Motherhood

[neepsntatties]

Hello, I don't usually start posts as I am pretty new to all this, in fact it's only since I started using this forum that I have identified as a feminist - I still have a lot to learn!

Anyway I have been reading around online about motherhood to help me try and make sense of my own experiences and feelings around being a mother. I have ordered Adrienne Rich's book Of Woman Born but it is going to take ages to come so I wanted to see what people thought here while I wait as I have no patience.

From what I am reading it seems that she says Motherhood is a patriarchal institution that is harmful and oppressive to women because it gives them all of the responsibility but no power to go with it as well as assuming that only mothers should do all the caring work and creating an impossible ideal image of a mother, while mothering on the other hand can be a source of power and resistance for women.

I am interested to find out how people think the institution motherhood can be resisted or reframed. All I can think of is the way that I bring my children up - challenging gender stereotypes and refusing to buy into all the commercial crap that people try to sell you (I admit to falling for a lot of this with my first baby, anything with the word Mum on it seemed necessary all of a sudden!) Apart from that I can't think what this resistance would look like or is it just about feeling free to mother in the way that you feel is right for you and ignoring the endless guilt that seems to go hand in hand once you have children? Hope this isn't all to muddled but I would love to hear what other people think.

I love motherhood, it is the best thing that I have ever done. The main thing is to choose the right man and then you have equal power. We work as a partnership. There is no need to have anything to do with 'commercial crap'. The one thing to remember is that your DC has a mind of their own and they are not a blank sheet for you to make your imprint. They do as you do, so make sure you are a good role model, they never do as you say and are quick to spot hypocrisy.

The whole thing was a shock to me, especially with my first. I felt isolated, exhausted, often bored, my career took a big knock, people responded to me differently and I felt quite lost. My kids are amazing but I feel guilty a lot of the time no matter what I do or don't do. I feel like a crap mother and a crap employee as I struggle to do either well. I often struggle with childcare and I often wonder what it would be like if we had a set of grandparents around who were keen to help.

Thinking about it mumsnet has been quite a powerful thing for me, helped me feel less isolated.

Ah, walk this way....
loads of fascinating stuff here

There are loads of ideas for more reading, every book you ever wanted about mothering and feminism...

Essentially, I think as long as you look at why you make the choices you do, (with a wry eye on societal expectations for women who happen to have given birth) there are no hard and fast rules. It is up to you and your partner if you have one to work out how to parent.

Andrea o'reilly's feminist mothering gives some ideas, but it can be a bit scholarly.

The site will give you loads of ideas though.

Your post at 11.32 - that is exactly how I felt, and feel. Apart from we have both sets of GPs near and I still feel how you do...

The silly thing is that DH is absolutely cut out to be a "mother" (female gender role) despite being a big rugby player type, and I am absolutely cut out to be a working wage earning type (male gender role) despite being small and "feminine" looking.

It's bit of a bugger.

Practically speaking. Can you afford a nanny, someone to "be you" when you are working? Do you want to go full time / does your partner want to take more time to care for children / is that an option? Look into things, keep an open mind. If you're not happy doing it, then see if you can change it. And yeah I know that sounds shit if "it" is looking after your own child/ren, but still.

I'm 28 weeks pregnant and I'm already seek of the word 'mother'. Seems to me it gets used in place of the word 'parent'.

There is still a massive assumption and expectation that women do it all, 'instinctively' know what to do and are just in some way more responsible for the baby than the Dad.

I'm not going to change the world overnight but I do intend to do things my way. My husband is giving up work to be a sahd and I expect him to go 50/50 on all the parenting responsibilities. He gets that and he agrees.

I also make sure I put anyone straight who gives me that look of disbelief when I tell them what we're planning to do and will continue to do so after the baby is born.

If people go unchallenged they'll continue to hold the same beliefs in my opinion

Thank you for the link, that will keep me busy!

I work part time now which I like although I need to go full time soon as we are struggling for money and the hope is we will get someone from dh's family to come and live with us. The two things that I sometimes find overwhelming is the endless cleaning and not being able to do things because of the children. I've had to let so many opportunities pass me by and sometimes I have found that difficult.

I am interested in trying to get my head around what Rich is talking about. In what ways is Motherhood patriarchal and how can we deconstruct /resist/subvert it when it is.

