Every morning, I flip on my computer and check my e-mail. First, I delete all the promotional crap from J.Crew and Home Depot. Then I pick out the important stuff and deal with it. Then I’m left with the mommy e-mails. They aren’t always obviously the mommy e-mails from the subject line, so I can’t just delete them with the Home Depot messages. 

My neighbors and Steve’s relatives — people who don’t know me very well — forward messages to me about poor martyred mothers. "Women do all the work and nobody notices, but we really know how important we all. Big hugs! God luvs ‘ya. Forward this note to your favorite mother." 

There are a thousand of them, all variations of the same theme. There’s the men taking all the credit for the barbeque message and the housecleaning with ADD message. I suppose it’s supposed to be empowering. Women are patting each other on the back for all their work. But I’m not about all the silent suffering crap.

I have several questions. First, why are women just forwarding this stuff to each other? If you want your husband to help out with the laundry, maybe men should be getting these notes.

Second, who’s writing these messages? I suspect it’s one guy out in North Dakota who’s laughing his ass off at the silly women, who are so easily appeased by mass-forwarded pats on the back.

Third, has anybody written their dissertation on these letters yet? It’s fertile ground, people.