When I saw last week’s much-discussed Time magazine cover with its provocative mom-breastfeeds-toddler photo I groaned, worried that the debate over attachment parenting and breastfeeding would bring with it another chapter in the “mommy wars.”
When it comes to parental choices, such as staying at home vs. going back to work, breastfeeding vs. bottle-feeding, it seems that even some of the most die-hard feminists struggle to apply the rhetoric of reproductive justice — that every choice is unique to the woman who is making it and can’t be understood unless we’re in her shoes to the choices we make after birth.
But the media’s focus on the “mommy wars” ignores the real issue: Without policies that support families, no moms (or dads) can make those parenting choices that are so hyped up by the media. The folks at MomsRising are starting a campaign to ask Time to change its focus on covering families. They write:
What makes TIME’s decision to focus on trying to fan the flames of outdated, false “mommy wars” so utterly shameful is the fact that there are so many real and pressing issues facing America’s mothers right now that aren’t being covered. Issues like the fact that childcare costs more than college in many states, that 80% of low wage workers don’t have a single earned sick day, that women (particularly moms) face rampant pay discrimination, and that over 176 countries have some form of paid family leave, but the U.S. doesn’t.
These facts are stark. We remain the only country in the industrialized world without paid sick leave or mandatory paid parental leave. We have pitiful and costly daycare options, and there is little support for single mothers, poor mothers and others. Bryce Covert recently wrote a piece at the Nation about how new mothers are being driven into debt. She interviewed several women who had complications that led to their being driven deep into debt, or on a razor’s edge.
Grandmothers and more experienced mothers: You’re starting to scare me. I appreciate the constant cooing over my little girl, I do. But the nostalgia you regularly voice is worrisome.
My year-old daughter, Lila, and I are regularly stopped by women who identify themselves as having “older” or “grown” children, and most don’t sound so happy about it. More experienced mothers constantly urge me to “enjoy this time” with my baby — as if I’m not — always assuring me “it goes fast.” As you say these things, you sound either wistful or like you’re delivering a warning.
Is it adolescence that everyone has in mind, when I fully anticipate Lila’s being in full teenage-rebellion mode — mortified by my every comment and very existence? Or is it something else, something more enduring? Perhaps it varies by mother.
On a recent outing to the supermarket, Lila was wearing her eye-catching pink floral hat. “Take pictures,” a woman told me. “When she’s older, she’ll never believe she wore that. I know. I used to dress my kids in special clothes like that when they were younger, but now they’re teenagers.”
She looked unhappy as she said it — her voice betraying the sentiment of my own mother’s oft-repeated maxim: “Bigger kids, bigger problems.”
Upon seeing Lila, a grandmother we often bump into in our neighborhood talks about her grandson. Apparently, he was a few years behind me in college. Standing before me, his mother – who also lives nearby – seems lost in her memories, recalling how she stayed home to raise her two sons. It sounds like those were cherished days.
Truth is, some of you sound almost heartbroken.
I am a new mother, but I am not a young mother. I am an old enough new mother, in fact, that my formative Mother’s Days date back to a hippie household in the early 1970s. Inside the walls of our little bohemian family enclave, calendar-driven sentiment was discouraged, even disparaged. But it wasn’t quite forbidden — if only because no behavior was really forbidden. So I always made a point of presenting Mom with handwritten poems and handmade cards on Mother’s Day.
I’m convinced my DIY tokens of affection kept the inevitable discourse on consumerism shorter than store-bought gifts might have prompted. Nevertheless, over the years I became well versed on the dubious origins of the holiday and the part it played in the grand conspiracy to impoverish working families at the expense of corporate interests.
Later, as a young bride — and I was a young bride — one of the things I found most charming about my in-laws was their rigid obeisance of holiday ritual. Not only do they observe all the major public holidays with family get-togethers, they do so in a nearly identical manner each and every time — a small home-cooked meal prepared by the woman of the house and served as close to 2 p.m. as possible.
