The Politics of Motherhood

As a live-out caregiver, or "nanny", I have been observing the realities of motherhood. Being a mother appears to be incredibly difficult. Plain and simple. As long as I can remember, having children has seemed incredibly unappealing. I never daydreamed about a large, heterosexual wedding followed by gaggles of crying and pooping newborns. Babies, until I became an aunt several times over, seemed strange and quite repulsive to me. Now, I tolerate babies - some of them are kind of cute and I certainly adore my 4 month old niece, but I could never house another human being inside my body let alone raise that human being for 18 years. The pregnancy, the birthing, the overhaul of one's lifestyle and the dedication, strength and selflessness that comes with motherhood sound foreign - unimaginable, actually, since after one does all of these physically and mentally demanding activities only to have them go unappreciated. 


Motherhood is horribly undervalued. Women are almost always responsible for the majority of child-rearing around the world. But, despite the fact that they raise little humans and oversee those human's safety at all times; they remain undervalued. As mentioned in my last post, women are socialized as caregivers, nurturers and mothers. Women are said to be biologically hardwired to want - even need, to have babies and take care of others. It's just our nature. 


Mothers on a global level are expected to dedicate themselves fully to their children and their families. Even more pathetic is the fact that millions of mothers and female caregivers can't feed themselves let alone their families. Millions of mothers around the world are expected to live in poverty while trying to maintain the lives of their children - yet motherhood remains, on a systematic and societal level, to be undervalued. 


To add to the struggles of motherhood, many women work more than one job. Internationally speaking, countless numbers of women work long hours on top of raising and caring for their children. Many of these women work in terrible conditions, sometimes alongside their children - making barely enough to eat and often these women are working to free themselves from debt bondage. Mothers work long these hours only to return to their families and work even more within the home. When speaking of global women's issues, one must remember that poverty has a woman's face and very often, a mother's face.


Even in the West, women often are disproportionately held responsible for child-care because it is viewed as a woman's "natural" role - women are to feel guilty and ashamed if they cannot fulfill all of their essential "duties." If a mom is privileged enough to do so, having a child in child-care in most places around the world is terribly expensive and possibly unsafe. With an exception to European countries, much of the available child-care is unregulated, privatized and costly. Furthermore, the price of raising a child in North America is absurd and many women cannot afford to lose an entire income because they are unable to find affordable and secure child-care.


To add to the stresses of everyday life mothers also become constant targets for intense criticism in our capitalist-culture that thrives off the struggles of others. This criticism is often publicized - whether in communities or on national television. This is because moms who fail to wake up each day with a smile are forced to feel guilty for not adequately portraying themselves as a "good mom" to a society that undervalues moms at large. Actually, think about how many "bad mothers" there are in relation to "bad fathers" in popular culture. This concept of "bad mother" is established when a mother is viewed by the dominant culture to have stepped out of her prescribed role of Nurturer. These mothers are immediately criticized while neglectful fathers are much more socially accepted and much less stigmatized. It is more socially-acceptable for fathers to be less-involved with their children - it is viewed as acceptable for men because the archaic gender roles that are still in place claim men are natural "providers." This is not to suggest that loving fathers do not exist - they do, but these dads are viciously outnumbered by women who do 98% of the child-rearing around the world.  Of course, many women choose to have children and enjoy being a parent, but what happens when motherhood is not desired, not a "choice" - how do we define choice in motherhood when many women are deprived of bodily autonomy, food, shelter and any form of contraception?


Choice. This is rarely considered as a mother is expected to raise any child, wanted or not, biologically related or not. If she chooses to end her pregnancy through an abortion, for example, she is called a a murderer. She is called a murderer because she has radically stepped out of her impending role of motherhood. When a woman is raped, even - many will tell her that she should keep the rapist's baby and house it for 9 months. A woman is expected to care for a rapist's child because it is seen as her duty and hers alone. A woman is not to complain or reach a breaking point - she is not to get angry or refuse care to others.  


Women are not to refuse motherhood.


A refusal of motherhood is a refusal of a very deeply embedded social role. The social role and the subsequent oppression is based on the same idea of the natural woman - it is what maintains this oppression of mothers world-wide and sustains sexism and misogyny in general. It does so by assuming a woman's worth is based on her fulfillment of her social roles - roles set up not by nature, but by patriarchy and capitalism.

