Mothers For Women’s Lib

You want to know something?

 I never really got motherhood, before I had my baby a month ago. Even when I was pregnant, it was hard to think of ‘us’ as opposed to ‘me’.  I had all sorts of ideas of what I would and wouldn’t feel, and where I would fit in the world.

I’m probably stating the obvious here, but being a mum is hard work.

I never for one second thought it would be easy, but it is so much harder than I first thought.

I was so determined to breastfeed, ‘breast is best’ and all that. I wanted my baby to get the best start; breastfeeding has so many benefits for babies. Had visions of me bonding with my daughter while she fed, and loved that very idea of closeness. I tried, and failed miserably. Although she had fed while we were in hospital, she didn’t feed so well when we came home. I didn’t know and thought she was feeding. My midwife came out a few days later and weighed my daughter; she had lost loads of weight, more than expected. I felt like a terrible, terrible mum. My baby had been hungry, and I hadn’t known. I felt so guilty, and had failed her. The midwife tried to give more support with breastfeeding, but my confidence had been knocked and my heart wasn’t in it. I had already failed and let my child down. So what did I do? Straight onto formula and haven’t looked back since.

I wish it had gone better, I wish I had stuck to it and given it another go. The guilt from my little one not feeding was too much, I didn’t trust myself to try it again as I might do it wrong again.

I always assumed I’d get a big rush of love the first time I held my child. I didn’t. I thought maybe it was because I was tired, or a bit sore; the ‘love’ will come after I had a good rest. It didn’t.  The only thing I felt was guilt and numbness. Guilty because I didn’t have the ‘love’ and wasn’t successful with the breastfeeding. Numb because none of this was expected, and I didn’t know how else to feel. I felt suddenly overwhelmed with motherhood, and wondered if I would even measure up to other mums. I wondered if my inexperience showed when the midwife, health visitor or any other kind of visitor saw me with my daughter.  I felt like there was something very wrong with me, because I didn’t have the ‘love’, and I wasn’t expecting that. My partner seemed to have bonded with our daughter almost immediately, but I hadn’t.  And this made absolutely no sense to me, because seeing as I had carried her and then pushed her out; I would have thought I would have had no problem with bonding with my child. Wrong.

I spoke to the midwife who assured me that most women feel like this after childbirth. Apparently, it’s more common than we think; it’s just that nobody talks about it. She mentioned baby blues, and Postnatal Depression, and asked me if she would like me to mention it to the health visitor. She offered to book a counselling session for me, to see if it would help. Suddenly, I didn’t feel such a crappy mum for feeling all this. Big weights off my shoulders, well, some of it anyway.

It’s been 4 weeks since I had my daughter, and so much has changed.

Motherhood is hard work and demanding, the days go fast and I hardly get a moment’s peace. My daughter is growing so fast, it is hard to believe it and take it in. The feelings of love are coming slowly, the bonding has definitely started to happen, and I’m starting to feel a little more confident as a mother. I think a lot of my anxieties were caused by my idea of how a mum should be, and whether or not I would actually measure up to it. I didn’t want to let my midwife down or the health visitor down. I didn’t want anyone to look at me and think “She’s a shit mum.” I’m not afraid to ask for help when I need it, but didn’t want people thinking I couldn’t cope and shouldn’t be a mum.

I wasn’t expecting to feel any of this, and I wish we had been told about this in the antenatal classes.

But I’ve now come to the conclusion I won’t let other people’s expectations of a mother,  get in the way of what kind of mother I want to be. I will try not to put any pressure on myself to be or feel a certain way. I’m new at this; it’s a learning curve, and a whole new journey in my life.

I’m a feminist mum; this is a whole new concept to me. I will try and be the kind of mum I want to be, not the kind of mum society tells me I should be.  There is a difference, and I will remember this the next time I feel crappy.

Sorry for rambling on, I just wanted to share my experience so far.

I said there would be a carnival, and by golly there will be one.

The first Carnival of Feminist Parenting will be posted Sunday 14th June 2009. The deadline for submissions is Sunday 7th June 2009.

Feel free to submit your own posts or those of someone else. If you think it’s relevant to feminist motherhood/parenting, then it probably is. Almost everything will be considered; we at MFWL are a diverse bunch, and our readership doubly so!

Submissions can be made using the carnival submission form.

Thanks all!

I am thinking of replacing the Sunday Reading List with a monthly carnival (The Carnival of Feminist Mothers/Parents/whatevers) – what do you think, readers?

Here are this week’s links anyway. It was Mother’s Day in the USA last weekend, so there have been a lot of relevant posts popping up.