I love to cook and I like to fete others. So, for the first few years of my marriage, I enjoyed preparing and presiding over these small elegant Mother’s Day gatherings. Then, as my own quest to become a mother hit the brick wall of infertility, the ritual of Mother’s Day became bittersweet once again. As I rolled out the piecrust, stirred the gravy, and set the table these past few years I couldn’t help wondering, “When will it ever be my turn?”
Crossposted from Jewesses With Attitude
It’s Mother’s Day, and the way this secular holiday is celebrated in the Jewish media reveals a range of beliefs and attitudes towards Jewish motherhood and the role of women in the Jewish world.
On one end of the spectrum, Mother’s Day is an opportunity to recognize Jewish mothers as unsung heroes of the domestic sphere — as the cherished, revered, spiritual and moral compass of their nuclear families. This is exemplified in a new commercial for Wissotsky Tea called “Tribute to the Jewish Mother,” shared with us via Twitter.
Obviously, this video by Shmuel Hoffman was intended for an Orthodox audience. It was commissioned by the Ptex Group, Wissotzky’s ad agency in Brooklyn. While it recognizes the dedication and hard work of religious Jewish homemakers, which should be recognized and valued, it is limited by its reductive definition of Jewish motherhood. The whole story of Jewish motherhood is so much broader than that.
Have you ever noticed that some of the juiciest conversations seem to pop up instantly? This mother and her twenty-something daughter frequently find themselves working in front of the computer when an instant message appears on their screen. Here’s one recent back-and-forth that grew out of an IM conversation between mother and daughter.
Alexis: So it’s official, I’m off birth control! Crazy, huh?
Sharon: Wow, you really did it. So exciting. How are you feeling?
Alexis: I’m freaked. I’m happy, of course, to get off the hormones after all this time, but not sure I’m really ready for this whole baby-making business. James just emailed me our health insurance benefits with all of the maternity coverage highlighted. Aah!
Sharon: Well, I had no idea how long it was going to take for me to get pregnant, so your dad and I just jumped in. We didn’t realize it was going to happen so fast. Remember, I told you, after only 6 weeks you were on the way—so watch out!
Alexis: I really hope it comes that easy for us. I thought all my oogling over pregnant women and babies meant I was ready. But when I think about it seriously, I’m not so sure.
Moms are everywhere these days: The Tigers, The French, The Sling Aficionados and Ecological Purists. It seems like there is nothing as endlessly fascinating or controversial as the decisions women make about raising their kids. I wish — wish! — I could have written “men and women make” in the last sentence, but mums the word on dads these days.
Motherhood is so compelling that it has turned into a marketable skill, particularly for floundering celebrities who see motherhood as a last ditch effort to hold onto the spotlight. And, according to the New York Times style section, it works. For stars like Jessica Simpson, Tori Spelling, Bethenny Frankel and “Snooki” “parenthood has become a viable Plan B.” “Being a celebrity mom has more business opportunities than ever before,” Peter Grossman, the photo editor of Us Weekly, told the Times. “Now, it’s not just about selling your baby pics. It’s starting a clothing line or endorsing a stroller. The value of a celebrity mom has never been higher.”
The Times story outlines all the various celebs that have taken this route, but fails to acknowledge the larger societal fascination, or obsession, with motherhood and child-rearing that is behind the rise of the “momprenuer.”
I don’t know why mothering is of such interest right now, but I do know that it isn’t good for moms, no matter which “side” of the various debates they fall. All the chatter — breastfeeding until age 3 vs. formula, lavishly praising your kids for their efforts vs. pushing them harder, epidurals vs. “natural” birth — only serves to convince all of us that these are the most important decisions in the world, and that one false move will mess up us or our kids, possibly forever.
Ultimately, most moms aren’t as doctrinaire as attachment disciple Mayim Bialik or tough-love queen Amy Chua. Few of us have the time or stamina to see any of these “parenting styles” out to their fullest.
So what do we get from these debates? Stress. Insecurities. Competitiveness. Oh, and distraction!
One of the best protest signs I’ve seen lately was at Saturday’s ‘National Protest Against the War on Women.’ It reads: “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit.” I”ll amend that in my response to the question, Katie Roiphe raises, of whether or not there’s a taboo around being childfree. Yes, there is, and I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation.
