Here's the Biggest Problem With Fergie's M.I.L.F $ Video

by Eve Vawter

Image via FergieVEVO/YouTube

Fergie has released a new video where she redefined the acronym M.I.L.F to mean "Moms I'd Like To Follow" instead of "Mother I'd Like To Fuck."

It's cool. It's super cool because not only does this video look sleek and sexy and kitschy-cool art-directed and feature celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen mom-ing it up all sexy like, but Fergie has a nice mom-empowering sentiment behind the project. Fergie was quoted in Entertainment Weekly

"Changing the acronym to Moms I’d Like To Follow is about empowering women who do it all," she says in a statement. "They have a career, a family, and still find the time to take care of themselves and feel sexy. With a wink of course :)."

 
 

Becky Bracken from The Stir isn't too into the video, and wrote a hot take about why she finds M.I.L.F $ problematic: 

"For a group of rich, genetically blessed moms who like to dress up and dance around in couture, this must have been a fun video for a group of friends to make together. It might even reflect what motherhood is like if you're a multimillionaire with a squad of nannies and housekeepers. But for the rest of us, this just reinforces the crushing expectation that on top of everything else, now we're supposed to look like Ciara."

Read more: Hannibal Buress Called Cosby a Rapist but He's No Feminist Hero

I can agree with Becky above, but I think the biggest problem is this: moms don't go anywhere. How can you want to follow a mom when these are the places we go when we aren't going to work? 

  • To The UPS Store to return a bra we ordered from Amazon
  • To pick up one of those Dole bagged salads to serve with dinner
  • To drop off our kid at a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese
  • To get our yearly mammogram 
  • To the library because Wednesdays are story time
  • To buy toilet paper at Costco because no one in this damn house remembers to buy it but us 
  • To pick up the dog's heartworm treatment 
  • To IKEA on a Saturday because we obviously like spending 20 minutes finding a parking spot 
  • To a parent/teacher conference 

It's not even the fact that the celeb moms in the video are all sexualized and hot and drenching themselves in breast milk while twerking in their front yards. All of us moms do that! It's the fact that once you decide to have kids you just don't get to go to that many interesting places. Maybe if we followed Fergie and all of her famous friends we'd be following them to places that are a lot more exciting than the Dollar Spot at Target, but I sort of doubt it.

Sure, maybe following these celeb moms on social media is thrilling and life-changing and totally fascinating, but no matter how sexy or glamorous or wealthy a mom is, she's still gonna find herself getting a pap smear and stopping afterwards to get the oil changed in her car. No matter how fuckable a mom is, you'd still only be following her to pick up some paper towels.