• The F-Word: Work It Out
  “Wherever I turned, I got different answers to these questions, each with good reasoning behind them. I turned to older women, who had chosen one way or another, but felt just as unsure as ever. In fact, almost nobody seemed 100% satisfied or confident about the choices they had made. Some felt they had made mistakes, but others who made the same choices were happy, even when it meant big sacrifices. How to handle these choices clearly depends on the individual, her circumstances, her desires; there isn’t any one way to do it.

  Here’s the thing, though: when it comes to the Work/Family decision, why do we have to make such a cut-and-dry choice between caring for our families the way we want to and having non “domestic” work that is also satisfying, financially and/or personally?”

• The forces of darkness
  “I had smugly thought that being in a same-sex relationship meant I got a free pass on having to deal with gendered dynamics at home. And, yeah, my partner and I were together for nine years before we had children of ours (she has older children from a previous relationship), and in that time, we didn’t have gender-founded issues to address between us very often.

  But then, I gave birth to our two children, and gave up working and studying (and then worked part-time). And I was tired, and I was Mummy, and I couldn’t remember how to question what a Mummy is. Ah, responds the colonised brain, a Mummy does everything for her child, and is happy to. A Mummy respects the working-for-pay partner as “really” working, and counts her own hard labour as something else. A Mummy doesn’t seek to be listened to as if her day really counted. A Mummy takes the day shift, and the night shift, and the organising, remembering, managing of the household, and thinks she isn’t using her brain.”

• Feminism and Motherhood: an Opinion piece
  “I am not a mother. I have not decided if I ever will be a mother. There are days when it seems like a better idea than not and days where I can never imagine going down such a hard path. I had heard about some of the schisms in Feminism over motherhood but I had never paid much attention and never realized how much anger there was until a thread at Feministing. I understand that my experience with this anger was only in one place but from what I saw much of the anger, hostility and belittling came from those feminists who did not have children.”
• Me versus the patriarchy
  “You see, my partner is the seventh generation of the First Born Son of the First Born Son and all these first born sons share the exact same name. A type of unimaginativeness some like to call a family tradition. First Born Sons number VI (father-in-law) and VII (partner) have noticed that the fetus I’m carrying is going to be First Born Son VIII and they very much want him to be named accordingly. Much as I can acknowledge the attraction of family traditions and ancestral ties I just cannot bear this particular patriarchal one. It can go no further, with me. I have acquiesced to the tradition as far as giving the ‘First Born Son’ name as a second name, but not as a first name. To the First Born Sons and their patriarchy-supporting kin this is breaking the tradition.”
• Connecting the Mothers to the Childless
  “One of the huge hurdles I see women facing today is relating across the parenthood line. When I was pregnant for the first time I had no peers who were first time mothers with me. I swore I wouldn’t change, I could be a mother and hang out with my girlfriends and life didn’t have to change *that much*. Well, I kept part of the promise and I do try to always conjure up the smell of being childless. I need it especially when I read certain articles (such as the article I read last night in Marie Claire about a woman being revoked godmother status) or talk on the phone with a long lost childless friend. But as time passes, it is harder and harder to remember. I don’t want to stop reading certain magazines when I realize I can barely empathize with a writer, nor do I want to take breaks from friends when I sense they don’t “get” me anymore.”
• How not to flaunt your childfree cluelessness
  “Ah, here we go: a standard child/parent hater statement. Talking about children is dull; parents only ever talk about their children; if you want to retain non-parent friends you must never talk about your children; your non-parent friends are quite right to drop you if you don’t comply. Hey, I got a line on my bingo card!

  See what they did there? Yes, that’s right. Us gays who actually already do have children either don’t exist, or can no longer be spoken about with the generic word “gay”.

  Leaving aside “we live in a country” which, in fact, we don’t all live in, there’s then the assumption that getting kids as a queer necessarily involves medical intervention. News: turkey basters are in the cookery section, not in medical supplies!”

• Not the first: a belated Mother’s Day post
  “My mother, for all that she at times has been known to say “I’m really more of a humanist”, did a pretty good job of raising a feminist boy. One of my favorite stories is that, he being a first child but with the anticipation he not be an only, my brother’s wardrobe for his first three years consisted of an equal mix of “boy” clothes and “girl”clothes, with the rationale that all the clothes would get handed down (to a girl, my mother hoped), and the next child shouldn’t be the only one wearing the “wrong” gendered clothes.

  And it worked: my brother, privileged straight white male that he is, openly identified as a feminist, at least while in college. And I, of course, am hard at work raising her grandson feminist.”

• Breastfeeding Nazis
  “Day in and day out, I keep hearing and reading the term Breastfeeding Nazi used to describe lactation consultants, La Leche League leaders, breastfeeding advocates and other lactivists. I think it is completely inappropriate.

