The Brag Hag
Carol is the kind of woman who’s about as popular with moms as Jay Z is with Solange. Oh, she seems innocent enough on the surface, clutching the hand of her 4-year-old, Max, and shielding her eyes from the sun as she strides resolutely toward a small group of moms chatting at the playground. Seeing her, though, the other mothers scatter, and I turn to face Carol alone with the gritty resolve of a gunfighter at high noon.
“How has Punky been?” she asks with a false smile after greeting me and smoothing the legs of her capris. She doesn’t bother waiting for a response. “And how are you?” she continues.
“We’re both fine,” I say, smiling thinly. “Just, you know, enduring repeated viewings of The Neverending Story. I guess Punky is taking the neverending part literally.” I laugh weakly and Carol waits. And waits.
“Uh, how are you guys?” I say finally. That’s when it begins.
“Well,” Carol says, smacking her lips with glee, “Max has started reading. He insists on reading the newspaper headlines to us every morning! Can you imagine? He’s loving soccer, of course. Scores an average of five goals per game. And his latest thing is ancient Egypt. Seriously! We’ve been reading up on the pharaohs, and the next thing I know, he’s created his own hieroglyphic alphabet.” She laughs indulgently. “It’s the strangest thing,” she says, shaking her head in fake bemusement. She gives me a sly look. “Is…Punky doing anything like that?”
I meet her gaze with my own deeply weary one. “No,” I say shortly. “She’s not.”
“Hmmm,” Carol breathes, touching her clavicle. Her eyes sweep the playground for Max, whom she spies seated at the bottom of a slide, shoving fistfuls of mulch into his mouth. “Max!” she squeals, rushing off to clean out his mouth with a wet wipe.
“Wow, that is one smart kid,” I mutter softly, rolling my eyes. “Freaking brag hag.”
Brag hags really are the scourges of mommy society, mostly because there’s a bit of a brag hag in all of us, particularly the rookies. Take my first playgroup, which consisted of 10 babies crying, drooling and completely ignoring each other while their mommies sat in a big circle and bragged, week after agonizing week.
“Jaeden was sitting up by himself at just four months!”
“Oh, that’s great, Margot! It’s funny you mention it…. We couldn’t believe it, but Chloe was sitting up by three months!”
“Well, Palmer sat up the day he was born! I swear! My obstetrician has a picture of it in her office!”
Around and around we’d go, our claims ever louder and more outrageous until the kids were wailing from sheer aural agony. I’d return home secretly convinced my tiny daughter was doomed to be a female Forrest Gump, since she had neither pooped solid gold nuggets nor cooed out “Ave Maria” at six months like the profoundly gifted progeny of my “friends.”
Not surprisingly, this particular playgroup imploded—I mean disbanded—after less than a year. Despite this, I found that I couldn’t escape brag hags, even in the privacy of my own home. “Brag boards” proliferated on most of the babycentric websites I visited, offering die-hard brag hags a chance to compete at the national level.
“My daughter finished the first two boxes in the Hooked on Phonics set in 2 weeks,” the mother of a 5-year-old reported in a typical opening parry on one online forum.
“My son’s memory never ceases to amaze me,” another brag hag countered. “At 26 months old, he is so eager to learn. His latest trick is counting to 10 in Spanish!”
Oh, puke.
To shed some light on this supremely irritating phenomenon, I looked up Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, a Los Angeles-based comedian and author of Naptime Is the New Happy Hour. Stefanie told me she believes most brag hags are overcompensating to atone for their secret parenting sins.
“If you let your kid eat a cupcake for breakfast,” she explains, “the guilt festers until you can find a mom to tell that your kid just learned the Spanish word for every color in an afternoon.”
“It may sound cliché,” she continues, “but the best way to deal with a brag hag is from within yourself. Just know that the brag hag is insecure and that’s why she has an insatiable need to annoy you.”
And that’s what I’ll tell myself the next time I’m forced to endure Carol. Poor Max is probably at home right now, tossing around rusted Matchbox Cars on the floor and eating stale Cheetos while his mommy lies on the sofa and watches gameshow re-runs on TV.
No wonder she has so much excess braggage.
This post originally appeared in modified form in the Nashville Scene.
>I always found it incredibly easy to derail that kind of conversation. “My kids? Oh, they both have autism. Mostly they do therapy.”It’s amazing how quickly that shuts up the brag-hags.So much that it almost makes me feel sorry for the parents of neuro-behaviorally-typical children. 😉
>I can snicker at the brag hags until they start to throw me a pity party – “Oh, don’t worry. Your baby will do [insert amazing accomplishment] too…someday.”
