'Married to Mommy?': 
Two friends turn gripes into survival guide for husbands

By John Wolfson
Seattle Times staff reporter

	GREG GILBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES "Married To Mommy?" co-authors Jeff Bakeman, standing, and Brian Krinbring. "We wrote this book because we envision a better world, a Mommy-free world," Krinbring said with a laugh. "It's not just a book, it's a movement."

How many of the world's great problems have been solved at the bar? How many inventions dreamed up and best sellers planned? One for every drink poured. Of course, the moment's genius tends to fade with the intoxication. But what if, just once, you actually followed through on the idea? What if you wrote the book?

Well, you'd hope for a better reception than Jeff Bakeman and Brian Krinbring got from Willow Creek Press. After managing editor Andrea Donner completed her publishing company's standard rejection letter, she remained offended enough by "Married to Mommy? A Survival Guide for Married Guys" to add the following, handwritten assessment: "Incredibly sexist, too, I might add. I feel sorry for your wives, I mean, 'mommies.' "

Bakeman, 46, who lives on Whidbey Island and is an executive with an environmental company, and Krinbring, 54, president of a safety company and a Seattle resident, laughed about that. They're funny guys, and from the moment they decided to write their book they knew it should be funny too.

That was four years ago, in the usual section at Duke's Lake Union Chowder House in Seattle. They were sitting with the same small group of friends that always gets together for beers after work on Friday. As it will when many men drink, the conversation turned to women. Bakeman and Krinbring started in with their usual "Mommy" talk, their name for the transformation they say a woman undergoes when she marries: How she morphs from fun, free and sexual to controlling, responsible and bossy — a mother.

The group knew this conversation well; they'd had it for years. But somehow, on this afternoon it just made sense to Bakeman and Krinbring: a book. So what if neither of them had ever written anything before? They had an idea and an expertise, and what else, really, do you need? Right there at the bar, they sketched out the chapter ideas.

And then the strangest thing happened: Sober and back to their professional lives, the men, married for more than a half-century between them, actually began to write the book. They split up the chapters, wrote, then got together for editing and rewriting sessions. They brought chapter drafts to the "Beer Friday" group for further input.

Four years and several rejection letters later, "Married to Mommy?" has just been published by the local company Pulp! The book is available on Amazon.com, but you can't buy it in stores yet. The publishing company is still negotiating with distributors.

Those negotiations ought to be interesting.

'The Mommy gene'

What is the market for a book that, for all its humor, is often uncomfortably sexist, if not overtly misogynistic? The basic premise is that, while some women have it worse than others, all of them possess the Mommy gene. They can't help it, the authors suggest, women are just programmed that way. After marriage, and especially after kids, they cut their hair, they quit wearing lingerie ... they stop having fun. "In many ways," Bakeman and Krinbring write, "it's as if the butterfly bride crawled back into her cocoon and re-emerged as a caterpillar."

"Women, by their nature, have evolved into a creature that has to outsmart and outplan and outmaneuver men," said Bakeman, a tall, trim man with a resemblance to pro basketball legend Rick Barry. "It's the ones that passed on the genes, the ones that were controlling, they're the ones that survived to today. I think that's true. I believe it."

And that's bad news for their husbands, the two men assert. They're basically the same fun-loving lugs as they were before they got married. They have no idea what they're in for, what a struggle their relationship will become. "Married to Mommy?" was written to change all that, the authors say. The book's cover shows the male and female figurines that adorn a wedding cake. The bride is outfitted in white dress and gloves. The groom wears a white tuxedo jacket, but his pants are military camouflage as is his helmet.

If marriage is war, this book intends to arm husbands with strategies to battle their Mommies. Through charts and graphs and diagrams, they'll learn plenty, including how to get out of chores by feigning incompetence, how to barter for more sex, how to be as vague as possible, the better to keep their options open.

The book also includes a brief Mommy primer for men who have yet to marry. By taking a nine-question test, men can determine just how much Mommy their woman has in her. If only one of the nine points applies to your significant other, you're OK, you're with a "Minor Mommy." Six or more and watch out, you've hooked on with a "Tsunami Mommy." The authors suggest you "head for high ground."

All in good fun

There are plenty of points from which to attack "Married to Mommy?" It could be argued, for example, that if women are in fact planning-oriented or willing to sacrifice fun for family, it is only because many men are not. A strong argument could also be made that men are much more controlling than women.

But whatever your academic or experiential refutations, save them. This book isn't worth them. It doesn't want to be. "It's meant to be humorous, OK?" Krinbring said, throwing up his hands. "It's a humor book."

For all its sexism, the book is often very funny and, like all good humor, a rivulet of truth runs through it.

The men write of a friend who's been married for 50 years. His secret? Conflict avoidance. His method? Media. "If he felt tensions rising, he would avoid confrontation by immersing himself in the newspaper," they write. ... "Imagine married life without ESPN and you'll understand why he has lifetime subscriptions to four newspapers and three weekly news magazines."

And they are incensed by the name of the world's most popular brand of pantyhose.

"They could have named them anything. How about Party Time Pantyhose? Good Time Pantyhose? ... No. Out of all the zillions of great possibilities they chose 'No Nonsense.' Why did they do that? In a word — Mommies."

"We wrote this book because we envision a better world, a Mommy-free world," Krinbring, a large, bespectacled, goateed man, said, laughing. "It's not just a book, it's a movement."

Feedback

Marriedtomommy.com has been up for six months, allowing people to document "Mommy Moments" of their own, and to ask Bakeman and Krinbring, who bill themselves as "professors of matrimony," for advice. The authors are considering a sequel based upon postings to their Web site.

Mary Bakeman, Jeff's wife, said she was initially angry about the book's premise. She changed her mind after reading it. "I think it's really funny," she said. "It makes me mad at certain points, that they've figured things out, how women like to control things. But I'm not a Mommy, it says so right in the book!"

And what of their two daughters, ages 14 and 17? "I think they're proud of their dad about getting a book published," she said. "That's as far as it goes. I don't think they've read the whole thing."

And, four years later, what does the Beer Friday club think of their work?

"They can't believe it's so well-written," Krinbring said. "They were surprised we could write at all."