On my next birthday, I’ll be 34, which, from what I understand, is around the time my biological clock is supposed to start screaming at me, although I know folks for whom this screaming started a while ago.
But I’ve known I didn’t want children since I was one myself. I’ll be honest: There’s nothing attractive about child-rearing to me. And I hope that if I ever start to hear this alleged siren of breeding, I’ll be able to hold the fact that my life right now is the life I want, and that once children are had, I can’t go back in time and get that life again. (Nope, not even when they’re 18 or 30.)
If there is one thing I’ve learned in 33 years of living in a female body, it is that every decision I make that’s not in line with traditionally accepted gender roles will be pathologized. Without children, Roiphe suggests that I can’t even be a grown up in the right way. Apparently, what makes someone a grown up is doing what people tell you to do — even if you know, deep down, that it’s not what you want or what would be good for you.
So it seems like if the much-hyped new HBO show “Girls” was really tapped into the zeitgeist it would be about a feisty foursome of best friends — made up of mothers and daughters. Yep, move over old college roommates and next-door neighbors, the growing bond between mothers and daughters is the latest and greatest in friendship trends among women.
In this week’s New York magazine, there is a piece by Paige Williams called “My Mom Is My BFF” all about chummy mummy-daughter combos And last week the Los Angeles Times had a piece about how older moms prefer the company of their daughters to that of their husbands.
Williams profiles mom Julie Blinkas and her daughter, Samantha. They sometimes don the same outfits and have been mistaken for lovers on their many trips abroad together. We also learn that Samantha’s teenage friends find Julie hot, but that it doesn’t seem to bother Samantha too much.
Julie is an operations executive, whose job involves a decent amount of travel. Julie’s husband prefers his couch and frozen pizza to exotic vacations, so Julie takes her daughter. Samantha is 19 and studying acting at NYU. Her parents rented an apartment in the village so that they can visit often.
Outside of the compelling profile of Julie and Samantha, Williams doesn’t provide a tremendous amount of evidence that their relationship is emblematic of a trend, rather than just an exception. As of now, this seems to be more a point of fascination for sociologists and reality TV producers, instead of an actual shift in parent-children relationships.
Williams sees in this kind of relationship parents who think that treating children as adults helps turn them into adults. If they succeed they get a wise, responsible kid — and a peer. She also suggests that in a youth-obsessed culture moms can shrink the age difference by looking and talking like their daughters. The old line “you’re sisters, right?” has never been so valuable or desired.
Adrienne Rich has died, and a voice who provided invaluable insight to the discourse on motherhood, on feminism, on Jewish identity and on sexual politics, has been stilled.
Rich, who was 82, died Tuesday at her home in California. Described in her New York Times obituary, as “a poet of towering reputation and towering rage,” Rich was a prolific writer who authored 32 books of poetry and prose, and indefatigable political activist.
Born to a Gentile mother and a Jewish father, Rich grew to identify strongly as a Jew. When a student at Radcliffe, she married a man from an observant Jewish family, and together they had three sons. Though her early poetry had been praised by W.H. Auden, she stopped writing, for a time, when she married. It was domestic life that brought her back into writing, and into her evolving identities.
My husband never babysits — and it doesn’t bother me one bit.
Allow me to explain: Following an extended maternity leave, I’m about to return to graduate school to complete my master’s degree in English literature. Naturally, people have been asking me about what I’m going to do for childcare. But since I was able to schedule all of my classes in the evening, my husband will be home by the time I leave for school.
“Great, so hubby is babysitting!” comes the usual reply. No he isn’t. He’s parenting. And calling him a “babysitter” insults this hard and important work that he does.
It is true that the vast majority of our baby’s care and other household duties fall to me, and I think that’s perfectly fair — given that I am home while my husband is working. Though he may not have the privilege of spending as much time with our son as I do, when he is home, he does everything that I do with the baby (minus the nursing).
Jewish law and tradition support an active role for fathers.
