You've seen them on Desperate Housewives: Uppercrust ladies in pastel sweater sets who parade down the halls of their children's schools. They're so smug. They coo sypathetically when they survey us "poor" working mothers.

Or there's the New Age flip side, with their babies in slings, breastfeeding until their kids are ten, co-sleeping, home-schooling, and forget about vaccinations. See Maggie Gyllenhaal's stroller-hating harpy in Away We Go for an over-the-top rendition.

But the ridiculousness of her "LN" character is a tip-off: These uber moms aren't real.

Uber is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but in the case of all the supposedly high-powered mothers running around, these media portrayals are not only a cliché; they reinforce a pervasive—and wrong-headed—stereotype.

Here's what got me going on Round Zillion of the so-called Mommy Wars: A short feature in the Boston Globe titled "Under Pressure" by Beth Teitell, in which she talks about why so many parents hate volunteering at their children's school.

I won't claim this piece of fluff is definitive or newsworthy. (As one of the many online commenters said, "Wow—I wish more people were facing such non-issues.") What got to me was how utterly typical it is of trend stories in mainstream media.

A hot-button idea—parents know schools need volunteers, and parents want to be good, but they don't have time, and it's so stressful—is draped with a few current stats and quotes from three or four people.

Et voilà! A trend! Here are some reasons offered for the "volunteer-related angst" of today's parents:

"Among the worries, taking on too much and doing a lousy job—or taking on two little and becoming the object of gossip... [T]he uneasiness over volunteering makes one thing clear: Wanting to be part of the 'in crowd' doesn't end when you graduate from high school."

Huh. And I thought volunteering was about stepping up and doing the needful.

According to Teitell, that's what people like me say on the record. But when it comes down to it, "there's the reason that dare not speak its name: competition with other parents."

Competition? Excuse me? If some shellacked-blonde control-freak would like to take my place as a chaperone at Super Sleepover, she's welcome to it. She would be if she existed, that is.

By Teitell's definition, I'd be an "uber volunteer," a mom who puts in time at the school book sale, an organizer of room parents. But I don't do it to compete with other parents or to give my son a leg-up with his teacher. I do it because I believe in the social contract.

Why isn't that the story here? It's difficult to cram school volunteering into busy schedules, especially during an economic downturn, but I'd bet most parents do it for the good of the school community.

The volunteers I know, many of them working parents—and some male rather than female—are idealistic. They may joke about the "pain" of potlucks (events I happen to loathe organizing) but they show up, cynicism and all.

Yes, there has been a zeitgeist shift towards individuals getting theirs. A few years ago, for example, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America changed their marketing program, employing a new slogan—"Little Moments Big Magic"—that was supposed to inspire adult volunteers with the notion that "volunteering is fun!" According to BBSA's website, it's about more than helping a needy child:  "You and your 'Little' can share the kinds of activities you already like to do."

It's also true, at my son's private school and elsewhere, that the same people usually volunteer for most of the jobs. But it's not because the work is controlled by a cabal of ubers who use it to amass social and political power.

If you want to report on a trend, a real trend, you could examine the ideals now espoused by the Obama administration and whether this has had an impact on volunteerism. Maybe yes, maybe no, but that puts the energy of the story in a very different place than the same old digs about bossy women.

This particular feature isn't worse than average, but it does nothing to contest dog-eat-dog judgmental momdom. More important, it exemplifies the lazy way so many of us journalists talk about the world. I know how easy it is to tweak the conventional wisdom just enough to keep people reading. Little thought goes into whether a hypothetical trend really represents the experience of a verifiable chunk of people. 

Remember "The Opt-Out Revolution," an infamous trend story written by Lisa Belkin in 2003? All those corporate women who were supposedly fleeing the work force to be stay-at-home—and no doubt uber—moms? Another non-trend and non-revolution.

Granted, the Globe's humorous little feature is not meant as an ethical primer. It's largely filler destined to line bird cages or recycling containers. But in it, you wouldn't know ethics matter to some of us.

Teitell describes one woman as not being able to "bring herself to do more." Yet the same mom "sort of wishes she were one of 'them'":

"They call the principal by his first name and they know the teachers, and they have the inside scoop... They make me feel so inadequate."

But this trend story, with its trumped-up idea about parental competition, even comes with outdated art: a line of identical mom figures in high-waisted jeans and flats; one even holds a plate of cookies.

There's not a lot of time to finesse daily news art, but come on. Fellow media types, let's stop perpetuating images that are at least ten years old. How many moms of young children wear high-waisted jeans? Really?

It's possible my vision is skewed as a resident of Cambridge, Mass., sweatshirt and peace-sign capital of the world, but I doubt it. And if I wrote a story about that, I'd look around and see if it's really true.