I wish my dissertation were still of feminist interest and import, because what I think (and subsequently blog) about often has to do with feminist-ish topics. So what I’m saying is that this would still be a diss blog, sort of, if my diss were on something else, something more central to my everyday thinking. Which it isn’t. Which might explain why it’s languishing in a dark, wet corner. I poke it with a broom every once in a while just to keep the rest of the world happy, but…ugh. “Omelas” reference FAIL.
So anyway.
Long-time listeners might remember my childfree friend, CF. More on her here. Since having the baby (Dang, did I ever nickname him? I’m sure I did, but I can’t remember with what.), CF and I have remained in better touch than I would have expected. She has even been over to my house a few times, my house with its wipey smells and scads of toys and, um, infant inhabitant. She didn’t hold him, and I didn’t offer, because I didn’t want her to feel obligated to do something with which she wasn’t comfortable. I’m trying, you see, to be respectful of her beliefs.
So when am I going to learn that she isn’t respectful of mine?
Before I go further, I suppose I should acknowledge the fact that she’s a bit of a, oh, I dunno, blowhard? What I mean is that she is of the Open Mouth Insert Foot School, and while she isn’t always happy about this and openly acknowledges it, she is what she is. So while on many topics–race, sexuality, gender, lots of the big ones–she thinks before she speaks, there are some–kids–where she just doesn’t. And the reason for this, I suspect, is that when it comes to race and gender, not only is she generally progressive in her attitudes, but she also cares about not coming off an asshole or otherwise hurting peoples’ feelings. But when it comes to children, her beliefs, and her belief in her right to hold them, supersede all attempts she would otherwise make to consider her audience.
I’m starting to sound like what I want is for my friends to parrot back to me what I already believe. Not so. What I mean is this: say you think women look terrible bald. Sinead O’Connor? Made you puke a little in your mouth back in the day. Now, this is a personal preference you have every right to hold. But you wouldn’t talk about it in front of a friend who just lost all her hair, right? It’s not that you have to change what you believe, but you should think of other people sometimes. Right?
No, really, right? Or am I completely wrong here? Because it matters.
CF has recently taken up with a childless married couple whom I believe to be a replacement couple for Wizard and me. And that’s cool, I guess, because the truth is that we aren’t who we were a few months ago, and we don’t really go out much, and when we do we don’t go out late, etc. We have a baby. Life changes. So anyway, she’s all BFFing it with them now, doing the things we used to do, and she mentioned a remark that this couple made regarding disabled children.
It was disparaging, and I won’t repeat it here. Basically, though, they were making fun of a political figure’s mentally challenged child.
And it wasn’t funny. But. It wasn’t like the worst thing you could ever imagine someone saying. It definitely could have been worse. In other words, it’s the sort of thing I normally would have let slide in polite conversation. I would have gotten quiet, maybe, or changed the subject, but I wouldn’t have bluntly stated, “That’s not funny.” Because let’s face it, when someone is laughing at something, and you stop the conversation and essentially indict their sense of humor…it’s awkward.
But that’s the thing: I cared more about the wrongness of the comment than I did the awkwardness of pointing it out. And it occurs to me that I am changing, become more conservative, perhaps, or maybe just more defensive. Maybe I’m just growing old. I’m not sure. I worry sometimes that I’m becoming a cliche, or worse, an essentialist. Example: you know how you always hear how difficult it is to put away your baby’s first clothes? Well, it IS. It’s tough. You squeeze them into a too-small onesie one more time before putting it away “for the next one,” and you find yourself thinking about the next one far too soon. What’s strange, though, is that I didn’t expect I’d be the type of mother who lovingly petted a newborn-sized diaper. Yet there you’ll find me, kneeling next to the under-crib storage. I don’t know who this person is, this person who pines for size 0-3m and can’t let a bad joke slide.
Yet more often than not, I’ve not been “that mom.” In the latest dust-up over definitions of the maternal and maternal normality, commentators have bandied back and forth the notion of “newborn qua narcotic,” the idea that one falls madly in love with a child, becomes obsessed with him in the same manner that an addict’s world narrows to the scope of the drug. I’m sad to say that my baby never had that narcotic effect on me. Would that he did. I struggled (still struggle) with depression so deep I didn’t know it existed. It was, like, 11th dimension depression. I worried (no longer worry, happily) about the strength of my bond with my son. We’re good now, but at first I’d have sworn he didn’t like me. (Note: Much of this has to do with early breastfeeding and nutrition struggles which sadly didn’t end until the failed attempts at breastfeeding did. So, yes, I’m THAT mom. The one who says no to breastfeeding when it passes the point of hellish undoability.) My point: “Moms” do things that I, Perpetua, don’t do. And while on one hand I feel that this is right for me–that’s it’s right for me to explore motherhood outside its narrow definition in popular culture–on the other hand I find myself equally alarmed when I a) fit that definition to a letter (e.g. cry over clothes), and b) explode that definition completely (e.g. didn’t know what the hell my MIL was talking about when she asked, a day after baby was born, “how it feels to be in love”).
So when my childfree friend makes a remark that the pre-mom-me would have shrugged off, and I find myself, days later, still perturbed, I recognize that my worldview has shifted, that my child, and children in general, matter to me in a way they didn’t before. And it bothers me sometimes that becoming a mother has changed me much, so quickly. My academic feminist self wants to deny this power, not only because it leads to an essentialist mode of thinking and a glorification of the maternal that is more dangerous than useful, but also because, dammit, it’s not equally applicable in all cases. That is, I am very much a traditional mother in some situations and not at all in others, and I think this range of mothering sensibility (for lack of a better word) exists in each of us as mothers and in all moms as a group. Becoming a mother has changed me both radically and not at all. Speaking as an academic feminist mother, then, I can say that it isn’t so much that we wish to deny the power of the maternal as we need to view it as one aspect of an infinite range of parenting experiences. However, we fear that by accepting its power, we run the risk of allowing that version of motherhood to overtake all the others, likely because it is already so dominant in our culture. Acknowledging the power of motherhood, then, requires an equal acknowledgement, and acceptance, of its lack.
