interviews ARIEL GORE”
Seventeen years after giving birth to her daughter, Gore had a son. She is in the process of preparing Hip Mama for a re-launch into the online world next year Her latest book, The End of Eve is a dark comedy about death, queer divorce, and green chile apple pie has been described as “Terms of Endearment” meets “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” I was so psyched that she found the time to chat with MUTHA. – Michele Tea
MUTHAI read The Hip Mama Survival Guide when I was in my 20s and it really did the trick of making pregnancy accessible. There is this feeling that if you don’t have the money to raise a kid it’s irresponsible to do so, and irresponsibility = bad mothering, so the logical outcome of this whole idea is that being broke is child abuse and only rich people are allowed to reproduce. I feel like part of your life’s work has been taking this on. Do you want to speak to it?
Ariel GoreWhen I had my first kid, Maia, I’d been traveling around the world and been hanging out with people raising kids in all kinds of conditions — and, you know, the kids in mud huts making their own toys out of broken bicycles weren’t any less happy or less healthy than the kids in penthouses with three nannies. When I got back to California with infant-Maia, I walked into the culture you’re talking about. There were articles in national magazines about how it took a million dollars to raise a kid and anyone on welfare or food stamps or working a normal-person job was seen as irresponsible if we were breeding. I rejected that. I reject that. I mean, obviously if you’re living in abject poverty with no access to social services and you’re going to have to sell your kid into exploitation, you’ve got to have another plan, but kids grow up in common poverty all over the world, and they do perfectly well. It’s insulting to suggest that working class people shouldn’t be allowed to have families. Kids don’t need new clothes and new toys. They just need food and shelter and hand-me-downs and someone to kick it with who thinks they’re cool.