You quite simply make sure that you are equal at home and both careers are equal, if that is what you wish. I found having DCs way more exciting than paid employment, it is up to the individual. Many couples reverse roles these days and the man stays at home. It maybe helps if you are older, I had got where I wanted careerwise and so was happy to have change.

I think there's an interesting dichotomy going on between the view that people are only important if they are earning money - ie contributing to capitalism in some way. So SAHMs are often written off as having less value by other earners.

Meanwhile, as neeps pointed out, motherhood is blown up into an impossible-to-achieve ideal which no one can possibly achieve. So it's denigrated and unrealistically revered at the same time - no wonder mothers feel pulled every which way sometimes..!

I think one's own mental attitude towards mothering/parenting (I agree that we should shift the focus from "mothering" to "parenting") is important here as a way of integrating your role as a parent with the other facets that make up who you are.

As SQ said, some personality types are totally cut out for parenting, others less so and probably most of us are somewhere in between and muddle along as best we can.

And yes, I think the role of the parenting partner - whoever they are! Is very important too, although plenty of single mothers demonstrate that you can be a perfectly good parent without live-in back up.

My personal experience is that I did - and enjoyed - the career thing for almost 20 years then had my DD at a time when I had reached a career cul-de-sac and was looking for something else in any case. Which was good timing on my part, but it just worked out that way!

Nowadays, I couldn't give a stuff if people think I'm "wasting my talents" by being a SAHM or "not contributing" economically. Contributions to society are not just measured by money. I happen to think I'm doing an immensely important job and I'm currently content to devote the majority of my time to it. I can still keep up my end of a conversation with full-time workers and if they look down on me because I'm not going out of the house to earn a wage, well they're not the sort of people I'm interested in having anything to do with.

I guess what I'm trying to say is it's important to value yourself as a parent and the job you're doing, despite the conflicting messages that surround you.

My feelings exactly IC.

It probably helps being an older mum with nothing to prove and the confidence to be yourself.

I'm in the same philosophical boat as exoticfruits yet again, I have a marriage based on an equal partnership, I went to work and OH became a SAHP as I earned more than he did. I suppose we did what we felt right and paid no attention whatsoever to other people's opinions of how things should be, and we asked friends and relatives for advice then took it or disregarded it together without any stress or guilt or furtive looking around.
We've been together thirty years and the babies are 17 and 21 now.

It seems to me that there are 3 choices

1. One parent is the main breadwinner and one the main carer- it doesn't matter which-except to the couple.
2. You both take more flexible jobs and share the child care equally.
3. You both put jobs first and buy in child care, cleaners etc

Children are not convenient, they want time not money and your life will never be the same again once you have one. They are not obligatory, many prefer to be child free. One thing is for certain-compromises have to be made.

Mine are older FallenC and looking back the time was short, I am free to do whatever I like now but thankful I took time out.

I did choose a man who had been single and lived alone for 20 years- he could cope with everything and anything.

We did option two later on, OH worked from home freelance. Then we used grandparents and did option three,
How others saw our set up was irrelevant to us all, it worked and most of the time it was acceptable to the adults and the children were happy.
I had to stave off feelings of self-pity when various mothers whose children I taught came up and hugged me and told me that it was a shame I was working and that my man should be keeping me.
Sometimes I thought 'No, I am empowered modern woman, able to make my own gender-free choices'
Other times I thought 'Snivel, yes, I want to be a kept woman and be cooking and cleaning and fluffing up the laundry.'
It's always a compromise IMO.

Yes, I had a partner who had lived away from home and partnerless for years. Makes a difference in their attitude to what they are and are not capable of.

One of the difficulties of motherhood is that it is a very private occupation. We're brought up in today's society to perform and to seek the approval of others by doing well at school and sports, by landing a good university place, by doing well at work etc. They're all quite public achievements that attract admiration and praise. Once you're a mother you're essentially on your own. There are no appraisals, no reviews, no promotions or salary bumps. If you're used to public praise and recognition it can be a shock to the system to be suddenly working very very hard for little or no reward. You might attract the admiration of your peers or your partner, and perhaps your parents or ILs but that can seem a bit paltry if you're used to industry awards and big bucks.

