Why I, as a mother… Being a mother can change our perspectives and priorities

[UtopiaPlanitia]

Excellent article by Victoria Smith that I thought might interest FWR.

https://thecritic.co.uk/why-i-as-a-mother/

'Like many women before and after me, I had a fairly straightforward view of what my experience of “progressive” motherhood might be. I might have children, but it would not change me as a person. There was, I imagined, a fixed version of “me”, and I would be on my guard never to lose her….The practicalities of my life might alter, but I would not become hyper-feminine, closed-minded, dependent. The spectre of the tradwife loomed before me, long before tradwives were a thing….

… Decades later, I convinced myself that good liberal motherhood required the cultivation of an unmaternal identity that proved I’d remained unmarked by breeding. I would downplay or deny any difference between my experience of parenthood and that of my male partner. I wouldn’t say “as a mother” because there is nothing I, as a mother, might know that anyone else could not. Any positive qualities I retained would be unrelated to anything that had happened in relation to having kids.

I was reminded of these ambitions when reading Caitlin Moran’s response to Vance’s comments. In a Times article titled “Don’t call the childless deranged, it’s mothers who can be awful”, she declared her aim “to firmly rebut Vance’s suggestion that motherhood makes women better citizens by confessing something I suspect many mothers will echo: I was never a worse human being in my life than when I was a mother”.

As a tongue-in-cheek attempt to ridicule delusions of maternal superiority, it is effective. But why play that game? Isn’t this what good, progressive mothers always do — make ourselves smaller, boil it all down to sleepless nights and rages, desperate to prove we’ve not fallen for the conservative mummy myth? Is that really how we show the “cat ladies” we’re on their side?….

…According to the trans writer Grace Lavery, “leaky boobs and the school run” represent “the revenge of feminist grievance against feminist pleasure”. It is a fine summation of the way in which the mother as archetype and as embodied, thinking human being stands in the way of the model of selfhood most beloved of the Left. She is cast as conservative — and conservatives are quick to claim her — but this is to confuse the rejection of one form of identity politics with the embrace of another….

…Modern identity politics wants individuality, unfettered self-realisation, total freedom. Motherhood gets in the way of this, not because conservative politicians imbue it with conservative “family values”, but because of what motherhood is.

The experiences of pregnancy, birth, nursing and raising children are not random, niche or insignificant. On the contrary, they can grant insights and shift priorities in ways that matter.'

She is such a great writer

She really is. I find her analysis very insightful.

It's an interesting little essay, But I find it a little unsatisfying. It seems to me that it asks some questions but doesn't follow her insights any further than would be comfortable, somehow.

And this:

Whenever we fall over ourselves to insist that motherhood leaves us untouched in any serious political or emotional sense, we downplay what we feel and what we know. When J.D. Vance claims motherhood “changes your perspective in a pretty profound way”, I doubt he is thinking of the same changes I am.

Why would she think that, based on what she's said in this article, I suspect they do mean a lot of the same things. What kinds of things is she imagining he thinks?

I sometimes feel certain progressive writers have some very strange ideas about conservatives. Even the ones like Vance who are actually kind of weirdos are still people with people's experiences of reality. The fact that motherhood changes people very profoundly is obvious to pretty much everyone who isn't ideologically committed to not noticing.

Because of biological essentialism women were chained to the kitchen sink and girls were indoctrinated to believe that being a mother was the pinnacle of their existence.

Feminism wanted women to gain financial independence and seize opportunities. As such motherhood was sidelined.

Conservatives have always seen the traditional family as the ideal and society is geared towards parenthood. However, it's when a woman becomes a mother that she really sees the yawning chasm that is patriarchy.

The author is right that Conservatives like Vance idealise mothers without helping them. They don't want women to have abortions for example, but don't want to provide assistance once the child is born. The US doesn't even have maternity pay.

Motherhood is valued in one sense but devalued because it centres women. However childless women aren't valued at all; they're the madwoman in society's attic.

In politics they're seen as a threat in that they don't quite fit. Harris is kind of excused because she has step children but Trump keeps on gnawing away at how weird she is because she hasn't had children.

Women are devalued if they have children and devalued if they don’t. We can’t win because we’re not the ones setting the terms for our own worth.

I actually feel as if this board is a place where women from all backgrounds bring their experiences to inform how we define ourselves and that is one of the reasons why I love it. It also demonstrates why it’s so important for women to keep talking to each other and to have spaces where we can do that, so we can break down these artificial barriers that are meant to separate us.

Thanks for posting the article OP - I love her writing although, like others, I wish she had reached a stage where she was able to define more fully what she does feel ‘as a mother’. Janice Turner did an excellent job of that in the times a few months ago - I think this is the thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5038472-lovely-article-on-having-children-by-janice-turner

I was struck by Morans reaction
A man (who has already proven himself to be deeply mysogynistic) attacks one group of women and her instinct is to go "no actually it's the other group of women that are the awful ones. We're cool please like me oh male, pretty please" its not just deeply cringe it's also playing right into the hands of these people.

In general I would agree that even (shock horror) a conservatives view of motherhood is worth listening to - and might chime well with my own. But I do think Wood is correct when she says Vances own view of how motherhood changes you is probably very different to hers or mine or yours. It's hard to tell what his genuine beliefs are since he changes what he says so frequently but at best I think he idealises it as womens real interests/wants change into whatever he needs them to be at that moment in time. And not just mothers actually (does JD Vance need help from his Mil? Fortunately it turns out that the reason grandmother's exist is so they can provide childcare and they are happiest doing this etc). It's a way of seeming to acknowledge what women do, without having to acknowledge that there has been any sacrifice on their part. In fact he has done them a favour by enabling them to fulfil their natural role. It's not a left right thing, it's an entitled prat thing.