  First, lactivists have not killed millions of people like the Nazis did. People that advocate for breastfeeding are doing so to give babies the best possible start in life and to save lives. In fact, improved and increased breastfeeding could save millions of lives each year.

  Second, calling someone that is an enthusiastic advocate of something a Nazi trivializes and minimizes the suffering of the victims of the Holocaust. Even if you feel like you have been a “victim” of extreme lactivism, you cannot in good conscience compare that to the complete and utter horror that the Nazis carried out.

  So stop. Please stop. It is not appropriate. Not funny.

  Don’t believe me? Want to know more? Then read the perspective of Kathy Kuhn, a Jewish lactation consultant.”

• When Breastfeeders Attack
  “It was a nightmare.” said Mrs Sweet, 33, of Pennington. My best friend Clara and I were talking about gravy granules, when we heard the shrieking. We looked up, and they were everywhere, ripping off their blouses and thrusting their breasts in our faces. I looked away, but it was too late.” Mrs Sweet was treated for fainting, by St Joan’s Ambulance staff, who arrived on the scene several moments later. “Clara is one of those in hospital.” continued Mrs Sweet bravely “I believe her hearing has been affected by the loud cracks as all the boobs whipped out in formation. They’d obviously been practising.”

  “It was carnage,” said Mr John Snivel, who was in the first ambulance to arrive. “There were women everywhere, lying and crying in piles. One mother had thrown herself onto her two small children, who were also in the store. Luckily, she knocked them both out before they were exposed to the breastfeeders.”

• More Pinkification Of Mothers
  “Good grief! Can we please, please get over this girl = pink nonsense, and the constant infantilising of women by associating them with soft, pinky, girly colours.”
• Rally Wrap-Up: It Was A Great Mother’s Day!!
  “Here they are in all their glory — the fabulous mamas who made up the 1st annual Mother’s Day Rally for Moms’ Mental Health, with direct links to each of their letters to new moms. Thank you so much to everyone who participated. And to anyone who is interested in participating next year, please let me know! I hope these letters will serve as comfort and support to all women who may be wondering whether they are all alone in their feelings about or experiences with motherhood.”
• Pregnant Bodies Piling Up
  “I heard about the discovery of Demery’s body on the local news the other day. It’s chilling that “get the boyfriend” is the first thing that pops into my head in cases like hers. But, sadly, it’s the surest path to finding the killers – men who consider murder a good alternative to fatherhood (or a monthly child support payment). These murders are not isolated incidents; they are symptomatic of a culture wherein men feel entitled to control women’s lives and bodies. Step out of line, make a decision they don’t like, and they might punish you for it. I don’t know how to put an end to it, but I know pregnancy should not be a risk factor for murder.”
• Roots
  “This is why it annoys me so much to hear about privileged women having children by a ’surrogate’ or adopting third world children. It’s the idea that children are just consumer goods that can be merrily passed around, with no effect on the child, and no regard for the women who actually gave birth to them.

  Privileged women (and men) should not have the right to use their wealth to in effect ‘buy’ a child. Whether that is removing a child from the community into which it was born, or paying another, poorer, woman for the use of her body. Children are small human beings. They do not simply forget their past, or not wonder about their origins. They are not possessions, or parcels to be passed. They have the right to know where they came from and to have contact with the woman who gave birth to them. Women who give birth to children are not human incubators but mothers, no matter what. Roots matter.”

I knew there would be people who criticised the way I brought up Austin, because they’d say that I was (in my father-in-law’s words) “making a lass out of him.” I was ready for that, and have been able to live with it. But the awful realisation came to me just the other day, when Austin was telling me about his ‘best’ friends – I, too, have a good amount of these gendered ideas left in me.

Austin has five close friends, of which four are girls. And when he went through his list of friends, I found myself wondering whether I’d done something ‘wrong’. Whether I’d forced my views on him so much that he could only identify with girls (ignoring, of course, the boy amongst his friends, as one does when guilt tripping happens!). I was pleased that he could make friends with girls, of course, but realised that I felt guilty about the amount of female friends he had compared to male. I want my son to have the friends he wants – if he made friends with lots of traditionally-masculine boys I’d put up with it, though I’d wonder what I’d done to him to make him feel so comfortable with them. I never thought I’d worry about female friends.

It just SHOWS how central the gender divide is in life, though. The first thing you know about a child is hir  sex: zie is labelled “boy” or “girl” from the moment of birth, and that knowledge affects what the child wears, what zie is shown, how zie is treated. No matter how much we disagree with the gender divide, it’s still THERE – and it still affects us to some extent.

