Why is being a mom bad?

[mamaofthree]

I just got done reading a review in the "Nation" on a book called "The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined Women". And although I have yet to read this book, the whole idea behind the book pisses me off. It isn't like the book "the Price of Motherhood" by Ann Crittenden, this is more, it appears anyway, to be dogging on any women who want to stay home and raise kids, like we have been shanghied into believing that motherhood is important when really it isn't. What I don't get is why isn't it important? Why is caring for our kids suppose to take a back seat to our lives? I mean if you decide to have kids then I assume you want them, and yes they do need to come first. THat does not mean you have to be a stay at home mom to be a good mother. But what is wrong with being a caregiver? I mean is it so evil and so bad to want to be a full time stay at home mom? I know not everyone wants to be a SAHM and I am cool with that. But to undermine women who want to by saying they got sold a bag of spoiled goods is a crappy thing to do.
I love being home with my kids, I love doing AP parenting and investing my time into my children. I love homeschooling them. I feel they deserve this, and I am willing to give myself 100% to this job of mothering. (I do work outside the home at this time once a week).
My mother never saw herself as a feminist for this very reason, even after she went back to work full time, she always felt like she was looked down apon for taking off those first 5 years to raise my brother and me. Like some how she was dogging the womans movement by raising her kids. Like she had done something wrong. Like all woman should want to have a job outside the home, to stay home is to destroy what the woman's movement is all about.
I am 100% behind universal daycare and social security for stay at home moms (earning it while raising kids) but I don't think just because there is daycare avaible I should have to take up the offer.
I had kids because I wanted to be with them. It makes me nuts that there a books continuing to be published that undermine women or men who choose to be full time parents!

H

[Leatherette]

I haven't read the book or a review - I saw it in a bookstore and thought it might be about the idealization of motherhood as in all moms should be like June Cleaver. Sounds like it may be more negative toward stay at home mothering than what I was thinking.

[EnviroBecca]

My theory is that our societal attitudes are still more sexist than we think. We feel like feminism swept thru in the 1970s and made everything fair and good, and now we are pretty much done w/the battle for equality. But as I see it, that wave of feminism accomplished only half of its goal: Now it's okay for women to do the things men traditionally did, like WOH, hold public office, compete in all forms of athletics, and wear pants in all situations. However, it is it not all that much more okay for men to do the things women traditionally did, AND it has become less okay for women to do those things! Instead of expanding the range of acceptable behavior to include all of both roles, we seem to have decided that the male role is now the only adult role.

I think the reason for this---both why it happened in the first place and why it continues---is that the shift in gender roles has been mostly motivated by women demanding the right to do traditionally male things and, in many cases, explaining this desire by complaining about traditionally female things. If more men were saying, "It's not fair to discourage us from caring for children!" and "Being so competitive is too stressful! Let's share the responsibility and all work fewer hours." and "Ballet schools should be forced to admit 50% male students!" and "We want to wear skirts!" then things would be very different.

The tide may turn pretty soon, but at the moment I think men still rule the world and are basically saying, "Okay, girls can play, but only by our rules." and I think they are afraid that if they admit to any interest in behaviors formerly assigned to "the weaker sex," they will BECOME the weaker sex. Similarly, women are afraid that if we admit any fondness for our traditional role, we'll be showing weakness and will be doomed to oppression.

The sad result is that not only motherhood, but also the traditionally female professions of teaching and nursing, are suffering. There's been a very successful effort to recruit women as doctors, police officers, CEOs, etc...but efforts to recruit men (specifically) as teachers, nurses, or daycare providers are rare. Our society now values people with vaginas as much as people with penises...but we still value nurturing less than aggressive achievement, perhaps even more so than 50 years ago.

[hhurd]

Has anyone read the book in question that can speak to its actual content?

[Benjismom]

Please read the book

I have read many misleading reviews about this book. Then I actually read the book. Although the authors can be flip and sarcastic, they are not saying that women should not stay home and take care of their children. Nor are they saying that doing so means you're some kind of mindless Stepford wife.

Instead, the authors are tracing the development of a pernicious ideology, which sprang up as women began breaking down many barriers that had traditionally prevented them from doing things outside the home that some women really do want to do. The ideology is kind of like the Martha Stewart of mothering, where any tiny slip-up means you're a terrible mother and mothers have to be perfectly groomed, constantly smiling, sexually available and thrilled every minute with what they're doing. It is also the ideology that has led to competitive mothering, with women comparing themselves based on the achievement of their children. All of these things are toxic and not at all conducive to being happy as a SAHM, in my opinion.

The main thrust of the book is that this ideology serves corporate America. Just as the purpose of women's magazines is to make women feel inadequate so they'll buy products to fix themselves, The Mommy Myth asserts that the ideology they're describing exists in part to make mothers insecure and get them to buy gadgets, expensive children's clothing, test preparation services and other educational aids, Baby Einstein videos and the like.

This message should resonate with the many mamas at MDC who want to challenge waste, advertising and consumerism. Strangely, no one here has mentioned this (in several threads about the book), which IMO is the overriding theme of the book.