>OMG! At least your brag hag isn’t your MOTHER IN LAW!!!!! I swear! I love my husband to death but if I have to hear one more story about how sweet and smart and cute and etc,etc,etc, I am going to scream!!! All of her stories are from when he was a kid, or in High school or college!!! He is 55 now so get over it!!! I know he is sweet and clever and all that but I ALSO know all the not so nice bits!!! Of course my husband is the same way about his kids so it must run in the family. They are 26 and 28. And believe me! Although they are both smart and talented I could tell you stories about them that would make all would be mothers tear out their own wombs!
>in my tiny part of the world, we have a TON of braggers. I’ve learned to take each and every one of them with a grain of salt, since it’s all about hiding your inadequacies, but it does make you feel like shit none the less. Not to mention, annoying.
>All I can brag about is that my first baby was the best newborn in the whole damn world. My mom always used to say that she took it as a complement that she had a few challenging children. It meant God trusted her more. So, when I encounter a serious brag-hag, I whip that one out. It usually works.
>My mother-in-law brags about her other grandchildren who live near her whenever we tell her anything that our children are doing. You would think that she would be interested in all her grandchildrens lives. I usually just listen when someone brags about their kids – it’s obvious that they have insecurities and need to overcompensate for that. I know inside that I’m trying my best to raise healthy, happy, competent children – somedays are great and some days are not!
>I haven’t really encountered any brag hags yet, but honestly I am so lame. I don’t really interact with that many other parents. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that my own mother was a brag-hag. I can remember being uncomfortable with her droning on about “Gertie does this and this and this” and then I have a clear memory of a couple of women rolling their eyes when she left the room. Eeek!!!
>In junior high, my best friend’s mom was a brag hag. She would actually call my mom, brag about all the boys that were calling her house, and ask if any boys were calling me, knowing full well that I wasn’t getting any calls. UGH. Her daughter went on to star on an episode of Jerry Springer. I guess she wasn’t bragging about THAT!
>BAHAHAHA. I haven’t ended up on Springer. YET.
>Oh!This is the worst… “did I tell you insert brag hags spawn name here teacher said he is THE smartest child in his class”Whatever.I hope they enjoy visiting day at the pen when Jr turns out to be valedictorian of cell block C serving a life sentace for over inflated ego.
>This is one of the reasons why I enjoy your blog even when I don’t have children. I can’t tell you how many Brag Hags I run into on a semi-regular basis. They make me want to brag about everything my *puppy* can do. “He could sit when he was four months and he could fetch at six!!!”This is Perfect Post worthy! Thanks.
>I can be pretty nasty with brag hags. If the brag hag tells me that little Chuck is speaking fluent Mandarin, the chances are pretty good that I’m going to respond with something like, “Oh really? That’s so great. By the way, did you ever resolve the situation with the neighbor whose cat Chuck set on fire?”
>My daughter is in dance lessons, dance school is the place to be for brag hags! Prime example, my daughter had surgery that required that she miss dance for 3-4 weeks. It was about 5 months before the recital. The response from one of the mom’s……..”Are you afraid that she will lose her handspring before the recital?” Yup, I avoid the brag hags at all costs.
>First off, I just want to say, I love your new pic.Anyway, I have a brother-in-law like this. He constantly goes on and on about how his kids are such jocks. Um, they’re really not. He has them call us after EVERY report card and tells us EACH.AND.EVERY.GRADE.IN.EVERY.SUBJECT. It is so annoying!
>I was raised by the opposite of a Brag Hag. My mom didn’t want to make anyone with a child that she either knew or didn’t know had a learning disability, etc…feel alienated. Consequently, I tend to eschew compliments, and cannot “brag on myself” when necessary.
>uh….Is there a pill or something I can take that will end what I think of as my incessant bragging? It’s probably a suppository, I know, but I’ll just have to take it like a man.If there is a brag hag in my group, it’s me. Not because I like to brag, you understand, but because my daughter is awesome. At 13 months she’s already composing a symphony and running a children’s charity for babies whose fathers are insufferably vain.She also watches fencing tournaments, which is where she learned that you never open with a parry.You open with a lunge, disengage, continuation, then you parry, and with your riposte you stick ’em in the eye.
>”All of that mulch must be what is making Max so smart.”I knew a lady like that in playgroup…oblivious to the fact that her kid was not in fact smart, but just normal. In spite of the 7,952 freaking classes she had her in every day of the week. It’s no wonder the kid didn’t sleep, I don’t think she knew how.
>Aww, man. My son was counting to 10 in Spanish at 24 months. The only reason I have to brag about it? Because the punk outright refuses to perform on command. Best part was when my daughter bragged for me to the peed. When the peed asked where he’d learned that, she offered “Dora!”