I’ve never put Austin in dresses. Although I say I let him choose his clothes (hence his pink tops and purple trousers), I’ve never given him the option of wearing a dress as ‘normal’ wear (he tries things on, of course, at home). I’ve done this so that he won’t be teased, but as long as everyone (including me) continues to make this distinction between what is suitable for boys and what is suitable for girls, the teasing is always going to be an issue.

There are two problems here. Firstly, the fact that no matter how much we may agree or disagree with them, gendered ideas are fairly central to our world. Secondly, given problem #1, it is difficult to know how far to push the boundaries with our children. I want my son to be a happy, well-balanced boy. The fact is, if I ignored all gender ideas and (for example) sent him to pre-school in a dress, the teachers would have some sort of negative/weirded out reaction to him, and so would some of the children he goes to school with. I might think that the idea that “boys are like this” and “girls are like this” is an unhelpful way of looking at the world, but do I have the right to make an example of my son? As an adult, I can choose to accept/reject the gender ideas and understand what I am doing. But Austin is three. He’s too young to understand all the background to it, so is it fair for me to ask my son to do things which will almost certainly make his young life harder, and get him teased, perhaps bullied, by his peers?

I’d like to nominate Star Child shoes for the very first department of WIN award.

What’s the department of WIN?

Well, some time ago I wrote a blog post, Breeched from Birth, looking at how we use children’s clothing right from birth to push them into gender stereotypes.

I mused on why children’s clothes needed to be segregated into “girl” and “boy” clothes seeing as the basic shape of children is the same until puberty begins. Why couldn’t clothes for children just be organised by category, e.g. babygro, trouser, skirt, jumper etc.?

That would be a start, but I would also like to see less frillyfication of girls’ clothing (it gets to the point where the garment is impractical as the frills don’t wash well) and less, erm, blokification of boys’ clothing (“mummy’s little soldier” etc.) too.

I got chatting to Anji about it and she had the idea of coming up with a department of WIN, a department of FAIL (o hai Tesco!) and I wouldn’t mind a department of MEH too but maybe that’s pushing it!

So how to define WIN? Personally, I think in order to WIN a clothing shop, whether online or in real life, needs to meet at least two of the following criteria (and to get a MEH would meet just one, to get a FAIL would meet none):

1)      Clothes are separated by garment type or other way that isn’t based on gender

2)      No clothes that are so flimsy as to be impractical; no clothes that glorify violence (especially not if these are showcased as “girl” and “boy” respectively)

3)      Pictures of children in the clothes that include boys that aren’t wearing blue, grey, dark green or brown, and girls that aren’t wearing pink, purple or lilac.

But that’s just a rough idea. Any additions or subtractions are welcome. Of course, it also helps if the clothes wash well, are reasonably priced, do not use sweatshop labour to produce them, are environmentally responsible and so on.

Anyway without further ado onto Star Child shoes.

I was looking for some shoes for Bertie (my two year old) for a wedding. He was going in a maroon pair of flairs with maroon cravat and waistcoat and a white shirt (all from charity shops). I wanted something smart but quirky. I scoured the shops and found only clunky, ugly looking shoes, or incredibly flimsy, impractical looking shoes (can you guess which was intended for boys and which for girls?)

Via the natural parenting magazine Juno, I happened upon a company called Star Child shoes. Not only are the shoes organised by style (and not boy/girl) but they come in a wonderfully diverse range of colours and patterns, whilst all being the same basic shape.

They are also incredibly practical in that they are more like slippers, but with a solid suede base so they are not particularly slippery. They also allow a lot of room for feet to stretch; despite what the likes of Clarks might tell you to get you to part with your £20+, less is often more when it comes to shoes (with bare feet being best of all).

The price? Well, they’re not amazingly cheap, weighing in at around £17 a pair, but unlike shoes that come in sizes (e.g. 4, 5, 6) they come in months, so your child’s feet grow into them and they last about six months.

They are handmade in the UK, and use non-toxic dyes (you know how kids love to suck their feet).

And, you can fling them in the washing machine on a low heat (although, I did notice the dye did run a little on Bertie’s shoes, so take care to wash with other similar colours) and even when they dry (not in a tumble drier) they are still soft and pliable.

The one thing that does concern me is that the shoes have leather uppers, which is not an option for the majority of vegetarians and vegans.

Back to the beginning though, the thing I’m most impressed by is the sheer range of styles and the fact none of them are listed as “perfect for your little princess / soldier”. They feature styles that children love (bright, colourful, pictures of vehicles, animals and confectionary) and they don’t shoehorn (pun intended) children into stereotypical gender roles.

Star Child shoes = WIN!

(Well, you wanted to see the shoes on, didn’t you?)