Strange Compromises
Or the (Un)changing Strains
of Motherhood
“…maternal devotion can be experienced in perfect authenticity; but in fact this is rarely the case. Ordinarily maternity is a strange compromise of narcissism, altruism, dream, sincerity, bad faith, devotion, and cynicism.”
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex
During the first few years after I had my daughters, I remember feeling resentful at all the ways in which the world is not organized to make life easier for parents. From little things like the height of sinks in public wash rooms to big things like the expense of full-time day care. Why hadn’t feminism made more of a difference for mothers?
As feminists, we have analyzed all the ways patriarchy oppresses women. It seemed to me that in the twenty years since I’d read The Second Sex things should have improved.
Now another generation has passed and I read that it is no easier to balance work and child care than when I was doing it and may even be harder.
I’d like to blame smart phones, Facebook, Ipads, instagram, etc.
I can certainly blame an intransigent patriarchal structure that prefers to fund the military than to devote resources to caring for children.
This morning I read that women’s work force participation has decreased because of the Covid-19 pandemic. No surprise. Many jobs traditionally filled by women — in retail, or in restaurants — have disappeared or been drastically reduced. Some industries are cutting employees to increase profits.
And when daycares and schools close, women are the ones who usually pick up the extra chores. So even if a woman can do her job remotely, the stress of simultaneous months of home schooling and 24/7 child care can wear her down.
The whole concept of work/life balance has taken on new meaning this year.
But even before the pandemic walloped us, women’s participation in the work force had been decreasing.
Why?
Mothers drop out. Why should they? I asked myself. After all, I had three daughters — at once — but never considered giving up my job.
Nonetheless, after having a baby or two, many women noticed that they don’t have enough maternity leave or subsidized child care. Babies are labor intensive. Fathers rarely want to take unpaid leave from or quit their jobs.
Of course, babies are charming. It’s fascinating to watch the quick changes they go through in the first few years. But they’re also expensive. Strollers, car seats, clothes, toys, college funds. Giving up a two income life can be economically challenging.
Before the pandemic, it seemed like working remotely from home might improve women’s labor force opportunities. Shouldn’t innovative technology facilitate women’s staying in the work force? However, many employers discourage or even forbid combining childcare with paid work. With current high unemployment, they have leverage.
And according to recent reports, motherhood itself takes more time and effort now than it did a generation ago when I was changing diapers .
Instead of becoming easier to balance work and child-rearing, it has become more difficult, even before the pandemic, for mothers today than it was when I had children.
Why?
Nothing about my experience of motherhood was typical. When I was 40, I became pregnant with triplets — just luck, no fertility drugs.
I was fortunate to be able to take sick leave from my teaching job while pregnant (the obstetrician prescribed bed rest), maternity leave after they were born, and some unpaid leave after that.
But even today, people ask, “How did you do it?”
Friends helped, especially with leaving the house in winter when putting on three snow suits and boots felt overwhelming.
On bed rest during pregnancy, I had a lot of time to read, so I looked at several books on child care since I had never fed a baby or given one a bath. After I brought the three home from the hospital, I didn’t have any time to read —
I just had to wing it.
Today, however, new mothers have the internet and that is probably one thing that is making their task more challenging. All those mommy bloggers that they feel compelled to read. Way too much unsolicited good advice.
Not to mention smart phones. Deviate in any way from the script of proper motherhood and the likelihood is high that someone nearby will record you and turn you into the authorities. Recently I read about a woman who left her son in the car for five minutes while doing an errand and some Stasi-wannabe recorded her offense on video and called the police.
Technology was supposed to make life easier? More enjoyable? But for mothers it seems to be making things more complicated. The last time I was in an airport waiting for a delayed flight, I started chatting with a woman who was also waiting with her two young sons, both of whom were absorbed in a game on an Ipad.
She looked at me apologetically, as if anticipating criticism. “Usually at home I restrict their screen time, but here…”
Did she really think I’d be so judgmental?
Or was that her own maternal guilt speaking?
It’s impossible to get child-rearing “right” — breast-feeding, for example. Recently a friend was criticizing another woman for continuing to breast feed her two-year old.
“I weaned my children when they were eight months old, before they had teeth.”
So many controversies — co-sleeping — some believe it solidifies the bond with young children; others predict it will turn them into spoiled, delinquent teen agers.
From the outset there has been a tension between asserting ourselves as individuals and making claims as unpaid care-givers. Feminism in the 1960s and 70s began as a rights movement — pay equity, better political representation, improved opportunities in business and the professions, reproductive freedom. At the outset, child care was seen as something holding women back.
But that mindset had to evolve. Women weren’t going to stop having babies. By the 1980s, feminists were arguing that care-giving work had to be recognized as socially indispensable since the human race can’t continue without it.
On the one hand, women want men and the state to share care-giving responsibilities so that we’re liberated from them; on the other hand, we take pride in our abilities to care for others.
Inevitably we feel ambivalent about handing over our children or our aging parents to others — who may not care for them as well as we can. Especially when care-giving in the labor force is so dreadfully underpaid and not valued as the skilled work it is.
Why should the mechanic who fixes cars be paid more than the person who cares for young children? Or old people? Care-taking is not merely instinctual or intuitive as those who’ve never done it like to assume; it requires judgment, problem solving, empathy, all of which must be learned. Usually on the job.
There’s a steep learning curve when you have the first baby — so many things to figure out — when to introduce solid food, what kind of pureed food to start with, what to do when the child wants to feed herself but can’t manage a spoon yet, when and how to toilet train — the list gets longer as the child grows up. All of these issues require thought, planning, organization — as I found out when I had children — “maternal instinct” doesn’t cover them.
However we as women deal with care-taking responsibilities, someone will be judging, criticizing us. We do too much, or we don’t do enough. We are neglectful or we’re over-involved. And sometimes the internal critic is the harshest one of all.
In the 1970s feminists like Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Tillie Olsen began writing about the way women’s self-expression had been silenced, not only by external conditions, but also by internal blocks.
More recently, we have heard about the way young women have been silenced when they have been victimized by predatory and powerful men.
Is there a silence around motherhood underneath the cacophony of voices?
Fear and guilt: your toddler gets bored in a restaurant while you’re waiting for service and starts crying or making noise, how many people will turn to look at you, trying to make you feel guilty for your child’s inappropriate behavior? From the trivial to the tragic — a teen dies from opioid overdose — the mother will be blamed. Or blame herself.
How can mothers not feel guilty? Whatever they do, they’ll be someone telling them it’s wrong.
From experience, we know that care-giving requires thought and skill, but we have not insisted upon it with enough force.
We must break the silence around women’s fear and guilt. Care-giving must be recognized and valued for the skilled and essential and difficult work
it is.