Comment Exchange: Single Parents

One of my friends posted a facebook status challenging childbirth and marriage and I left a comment in agreement more or less with her. I stated that marriage can often hold women back or keep them down, but not always. I suggested, of course, throwing away the traditional idea of marriage all together. After a few minutes, a man from where I grew up came on and spouted the most ridiculous, narrow-minded crap I had read in a while:

Hah. Yep, all we need are more single moms who can't even support themselves. Just live off the system. Great. At least a guy has to go through paperwork if he wants to leave the girl when there is a certificate. Don't be silly. Traditional marriage is a good systematic tool and a key to keeping structure without chaos.

Don’t be silly, you dumb broad! GOD, I must be so stupid to speak with such a sharp and honest tongue! Are you serious? I mean, so many women will see this status and likely have a good chuckle at this nimrod’s comment. After this fail of a comment, I responded:

“Marriage is an instution, it's one based on religious superstition and white male supremacy. So single mums are all poor and lazy hey? Really nice. "Live off the system", what system? We live in a greedy capitalist society that doesn't give a fuck about women and their economic issues anyway.” This whole idea that a man and a woman need to raise a child is what is causing so much hatred, ignorance and blatant bigotry in the world. This is why there is stigma with mixed households, homosexual/lesbian parenting, single mothers or fathers and various other types of families...because of blatant bigotry like this.

He then told me this:

A man and a woman are not necessary for the development of a child but two parental figures can create a true sense of love and togetherness and well as providing more stability of income and time together with the child. I do not need to read any books on marriage [he's referring to the second sex, which I told him to look at] to know my true feelings towards the idea. If you lived in ____ you would understand just how many single moms there are and almost all I know of require some assistance from the system. I wish for true equality but know that marriage is not to blame. One cannot blame an idea for the acts of humanity, or lack thereof.

Oh my god, the system! REALLY? The system! Oh they are just using a flawed and already fucked up system that doesn’t care anyway! Boohoo for the POOR government. Give me a break! This isn’t an argument.

I responded:

What's wrong with requiring help from a system that has kept you down for centuries...Kids are beyond expensive as it is, you shouldn't have to settle in with someone and be partnered up just to be able to raise your child. You’re against welfare, too? I'm assuming. You sound like a libertarian laissez faire enthusiast.

I mean, this jack hole sounds like Bill O’Reilly as of late when he remarked about single-motherhood to Jennifer Aniston. Luckily she handed him his ass on a nice platter. For those who didn’t see or hear about this, here’s what happened.

O’Reilly believes the father figure is incredibly important and he’s most likely talking about father and son relationships. Of course, someone to take kid into the world of manliness is vital! All little boys need to grow up knowing how to shoot a gun, beat up more feminine males, bottle up emotions and pretend to be superior to every female they encounter. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but O’Reilly is a bit extreme. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms with happy heterosexual parents as I have no qualms with happy single, mixed, homosexual parents and any other types of families you can name. I know, however, that O’Reilly wasn’t trying to talk about fatherly love as much as he’s talking about masculinizes children – that’s what fathers do, right?

Wrong.

What is also incredibly incorrect is both the facebook dude’s comments and O’Reilly’s rant. Why? Because it is suggesting that TWO people NEED to raise a child – if there isn’t two parents then the child will not have the best life. Of course, they say this without any proof, they base it on popular right wing opinion…and well…that’s not evidence of fact. Why would anyone tell a mother or father who is a single parent to just buddy up with someone they don’t really love or someone who treats them poorly? You think having two parents fighting all the time is better than having one single parent that devotes time and love to their child? Come on, now.

Also, this idea that it’s wrong to ask for assistance from the government is absolutely ridiculous. Take this, for example…A woman is raising a child by herself, she has to work to put food on the table so she needs to hire someone to take care of the child for a few hours a day. Of course, if you live in America or Canada this won’t be paid for by the government, so you’re expected to pay for the care during the day, while working a full time job to pay for food, rent and other living expenses. Now, if one says “Gee, I wish I was living in France where I could have some government assistance with hiring a nanny” They must be totally diluted. I mean, is it so crazy to need a little bit of help? It wouldn’t be so crazy if North America would get over this idea of the nuclear family being the only way to raise a child.

The government and economy seems to be built around this idea of two parents and children, why? Well because marriage became pretty popular with the rise of private property. Why? Well because property could be bought and sold and so could women – buy a house, get a wife. Men could own women and own property – thus marriage was kind of expected, the whole legal bindings and dowries from way back when. So the economy has established itself around this idea, and so people choose to blame the single mothers instead of blaming the system. It’s so much easier to blame women isn’t it? I mean, we live in a culture that does nothing but blame women, so why not blame single parents, too?