There she went, waving over her father’s shoulder. My husband pushed a loaded luggage cart outside the departure level sidewalk at JFK with one hand and carried our daughter with the other. I stood beside the car blowing kisses and watching her shout, “Bye, Mama!” until they were swallowed by the automatic doors and had disappeared into the terminal. Then, alone at the wheel, I had a Ferris Bueller moment:
YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
When my husband suggested taking our 2-year-old daughter to Los Angeles for nine days, where he had to travel for work and his parents had offered to take care of her, the prospect seemed bizarre. I hadn’t been apart from her for more than a couple days since she was born, and in those cases, it was she who stayed home with my parents as my husband and I ventured off for a quick weekend away. I thought about going along for the trip, but entering my eighth month of pregnancy, the thought of a cross-country flight seemed as appealing as hiking the Andes in six-inch heels.
So I agreed. I was still a bit tepid about the idea, but was warming up to it as their day of departure approached. Then it came. And it was glorious.
“Has your weight changed in the last six months? If so, please explain.” Oh life insurance companies, how I long to answer your intrusive questions as I apply for your services.
But since I would like life insurance to protect my daughter should the worst ever happen (puh, puh, Evil Eye!), yes, my weight has changed significantly over the past six months. I gained 36 pounds while pregnant, and since giving birth several months ago, I’ve been shedding them. Slooowly.
Before I became pregnant I don’t recall anyone telling me that losing baby weight would be so sluggish. Funny, that.
No two babies have identical eating habits. My husband and I picked up this tidbit when we took a Breast-feeding Basics class late in my pregnancy, and it has certainly been applicable to our daughter.
I remembered this truism when reading this article in The New York Times. It says that a new study found that new mothers who pumped, or expressed, their breast milk by hand were more likely to still be breast-feeding two months later. Those who used electric pumps were more likely to stop. The writer posits that the difference between the two groups is related to embarrassment.
As a new mother who has recently adjusted to both breast-feeding and pumping, I have a different theory: it’s all about expectations. In pumping, as in all difficult things, if you expect less, you’re less likely to be discouraged. Breast-feeding may be natural, but doing it right takes practice. Unless she grew up on a farm, nursing is unlike anything else a new mother has ever done. And without proper guidance, things can quickly go haywire.
Rabbi Ilana Grinblat has written a new book, “Blessings and Baby Steps,” (Behrman House, 2011) which synthesizes insights into Torah and lessons learned from giving birth to, and parenting, her two young children.
Grinblat teaches Midrash at the American Jewish University’s Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles, where she received ordination in 2001. She previously worked as a pulpit rabbi in two L.A.-area synagogues and has written about parenting for The Forward, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles and the Washington Jewish Week.
She and her husband have two children. Jeremy is 7 and Hannah is 4.
Debra Nussbaum Cohen: What, specifically, gave you the idea for “Blessings and Baby Steps?”
Grandma always said “hate” was a strong word and that I shouldn’t use it. But sometimes it feels appropriate, like when describing my feelings about moving. I hate moving. I despise it. There are few things I like less, which should explain why I’ve lived in only two apartments in the last ten years.
As I gear up to move again, I realize that my apartments since college have been a proxy for my identity and stage in life. My first apartment was that of a singleton, the second that of a wife, and the next will be that of a mother.
I don’t have time to write this blog because I have an infant on my lap. But I am driven to write because I do not hear my voice represented in the discussions about motherhood and the rabbinate.
Recently Rabbi Jill Levy, who was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, wrote on The Sisterhood about how reluctant many congregations are to hire female rabbis, especially those with young children.
I greatly suspect that during rabbinic job interviews when Rabbi Levy and other mothers are asked how they plan to manage motherhood along with the demands of being a rabbi that the real question being asked is this: Why are you choosing a career in the rabbinate over being with your baby?
I don’t think congregations are concerned with how motherhood might interfere with a mother’s ability to do the job as rabbi; rather, I suspect congregations are concerned with hiring someone who is obviously allowing a rabbinic job to interfere with motherhood. And I have to agree. I would rather see at least one parent at home full-time with her/his baby or toddler — ideally the birth mother, unless the child is adopted. This is what is best for the baby.