>just want to thank you for the mention and say that you know I hate those types enormously. I don’t suffer fools. I liked to tell people that Elby could read at 7 months and then say condescendingly “don’t worry, he’ll get there.” The trick is you can’t ever say “I’m kidding”
>Oh dear… just when I thought it was safe for me to come back and visit….Usually I just talk about all the incredibly stupid or weird things my kids do, just for a sanity check.
>combine a brag hag with a backstage dance diva mother (and i am in texas–think cheerleader mothers on speed)…..this is why i carry a flask with me!!!
>Jerry Springer…whoa that is bad!! hope that doesn’t happen to many kids who have Brag Hags as mothers.I know a mother who takes the credit away from her wonderful kids and she says it’s all because your Momma did this and did that. She’s an idiot(not bright at all) those kids take nothing not even their good looks from her…they get the smarts/good looks from the daddy. They are little clones of him. I heard last week they are getting a divorce..go figure!
>Just tonight – I met a Brag Dad Hag. He was going on and on and on about how smart his kid is – he’s not even in school yet (and he sounds bright – but not genius smart). Dude – my kids are WAY smarter than your kids. PSBBTTT!I was happy to listen, but for only like 15 minutes – then I had to excuse myself from him.
>I had a friend who was the biggest brag hag. Her son was BRILLIANT and ARTISTIC and ATHLETIC and could do anything faster, better, and with more panache than any other kid. One day she offered to take my kids to the science museum with her brilliant son. She came back hours later acting a bit odd. When I asked her what the problem was, she told me that my son (he was 3 at the time) explained to her exactly how electricity works. To which I smiled smugly and said, “Oh yes, he just loves Physics. Doesn’t your William?” Stopped her cold in her tracks, I tell you! Sometimes you just have to count on your kids to do your job for you.
>I have a brag hag pal that has no children..so she just brags about her own accomplishments and latest purchases. It drives me insane. To boot, she is the type of person t hat would buy a purse she can’t afford instead of paying her electric bill and being super braggy about it. ugh. On a positive note, your new photo is absolutely fabulous.
>If I’m unlucky enough to wander within earshot of a brag hag in full dissertation, I usually derail the bragfest with a quick counterdissertation about the accomplishments of my pet rock 😉
>I’ve always called them “one-uppers” but I like “brag hag” much better. My favorite, some unwitting soul complimented the local brag hags daughter, saying that she was a good teacher to the younger ones (the kid’s 4). Anyway, the brag hag replied that it was genetic. “Afterall, I am a great teacher, my mom’s a fabulous teacher, and my sister is a good teacher too.” We all started laughing until we realized she was dead serious. oops!
>When I encounter people like this, I just smile and nod. I figure, it’s not a contest. Yeah, my kids are smart, I guess, but I just want them to be kids. I have no interest in raising geniuses. It’s harder to be happy when you’re really smart, in my experience. My husband and I value put much more value on whether our kids are kind and are good friends. Like you say, it’s usually the result of the parents’ insecurities, in which case you can only feel bad for them. And they do say some funny things!
>My sister in law showed me the best way to stop brag hags. Just tell them what they want to hear. Example:Brag-Hag: My son is the smartest, most talented, amazing kid ever and his poop smells like flowers!You: That’s great! You’re a better mom than me.Brag-Hag:…Shuts them up every time. And sometimes they will even say something nice about YOUR kid!
>My sister in law showed me the best way to stop brag hags. Just tell them what they want to hear. Example:Brag-Hag: My son is the smartest, most talented, amazing kid ever and his poop smells like flowers!You: That’s great! You’re a better mom than me.Brag-Hag:…Shuts them up every time. And sometimes they will even say something nice about YOUR kid!
>Hmm. I think Stefanie is on the money that these women are really insecure.But I have to wonder if it isn’t another form of insecurity that we let them get under our skin so much?
>My parents were at a dinner party where the brag hag was droning on about their ‘b-list’ children. My mom, as I mentioned before would keep her mouth shut, or be kind in reply to the bragging, “oh that’s nice, etc…” My dad got fed up and after the 10th bragging point started one or even two-upping everything they said. They learned their lesson.
>”…since she had neither pooped solid gold nuggets nor cooed out “Ave Maria” at six months…”I almost peed my pants! Thanks!
>A brag hag mother of a third grader, seriously commented to me that she is planning on her son getting into MIT. I laughed and said, that I will be thrilled if my son gets into community college! Her boy wonder already had girls calling him and driving by his house at this tender age. Also,she often commented that she had no behavior problems with the little prince. I often wonder if this was just her way of covering for something else.