Contrary to what many people have suggested here, the book does not say it is wrong to strive to be a good parent. It does, however, make fun of those who suggest that there is only one rigid way to do that or who have an agenda for making you feel like one tiny skip up means you're ruined forever. It is a plea for some perspective and attention to the big picture, which I think many of us could use. Such a balanced approach makes mamas less vulnerable to people who exploit insecurity for their own personal gain.

OK, the book really does criticize Bill Sears, which may be a big turn off to some at MDC. But in my opinion some of it is deserved. While I believe in much of what he says and have found it useful, I and many others have been turned off by his strongly expressed beliefs that women should not work outside the home and that fathers are always less nurturing than mothers (not in my house!) I don't want to get flamed for this and this issue has been debated at great length here at MDC before (quite capably). I'm disclosing this in the interest of a fair presentation because I know it could be a problem for some people.

I agree with EnviroBecca that caregiving in general is denigrated by our society and that women have been forced to pay a very high price for pursuing traditionally male careers. Part of that price, according to The Mommy Myth, is that standards for "adequate" mothering have gone sky-high so that no mother will ever feel good enough, *whether or not she works outside the home.*

Beth, Mom to Benji and Maggie

[hhurd]

Ask and you shall receive...and quick too. Thanks Benjismom!

Sound like an interesting book that I think I'll read.

[mamaofthree]

I may just have to go to the library and check out the book and read it. Although, maybe beacsue I live in an ideal world... (I have MDC and then IRL mothers who are strong and not swayed into all the "prefect parent crap" trap) that I just don't see how so many of these sorts of books need to be written.
I think it does in somewhy perpetuate (sp) the whole thing, when they cont to tell "us" this is how we are feeling. I don't feel that way. I know it may seem weird, but I have always took the advice I have read and used what I like threw out the rest.

I do agree with enivrobecca, that the whole role of caregiver in general... be it mother, nurse, teacher, daycrae provider, caring for elderly parents, etc.. is put WAY down on the list of things we think are important. We have it so back asswards. Caring for each other should be number 1. The small and weak, the old and weak need the most that we can give them, yet we brush them aside.
And I do believe that men get a bumrap too. My dh is a very caring father, a really wonderful man. I get sick of the image of a man being some complete idiot as a father. Like they have no idea what to do. It makes me nuts.
I guess this whole thing makes me nuts.
The review of the book was actually favorable, I was the one who didn't like the whole "idea" of the book.
H

[lauraess]

This sounds to me like a great book that includes many of the things I think about a lot and have had trouble digesting- if you will- as I've delved further and further into this adventure called Mothering.
I'd love to read it. Maybe i will. thanks Beth for the commentary.
Laura

[Benjismom]

Mamaofthree, it's cool that you don't see a lot of the insecurity and such that a lot of mamas feel. I personally hope that I am pretty immune to this stuff myself, though I have my moments.

But I have friends who are always feeling like they are total failures because they have gained weight since having kids, or their kids aren't doing what other people's kids are doing, or they're not cooking from scratch every night. And then I read the headlines on the cover of these parenting and pregnancy magazines and you would think the only things that matter are getting your pre-pregnancy body back, keeping your sex life at the same level as it was before baby, buying the "30 Gadgets We Can't Live Without" (I'm not even kidding here) and designing the perfect cartoon-character birthday party for your two-year old, complete with homemade decorations and food. Like Martha Stewart with baby. (She even has a Baby magazine now!)

For real. There are people who believe this stuff, a lot of them. When I read the book, I did feel like they were preaching to the choir but I also wanted to see what the book was like so I could recommend it to those who might find it helpful.

I am editing to add that the book does in fact acknowledge that there were a few mostly early radical feminists who characterized motherhood as basically a prison and claimed that women could not be liberated as long as they were mothers. This was fascinating to me because I never understood why people thought feminism was anti-mothering. It wasn't for my mother, an early feminist herself (and still an active one today). The authors show that this was a tiny part of the feminist movement, which in fact advocated early and often alone for recognizing the tremendous amount of unpaid caregiving that women do, but the media took those few radical voices and gave them way more prominence than they deserved.

Beth, Mom to Benji and Maggie

[DebraBaker]

If people actually bought into that philosophy wouldn't we end as a species in one generation?

Again, balance is the key.

db

[layla]

Benjismom, you are SO right about the mags telling moms all this messed up, unrealistic stuff! Also feminists who are against mothering are not really feminists in that they want women to be what they say is okay...isn't that just the same as being controlled by men/society, whatever?Fwminism is about a woman having the right to chose what she wants to do what she wants with her life, to not be dictated to by anyone, man or woman. Moms are underrrated because we don't make money, but what if we were paid for all of our jobs? Nurse, housekeeper, laundress, dishwasher, driver, nanny, schoolteacher, cook, thereapist...the list goes on and those are all considered "jobs" if they aren't for your own family. That's ridiculous! Our society has it's priorities a$$ backwards and it shows.

[mamaofthree]

Benjismom: ITA! Thank you. You know I have a heck of a time saying what I feel. I guess, I just personally decided that I was happy with who I was and my choices. It also helps to actually be broke! (LOL espeically with the 30 must have gadgets... give me a break!)
But I too see it as a bashing of women, saying that mothering isn't important, and that is the idea I got from the review of the book. Like I said I am just gonna have to go and check it out.
PS I also love the way I look after having babies... my roundness and boobs and belly. I guess it helps that my dh loves me this way too.

H