“Parenthood is the ultimate on-the-job learning experience,” my father commented a few months ago. “You simply can’t learn to be a parent without doing it.”
I believe that. Having recently experienced baby boot camp, I have learned a ton. Now, as the mother of an infant, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on some of the unanticipated lessons I learned during the course of my pregnancy. Each lesson may have been an inconvenience at the time, but taken together, they should make me worthy of a Parenting Master’s degree.
Everything Is Relative, Even Pain
I have been a regular coffee drinker since taking high school physics. As any coffee drinker who fasts on Yom Kippur knows, it hurts to go without. Over the years, I have periodically worked to reduce my caffeine intake, and the effects are typically painful.
Last fall was the big one, though. Newly pregnant, my favorite morning ritual was suddenly making me nauseated, which forced me to revise my plan to slowly taper down my coffee intake. I went cold turkey instead. Yes, in a normal world, two weeks of non-stop withdrawal migraines would have been unspeakably awful. However, my all-day morning sickness was so intense at the time, it managed to dwarf all the headaches. So those withdrawal headaches felt more like background noise. This experience taught me that all things — including pain — are truly relative. Also, even an addict can be reformed for the sake of her baby.
My daughter is graduating high school today. This is a huge moment in life — probably more for her than for me, although I’m not sure — and the mass of thoughts and emotions are a bit overwhelming.
The moment Avigayil was born, I was born as well. Her entry in the universe was transformative for me, as she turned me from person into parent — a permanent alteration, a complete reconfiguration of all one knows to be true in the world. This tiny, spectacular creature who has, at different times, kept me up at night (more recently than one might think), sent me running and chasing, challenged some of my most basic beliefs and completely unhinged me, has also taught me how to love unconditionally, how to stretch beyond the limitations of my experience and how to imagine a different world. Somehow, despite the fact that she came out of my body a mere 18 years ago, her vision of life is completely her own, her identity proudly independent and strong. I am in awe of her entire person, and her continued presence, the blessed intertwining of our journeys, has been nothing short of a divine gift.
There is something profoundly sad for me, too.
So where have all the happy young mothers gone? Did you never really exist? Or are you afraid to speak up these days against the chorus of people insisting that young children bring far more stress and trouble than happiness?
Either way, I never hear from you anymore.
Over the last few years, as my husband and I have been moving towards starting a family of our own, the only word that seems to be rising up from the cave of early motherhood seem to be “help!”
The current conversation had its unofficial start when Ayelet Waldman peeled the curtain up on maternal ambivalence in a now-infamous New York Times essay in 2005, and then later her 2009 book “Bad Mother.” When I first read Waldman on motherhood I thought, bravo — it’s about time moms speak frankly and with some nuance about motherhood.
Reading this article on Slate, reminded me how misplaced our priorities sometime seem to be — with new moms rushed home and right back into their physically and emotionally demanding lives. A week after giving birth to my youngest, a decade ago, I was back at work (though my boss at the time allowed me to work from home for the next few weeks).
The Slate piece writes of the Latin American postpartum custom of la cuarentena, or “the quarantine,” which despite its unpleasant name and the folk customs associated with it, keeps the new mommy and baby in confinement for 40 days, optimally waited on by extended family members. The article says it sounds “like a hedonist’s dream,” until the new mother being interviewed elaborates. “Food, sex, and rest are subject to a constellation of taboos and prescriptions. Sex is a no-no.” But who wants to — or is able to — have sex soon after having a baby anyway? “Rest is mandated and traditionally facilitated by female relatives, who take over errands and chores. Foods are divided into the approved (carrots, chicken soup) and the forbidden (spicy and heavy fare).”
It reminds me of the Haredi custom of sending women from the maternity ward to a kimpeturin heim, or convalescent home for new mothers. They’re found in sizeable Haredi communities, where couples often have six, 10 or more children, and postpartum new mothers go for anywhere from a few nights to two weeks to recover from the birth.
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