Matricentric feminism - the need for feminism to recognise the experience of mothers

[EmilyDickinson]

mommuseum.org/aint-i-a-feminist-matricentric-feminism-feminist-mamas-and-why-mothers-need-a-feminist-movementtheory-of-their-own/

There's an interesting article in the Guardian today (I'll link in a minute) that refers to this more detailed article.

Can someone explain to me what the love hormone is?

Is it the same hormone for men and women?

I think it’s probably reasonable to assume that the biological factors diminish in importance over time and that they are not so important that a healthy child can not be raised if the mother dies in childbirth. If it were the case then society would have been completely fucked by high levels of maternal mortality.

I can't be the only outlier whose hormones did them no good whatsoever either as a baby or in selecting a partner nor even as a mum.

Re the specific talking thing my sister has it, I see it in action, like with a lot of things re parenting I had to learn it was important, learn how to do it and focus on putting it into practice.

I’m being assessed re ASD, DD has a diagnosis. I have had to put a lot of effort into communication all my life.

I have always looked for guidance in science, created sets of rules to govern social situations and observed and refined.

None of that stuff associated with femininity comes naturally to me. I believe I have gotten quite good at a lot of things I am not naturally skilled at and so I generally lack patience re arguments that men ‘can’t’.

Great conversation.
I have chosen to SAHM. We are actually better off because I can focus on living frugally, we don't have costs related to commuting/childcare/my work wardrobe and no stress means we don't need holidays or takeaways etc.
I too resent the idea that because I have a good job I must hand over care to a low status woman and get a (woman) cleaner.
To me this feels like a feminist choice. We are financially comfortable though, with no mortgage (older parents, live in 'rough' area). A main motivation is that I'd have to do the bulk of wife work anyway if we both worked. My partner tries but he just has no idea about the things you need to think about. He has a chronic illness which flares with stress so it's easier all around.
I have to say though that the main factor enabling all this is seven years family leave from my 'high status' job. We have a woman dominated sector and a powerful union, but I think the union is about to trade in this leave option in its neoliberal reincarnation...

Yes NotMeThough why is it a feminist choice to delegate child rearing and cleaning to another woman who is poorly paid and, more than likely, having to support her children on those wages?

Just remembered a whole loaf of stuff on what psychologists called ‘motherease’
A sort of prosody that women used when caring for babies - that sing song baby talk - which helps children start to contstruct language.

(Rusty old psych degree not a total waste of time )

Finally caught up on this very interesting thread!
I think there are a lot of western society issues at play here, maybe not specifically western but that's what I'm familiar with.

I also think that capitalist/socialist/communist is too simplistic. Patriarchy transcends them all.

I think that posters touching on our society's value of children is getting close to the point. I think that can be extrapolated to our value of family.

I really liked the post by slightlyglittermaned

*That aside, I am less interested in the childcare choices of the wealthy and more interested in why so much effort goes in to keeping the world of children and work so separate.

Some is due to quite reasonable legislation to protect young children from exploitation. But the sheer outrage and horror on some threads about women taking their babies in to work is more than practicality - it is enforcing a cultural norm that children should remain separated from the world of work. Who benefits from the strength of that prohibition?*

Yes! The compartmentalised and institutionalised nature of our society. Shove the small ones into childcare/school institutions, shove the able bodied ones to produce as efficiently as possible, shove the mums away in their own homes or mums groups, shove the old ones somewhere out of the way. Nary shall the age groups mingle.

Sorry, tired, sick and incoherent... will come back and try again later...

The way we work is not actually particularly productive TBH. We would be more productive if we worked fewer hours with more breaks and if we made more use of the natural skills, initiative and creativity and if we wasted less time on management bullshit.

*creativity of the workforce

Absolutely ALittleBit. I watched some scenes recently of a woman who was the first senator in the USA (I think) to return to the House with her newborn baby (quiet and sleeping). The reaction was of trepidation, congratulation (aren't we great allowing a sleeping baby briefly within our hallowed halls) and rather patronising admiration for the mother for being able to appear halfway to a normal human being whilst also having given birth recently. For me really highlighted first that I don't think that there has been a mother and new born baby in the House of Commons here (what century are we in?) and also that while almost every mother has a) managed to create a whole human being from a single cell and b)if she doesn't do her job as a parent properly someone would actually die is somehow not quite up to doing a "normal" job until she's got rid of that pesky small person she seems so concerned about.

That's because women are socialised to speak with higher voices. Men can easily speak to their babies using a higher voice. They choose not too

Yes, watch lots of cat videos made by men - they use a higher pitch voice when talking to cats!

Men choose to do lots of things and choose not to do lots of things.

Personally, I think full equality involves men taking on 50% of the tasks currently done by mothers, rather than motherhood as something particularly feminine and female being venerated.

In pregnancy a woman's brain make enormous changes, this cannot be replicated by men.

im think the voice things has in part to do with the larynx , surely ? - that's the whole adams apple thing and voice breaking stuff they go through in puberty.

There aren’t two distinct categories of parenting tasks, the 100% biological (pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding) and the 100% socially constructed (maths homework, ironing).

Some men do use the baby voice when talking to babies.

