an open letter to jessica valenti
Friday, November 2, 2012 at 10:50PM This post could be subtitled: Wherein I Refer Not To Your Book (which I haven't read) But To The Interview I Heard On The Radio The Other Morning.
Jessica Valenti founded a website I like a lot and has recently written a book: Why Have Kids?: A New Mom Explores the Truth About Parenting and Happiness. She is mother to a toddler (I gather) and has been making the rounds as a "young feminist" who is tackling "the issues" or, diving headlong into the profitable and ridiculous "Mommy Wars" which is a phrase I already regret typing despite that last thing I said being (subjectively) true. I was disappointed at many points during her interview in ways that I frequently feel disappointed with my contemporaries in the feminist community.
Dear Ms. Valenti,
I realize that mine is a difficult undertaking, given that I haven't read your book. To be honest, my reading wish list is long, and includes many things I plan to read for reasons other than providing thorough refutations of Internet Personalities' views on parenting. So, please cut me some slack in that department and I'll stick to what I heard you say in this interview on NPR to which I would link if I could find it.
You seem to be taking the position that I've read and heard so often in the past few years: that parenthood is too hard on women. That attachment parenting is demeaning and demanding in unreasonable ways, particularly to women. That "problems" with these newfangled methods are, then, a feminist issue. I heard you smugly chuckle at the idea that some parents choose to watch their babies for elimination cues and take them to the toilet rather than change diapers. 
You scoffed, audibly, at the recommendation that parents wear their children as much as possible; at co-sleeping. You implied that these choices -- made by adults, generally after doing some research -- are making women unhappy, and that if it were more widely publicized that parenthood sucked so bad, if there were more affordable avenues for leaving your kids with someone else while you get on with your life, maybe fewer people would respond so negatively to the experience of raising children.
I'd like to talk a little about this, personally. While obviously not the case for everyone, my children were my liberation. After years of working jobs I didn't like to make ends meet, putting off the possibility of seeking out work I found fulfilling because I couldn't afford to fail, I got pregnant. There was nothing noble or progressive about the job I had when I got pregnant, but quitting it to raise my children has easily been the most controversial parenting choice I've made. Politically active, feminist-identified friends have given me figurative head pats, pep talks about re-entering the workforce someday, and treated me like a twee relic because I choose not to work outside the home. They have congratulated me on being self-sacrificing enough to take on things like cloth diapering because, while they'd really love to, they just can't imagine having the time. Like many people, I've had lifelong struggles with my body image. It wasn't until having children -- birthing them, unapologetically feeding them in public, witnessing their guileless exploration of my flabby upper arms, acne scars, and stretched belly -- that I began to accept and eventually appreciate my body for what it was and expect that others do the same. I found myself hoping for my kids to find meaning and joy in their days and, in trying to engineer that for my children, I've learned to search for and value the same for myself, whether it's a paid, intellectual pursuit or not. Because it almost never is.
When asked the perfunctory question (why have kids?), you said there were two answers, a real one and a jokey one: you came from a large Italian family, and (basically) because kids say the darndest things. I realize that this was oversimplified but it still gave me pause. I had kids because I wanted to create a family with my partner, because I thoroughly enjoy children and because I knew I'd be good at it. Familial expectations didn't play into my decision, and similarly, I didn't have another child just to give my son a sibling. People should be parents because and only because they want to be, and believe they would be good at it. I agree that parental unhappiness stems in part from the lack of resources, but cheap daycare is not on my list of ways to make parents generally happier (It is, however, on my list of things we should do because it makes sense.). Instead, I take issue with a society that throws weddings to which children are not invited or relegated to a "childcare room" (because 200 adults can't just redirect a kid sticking his fingers in the wedding cake? Or, god forbid, hang out with some children?). I blame a country wherein breastfeeding in public is a debatable issue, and 30-something year old friends meeting my daughter for the first time say they've never held a baby before. We are setting up parents to fail by treating children like burdens we need to escape from, rather than welcoming them into the communities they'll inherit. We keep kids' normal behaviors a secret until those often confusing traits are foisted upon underslept, stressed parents focused on maintaining their "normal lives" and wondering why nobody told them that newborns actually eat every 3 hours...for 2 and a half hours. Including our children in our lives in both meaningful and mundane ways, incorporating them into everyday life so that they become as much a fixture as our phones, exposing others to the normality of childhood so that they know what to expect of young people: that's a way to make people enjoy parenting. Realistic expectations breed success. Attachment parenting, allowing a place for children in our everyday lives, enables that.
The question: are you mom enough? is not a question posed by well-meaning fellow mothers or even sympathetic feminists. It's yet another shitty patriarchal device used to pit us against one another, and it, along with all the other trappings of misogyny, are what's making women unhappy. Just as I don't allow the patriarchy to dictate where my value begins and ends, I don't want to teach people that their value will begin when they can make themselves useful (by my standards), or that I will put up with their difficult nature as long as it doesn't hinder my own pursuits. I had kids to teach, to love, to pay attention to and nurture in whatever way they need. I hope to have many years of watching my independent offspring fend mostly for themselves, but that just isn't the deal when they're little and I knew that when I signed up for this gig. If it were a more widely known fact about parenting, perhaps that would make for happier parents.