To an extent that situation is a product of the patriarchy in the sense that capitalism is a patriarchal system that measures people's worth according to public achievements. If you can't produce a measurable outcome, you've produced nothing in the view of the capitalist system. There are very few measurable outcomes to motherhood - you produce a baby, yes, but after that progress is slow and you can't really claim full credit for how your child turns out. Some mothers do try to claim credit - they place their worth on their child's achievements, become pushy and competitive, but that way madness lies IMO. Accepting motherhood means accepting a new way of thinking, of stepping out of the patriarchal "achievement" mindset and taking on a more wait and see, patient sort of attitude. Both men and women can adopt that mindset, I think, although the patient playing of the long game is seen more as a female trait.

You also have to start digging inside yourself for your sense of worth rather than hoping for recognition from outside. I do think parents do a massively valuable job but I don't think they should necessarily invite praise from society. The reason being, if you invite praise you also invite criticism. Unless you're willing to be told you're wrong, you shouldn't claim you know best.

Good points, Callin.

I think the nuclear family is very far from ideal when it comes to raising a child. The more parenting experience I get, the more I think I agree with the "it takes a village to raise a child" adage.

There seems to have been a rise in PND in our country over the last few decades. I suspect lack of wider family/community support may have a lot to do with that. And it impacts on the children too. The various members of my family who are primary level teachers say there's a growing number of children with attachment issues - so much so, that courses are now being run for teachers specifically to help them address these issues as they impact in the classroom.

That underlines my previous point about the importance of parenting.
The impact of misguided/uninformed/unsupported etc. child-raising causes unfortunate ripples throughout our society.
One might ask the capitalists if they consider social problems to be detrimental to the economy (leaving aside the difficulties for individuals and their well being) and therefore whether it might be worth rethinking the value that is laid on decent parenting.

I was reading an article recently about human's being one of a few species with a middle age i.e. years of healthy and active life after the end of fertility. It mused that the reason could be in evolutionary terms to help with the continuation of the species. Human have such a long childhood in which they don't really contribute in the society but demand a lot of input. I guess further expanding on the 'it takes a village...." saying.

I agree the nuclear family has made motherhood much harder. I imagine the playing on the insecurities and guilting of new parents wouldn't happen as much if most women had a strong and experienced support system to rely on. I am not really sure what the answer is just sharing something I thought was interesting.

Yes it's the isolation that is really hard. That and the sleep deprivation. I found also I was often treated negatively for being a sahm. Now I work I get it the other way. Also I am studying just now which involves weekends away and I was told I should give it up because of the kids because they come first.

Neeps, that's what I meant about digging down and finding your own validation and equilibrium. You're in a place at the moment where everyone else's opinion and feelings on things matter more than your own. Yes, people will judge you no matter what you do, your task is to get to a place where you're happy with your decisions, so that their judgement means nothing to you. Not easy I know.

The world has changed though, we are never going to get back to the whole extended family living in the same neighbourhood. People are often on here with complaints about 'strangers' (generally dirty) touching 'my' baby. They do not want to delegate to MIL,especially when they can't control! The nuclear family is here to stay.

I agree exotic. TBH I think people have a rose tinted view of the whole extended family scenario. I grew up with my mother's entire family (about 60 people) living within 3 miles. It wasn't all sunshine and roses and wonderful support. It was nice to see my cousins a lot but my mother and her siblings didn't really help each other out at all. There was plenty of sniping and feuding and back biting, as well as some fun times of course. It is nice to have a sense of community and of course in an emergency everyone did rally round, but it could be terribly stifling, especially as a child, when you had 8 aunts and uncles and their spouses watching your every move!

They do have a rose tinted view. MIL had a specially strong position,something they forget, so as a mother of 3DSs it might be quite nice!

I think nowadays "extended family" - in other words, people who can supply support and other adults to bond with and help care for the child/ren - needs to be broadened/loosened as a term that includes other carers, whether they are informal (friends) or paid (childcare professionals).

I agree that relatives aren't necessarily the ideal support squad! But leaving it all down to the one or two parents concerned looks like a model that fails too many people, especially mothers nowadays. Lots of us do have support within the community and among our friends, but I think there are also too many that don't. That's a lot of the reason why the Sure Start centres were started up - but typically, the parents who most need that kind of support are the ones least likely to access it.

I agree with Callin about your own situation, neeps - only you know what's best for you and your family, no one else has the right to make a judgement if your DC are well cared for, in whichever way that works best for them and you.