Yes, some men, some women and some children use what used to be called motherese and is now I think called caretaker speech. I.e. Higher than normal pitch, lots of repetition, short phrases, some child specific words like "choo choo" instead of train.

What I meant earlier is that most women naturally have a higher pitched voice than men so that even when not doing caretaker speech they might be easier for babies to tune into. I stress that I don't think that this is an argument for women to care for babies and children rather than men. I think looking after small children is something most of us get better at with practice.

Personally, I think full equality involves men taking on 50% of the tasks currently done by mothers, rather than motherhood as something particularly feminine and female being venerated.

Broadly, yes, but I think this must be done with regard to biology and child development. I think that we should stop setting things up to be the mother at home alone with the baby for a start. 0-3 is a very important stage for attachment. Fathers specifically should be more involved during this period but I think it is also the period where biology is likely to be most important (though diminishing over that period). Boys and men need to be supported not only to see this as important but to learn the necessary skills, it should not be left to the mother to teach them whilst caring for the newborn/small child. Many of the problems stem from ‘not my job’ and ‘don’t know how to do it’.

Mothers need to be being supported to recover from the birth too during this time. There are many prejudices in the system such as being a young mother means you don’t know how to parent, being married means you don’t need any other support etc etc

The principle should be that universally mothers are supported after birth and that fathers are required to take on some of that work as well as being required to play an active role in the child’s life.

I don’t think equality has anything to do with dividing life tasks (child rearing, house keeping etc) down the middle.

We need better recognition of the tasks women have fulfilled at home for centuries and across cultures.

There should be a step up from universal services of support where men fail to live up to that responsibility or where it is inappropriate for them to do so and women should have access to that stepped up service based on the lack of support rather than by targeting certain groups based on morality/stats.

We need better recognition of the tasks women have fulfilled at home for centuries and across cultures

Sure. Then men would do them.

@EmilyDickinson I remember thinking that if I could just take the baby to work with me I could manage. Maybe I was naive but it does seem that most workplaces are set up in such a way that we should pretend that children don't exist.

The problems with taking kids to work are multiple:

1. As a former building fire marshal, I would not be at all happy with people routinely bringing children to work, because the parent leaves the child in the office whilst they nip out on an errand, the fire alarm goes off, and the parent has to return to the office instead of leaving directly, delaying their evacuation and risking the safety of the child.
2. There are lots of work environments that are not suitable for children, especially very young ones. Even ignoring the obvious cases of laboratories, workshops, and factories, workplaces tend not be child-proofed. Where I work has a huge feature staircase that can't have a baby gate fitted. Shop workers can hardly take children onto the shop floor.
3. I work in an open-plan office and have a roughly 2m 1.6m rectangle for me and my desk, of which around 0.8m 1.6m is taken up by my desk. I'm not sure where the playpen and the cot are going to fit in this space. I'm lucky in having my own desk: many workers don't do desk-based work or have to hotdesk.
4. You can work or you can watch your child to make sure they don't garrote themselves with the mouse cable, not both.
5. If a kid starts screaming in my open-plan office, I have to stay there regardless to do my work and this puts me at risk of a migraine. Thanks to my employer's draconian sickness policy, time off recovering risks my job.

After watching my dad miraculously learn cooking, laundry, cleaning, and even minor sewing operations after my parents' divorce, I can assure you that men can learn how to help. I would argue that a matricentric feminism would be applying pressure to men to really pick up the work at home, and pressure to politicians to enact policies (e.g. more paid paternity leave) to make that possible. I'd also like to see an increase in on-site creche provision at workplaces because minimising the time spent dropping kids off and allowing parents to pop in and see the kids at lunchtime will be good for the whole family.

I don’t think many work places are health environments for babies, and I include workplace crèches in that. They tend to be very busy and over stimulating with parents popping in and out all day. Add the journey to and from work and the noise/light/exposure to toxins of the whole set up is pretty scary.

Most environments I have worked have been totally unsuitable for children.

The principle should be that universally mothers are supported after birth and that fathers are required to take on some of that work as well as being required to play an active role in the child’s life.

I don't think this is encouraged at all at the moment. After DD2 was born I would have loved a midwife or health visitor to take DH aside and have a word or simply require that - when in the house - he be there to listen to the instructions about DD2s care. Things like jaundice and appointments for that he could have entirely dealt with. He got really pissed off that they were constantly asking me how I was feeling. How I was feeling was overwhelmed, in pain, bleeding heavily and sleep deprived, and as if it would have been nice for someone to get me a drink while breastfeeding even one fucking time. Having to deal with him feeling pushed out was an extra level of torture. Would have liked him to have been treated as a responsible parent and partner (and yeah, they could have asked how he was feeling too.). As it was, his engagement with what had happened to me and the baby was entirely relayed to me & it was left to me to do the additional job of trying to persuade him to help me (e.g with c section wound care). Most of the time I just did things myself because it seemed like it would be easier and I was very close to collapse / going mad. The pain was very bad.

Feeling kind of sad. I really feel I got very little support post-natally with DD2. I was let down by the NHS, by the state in all its guises, by my parents and by DH. I bet my experience is really common.