Attachment parenting isn't making women unhappy. Following others' whims rather than deciding what works for your family? Sure, that'll do it. Uncertainty makes judgment feel harsher, hurt worse. Trying to squeeze your child into a philosophy that doesn't resonate with her? Failure: that'll make everyone unhappy. But don't blame women who believe fervently in and advocate for a more responsive way of parenting. Don't chuckle about parents who make educated choices that differ from yours. Then you're just throwing fuel on Time Magazine's beach bonfire. Some people find liberation in raising babies and chickens and the freedom to go to the library at 11am any damn day of the week, and nobody gets to tell me that isn't a part of my feminism.
Respectfully,
Stefanie
Reader Comments (7)
I read Valenti's book but haven't heard the NPR interview (hopefully that will be online soon). Jessica talked throughout on how women judge each other based on mothering choices. However - I did sense some judgement coming from her as well, such as when she was talking about elimination communication in the book.
Due to circumstances, she was unable to have the natural childbirth she had dreamed of. She was unable to breastfeed her baby, since her child had to spend the first few months of her life in an incubator. She talked about how she was judged by women out in public because she bottle fed her baby (after she tried to hard to make breastfeeding work with a preemie - breast pumping and all).
For me, it was refreshing to see another perspective. I want to read it all - the good, bad and the ugly. I'm not a mother but it is a dream of mine. I am curious as to whether I could be a good parent since my own childhood was so bad. I have a lot of love to give and unlimited patience but I don't know if that's enough. Brad tells me that most of his friends "regret" having their children and that is sad for me to hear.
Were most of us "burdens" to our parents, so we feel the same for the next generation?
Randi, I think you'd be an excellent mother. You're self aware and loving, and those are the two most important qualities I can think of in a parent. I had a weird and shitty childhood as well, and there are definitely imprints that I struggle to overcome when dealing with triggering things my kids do. The best I can muster is my best, and an apology when that falls short. If my kids encounter someone perfect in their lifetimes, I'm just setting them up for a pleasant surprise, but otherwise, I think it's important to model that nobody's perfect, I always love them, and sometimes you screw up but you try to do better.
What you say about JV's book is interesting. That isn't at all what she discussed in the interview, but it sounds like her distaste for AP is largely sour grapes? I've found that people whose visions are different than their realities often perceive more opposition than they're actually getting. I also think she may be oversimplifying things, if she's hung up on a few negative interactions about bottle feeding, when she's blaming the whole of attachment parenting for keeping women idle in the home. I'm sorry she couldn't breastfeed if that was her goal, but also...she's not only bottlefeeding, she's giving anti-AP interviews on NPR.
*applause*
The other piece to this that I rarely see addressed in the argument that attachment parenting is somehow anti-feminist is, um...the partners of the mothers? My husband changes (and washes, and folds, and puts away) cloth diapers. My husband holds or wears a baby. My husband takes part in cooking, cleaning, and the general upkeep of our home. He plays, he teaches, he nurtures.
What is anti-feminist is the assumption that any parenting style rests solely on the shoulders of the mother, and that the answer is not shared parenting and a society that encourages men to step up and take an active and equal role in raising their children and keeping their houses, but either cheap daycare or not having kids.
I am so over people who want to neglect their kids in the name of "feminism." And I consider passing your kids off to someone else every chance you get neglect. Every woman doesn't have to have children, and natural parenting isn't anti-feminist. In fact, the "you can have it all" ideal pushed by society is very anti-woman. Attachment parenting went out of fashion partly because society told women that their bodies belonged to their husbands. Perhaps if everyone practiced more natural parenting, boys would grow up with more respect for women and families and girls would grow up with more self-esteem.
Joella, YES. She spoke a little about that in the interview I heard, but as she framed it, the responsibility for caretaking was mainly the (bio)mother's. I guess because of breastfeeding? Which is a legitimate time-suck, to be sure, but there are so many other time consuming and labor intensive things about childrearing that can be divvied up among parents and other caregivers. It seemed like an obvious mistake for a very well-educated feminist to make, so I'm wondering if that was addressed more fully in the book.
"What is anti-feminist is the assumption that any parenting style rests solely on the shoulders of the mother, and that the answer is not shared parenting and a society that encourages men to step up and take an active and equal role in raising their children and keeping their houses, but either cheap daycare or not having kids."
May I just stand and applaud? Let's see research from all parents and potential parents for these offspring they are choosing to bring into the world. Let's remember that we were once children and our children will some day be adults. We are separate species who have nothing in common. We are all people, and in the case of parents and children, we are all family (however that family may have come about). Responding to other people and treating them as people is the focus of feminism! We shouldn't pick and choose which subgroups are worthy of being treated as equals.
Thanks Stefanie.. you're the first person to tell me that and it means a lot. You should definitely read the book, they have it at the Bellingham Public Library. The excerpts I read beforehand made me think that this was going to be very different book.
What I got from it was that there is a lot of pressure on women to do it all - breastfeeding, attachment parenting, elimination communication, being the sole caregiver.. etc. I think she touched on how there is little support there is for women (from society, their work environment or their partners) that chose to Attachment Parent, especially when they work outside the home. I think the ideal is Nathan, but most men seem to think that the responsibility falls solely on the woman's shoulders.
Of course I haven't read or listened to any interviews with Valenti. If I did, her opinions on the subject might be more telling.
BTW.. I also hope you are planning on writing a book. ;-)