I'm normally a fan but found this a disappointing read. With all the word salad, she completely fails to specify quite in what way/on what issues breeding status has in her view impacted her perspective. Does she claim, as the couchfucker does, to have more vested interest in the future of humankind than the average catlady? Does she claim some unique capacity for empathy inaccessible to the child free, as I once saw a friend of a friend state on Facebook? What exactly in concrete terms does she lay claim to? There's nothing but waffling.

She isn’t particularly specific but I think she’s right in identifying the fact that for many women being a mother does mark a shift. I’m not sure she has to specify what that shift is just that there is a change. Would I have been concerned about sex based rights coming under attack if I hadn’t had a child. Yes. Would I have been as angry as I am, possibly not, I am thinking of my daughter first and foremost.

I think progressives often fail to identify conservative reasoning accurately and it falls into a pit of assumptions or worst possible motives ascribed tbh.There is the impression for example that conservatives may only be concerned about TRA’s because they are religious, right wing bigots. It may just be that like many on the left they see it as harmful to women and children.

The left and the right have problems with women and where to place them once they become mothers is even more fraught. It brings to mind an article I read about a writers mother who was a a very active communist and trade unionist in America. She was basically left with her grandparents and barely saw her mum even when she was in the same city. There was a heavy theme there of not being taken seriously as a comrade if she had a baby in tow.

I think there is an assumption that having children does make you smaller on both extremes. You can’t be fully committed to the revolution with your kids in tow or you should be retreating into a world of baking and motherly sacrifice.

@User37482 I don't think its even a left/right thing TBH. People on the left and right have children and want to give those children good, safe, well balanced upbringings. Everyone on the left and the right (and the middle) was (as in the essay) completely vulnerable and utterly dependent on someone else's care at some point in their lives. I think she is right that that threatens certain peoples political sensibilities both on the right (individualism, libertarianism, Nietschen super man) and the left (identity groups).

I wouldn't say just identity groups on the left. Certainly the communist regimes only wanted women to be mothers insofar as it served the party. Actually caring for children was the work of less valuable women in society, and if a pregnancy wasn't convenient for the regime women were expected to abort.

And the type of feminism that turns up its nose at mothers predates identity politics.

I do agree with you about the motives thing and it seems to me that sometimes that is about a kind of historical blindness. Were women constrained to the kitchen sink? Well some were, but often their husbands were constrained to the mine of the quarry - choices about employment were not a major feature of many people's lives.

The idea that conservatives don't want to help families I think is also quite misplaced. Most conservatives in places like the US don't see that as best done by government, for all kinds of reasons. Some around creating negative incentives for individuals, but also because they see it as a way the state can expert control over poor families, particularly using it as a way to buy votes - which creates an incentive for the state to keep such people poor. That doesn't mean they don't think there is a strong ethical obligation to support mothers and babies in other ways and lots of people do. Now, people may think that's a foolish concern, but it's not about not wanting to help families or women.

@TempestTost In America, there is a very weird marriage between the more traditional conservative groups, and the tech-bro, ultra libertarian, Rand reading types. Who absolutely do see themselves as individuals who shouldn't have to beholden to or dependent on others. Even the early culture of google etc was very much about people competing with how long they could stay in the office for - a workplace culture built around the idea of never leaving. It was probably fun, but very much the kind of thing only a young single person can do - or a man who never ever sees his family (and therefore can never be a father figure). Later on you got the idolisation of "disruption" as a key principle in what everyone does. If you aren't effecting constant uprooting change in an industry you aren't competing. There are many conservatives who value community, small scale society over the big state and genuinely believe in it. But you can't actually participate adequately in your community if you are working 16 hours a day in an Amazon factory, or constantly hustling in a gig economy, or sleeping on the floor of your company to "set an example" as a senior member of the management team.

The only way you can square that circle is to decide, essentially, that some people are the natural hustlers, hard workers who just want to earn the big bucks. They get lots of money because they choose this. And others are born to altruism etc, they don't actual need to be paid, receive status for what they do - because that's not what makes them happy. It doesn't just affect mothers - studies have shown that the more people consider soldiers, nurses, care workers as ultra altruistic heros/angels the less likely they are to believe they deserve pay increases. (If someone chooses to do a job for reasons other than the high salary, then obviously being paid well isn't important to them so we don't need to pay them :) ) Mothers (and family careers) are at the sharpest end of this.

To pretend this is only a problem of the left in America is stupid. Even Solzenitsen warned against the rampant consumerism/individualism in American society. And he was NOT a fan of communism.

Yes, libertarians and conservatives both get pushed under the Republican wing. I think that in terms of the two groups outside of that, their crossing is much less complete.

Where they meet is possibly in that they don't really want high level state involvement as a major part of the picture, so they aren't going to go for a socialist or even social democratic model But individualism and communitarianism aren't the same model either.

On the other hand, the left has also got a very strong individualist-liberal tradition in terms of social issues, which is where you get total sexual freedom and such without any thought of who is vulnerable or what the social consequences might be. They end up under the Democratic party the same way as those on the left who see more of a role for social norms and social networks.

Basically - both the left and right seem to have an individualist and communitarian element, and their approaches are very different even though they are in the same political party.

I'm not sure I'd say of the two, the Republicans are having more problems with the individualists. The Democrats seem to be the ones losing the more traditional left members, and some of them, like the Hispanics, they are losing to the Republicans.

I'm not really sure if Moran has a sense of commonality with other women - in my view, she's spent most of her life playing the cool 'not like other girls' woman and that doesn't exactly engender any feelings of shared experience or existence.