Ali Wentworth, Oprah and Motherhood

Here's my secret: I want Ali Wentworth to play the lead character in Michelle Obama:Taskmaster. She's so Beth. The first time I read the play out loud in my office last spring I immediately thought: Ali Wentworth - actress, comedian, mother of small kids, DC native and now Oprah regular.

A girl can am high, can't she?

I just think Ali Wentworth has exactly the right timing for this play. She can play funny, sad, pathetic, happy. That's what motherhood is, and that's Ali Wentworth.

I was watching Oprah yesterday and it seems Ali is now almost like a correspondent for Oprah. The segment yesterday was on women who need to overcome their fears. Three women were mothers, one wasn't. And...surprise, surprise...at the end of the show it was clear the only woman who seemed changed by the experience was the woman without children, who kept gushing how she now was finally going to put her oxygen mask on first before helping others. All I could think as I sat on my couch eating heavily salted, buttered popcorn was that it's going to take alot more than a day of roller derby skating, skydiving, and skinny dipping to get an exhausted mother out of her rut. I know Oprah doesn't know this, but I could see in Ali's eyes that she knows this is true.

Give these mothers a maid for 6 months, ongoing spa treatments, and daily naps and you might start to see them unwind a bit.

I want to see real change happen for mothers. How are we going to start feeling happier in our daily lives? I know it's not just a maid,(but that's a start!)it's more of an ongoing sisterhood that needs to happen. Mothers are so alone. Let's face it. Unless we live on a hippie commune we're really going it alone these days. And I think I-Phones, etc have made us even more alone because now we don't even pick up the phone anymore and talk. (I'm in a soccer carpool with 3 other moms and one called me the other day and I had no idea who she was).

Something's gotta give for moms.

Michelle seems to have a rhythm going, but is that real or are her backdrops just so perfect it looks to all of us exhausted moms that she's got her house together?

And now I'm wondering what about Ali's life...I'm sure motherhood isn't a piece of cake for her but she sure looks great and fearless on Oprah.

Okay, I'm groping for mother role models most days, leafing through People magazine, comparing motherhood. Julia's now making movies again in exotic locations like Bali...with twins and another little one somewhere about. Gwenthyn Paltrow has dropped out of movies but turns up on a show about driving through Europe eating decadent foods with a man who's not her husband and no kids in sight. Even Nicole Richie, former reality star and anorectic drug addict, is the perfect mother.

Honestly, I don't know what to think. Except that I still want Ali Wentworth to play Beth in my play!