Mothers For Women’s Lib

I am a firm believer in the personhood of children and that children are an oppressed group. It pains me to see so much child hate within feminism; not from all feminists of course, but there certainly is a lot of mother-blaming and child hate in some pockets of feminism. Many others have spoken eloquently and thoughtfully about this before me, so I’m not going to reiterate what they’ve said. Long story short, I believe that children’s rights are important, and that feminists in being progressive and advocating for marginalised groups of all kinds, should be invested in working for the rights of all oppressed groups – including children.

Reading a post by Elena Perez at California NOW made me think about privilege checklists (like the Male Privilege Checklist and the White Privilege Checklist, for example) and I came to the realisation that, as yet, nobody had written an adult privilege checklist. So with some help from my good friend Jenny, using some of Elena Perez’s ideas from the aforementioned post, I set about writing the Adult Privilege Checklist.

Well now it’s finished. I’m not going to reproduce the whole thing here, because I’d like to keep it in one place. But click here – Adult Privilege Checklist – and take a look! It’s in something of a rough draft format/work-in-progress right now, and all opinions and suggestions are very welcome. I imagine it will grow and evolve over time, so do keep checking back.

Welcome to the sixth edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting! This month has been a spectacular one for articles and blog posts related to feminism and parenting, and I’ve really enjoyed putting this edition of the Carnival together. There’s a bit of a change in format from the previous carnivals – every time I’ve put it together it’s evolved a little bit. Eventually, when I find a format I like and that you the readers like, I’ll stick with it.

Anyway, without further ado: November 2009′s Carnival of Feminist Parenting!

Children’s Rights

• In Feminist Parenting: The Larger Picture, Elena Perez talks about the intersections between feminism and children’s rights, explaining why children’s rights should matter to feminists.

• Ruth Moss has written an open letter to Kate Harding, a response to Harding’s child- and mother-blaming article about children screaming on aeroplanes.

• Arwyn wrote a fabulous explanation of the personhood of children, explaining how when we say ‘people’ we often mean ‘adults’, and what it means to respect children as people.

• Ruth Moss (again, she’s that good!) wrote a response to Arwyn’s post, adding a couple of paragraphs about encouraging age-appropriate behaviour.

• Noble Savage has a great post titled On child hate and feminism, talking about her impressions of motherhood/children before she had children and why feminists should be in favour of children’s rights.

Mother-Blaming

• In a guest post at The F Word, Amy Clare talks about the most recent attacks on mums, with news of a study which appears to show children of paid-working mums are less healthy.

• Blue Milk has a quote from a recent blog post by Carrie Fisher in which she (sarcastically) apologises for not meeting certain beauty standards post-children.

• Deanna Dahlsad writes an excellent article about why we vilify single mothers, discussing the history of negativity towards them and how that is relevant today.

Race

• Renee Martin has a post titled Who Will Love The Black Child? talking about how Black children are taught to devalue their colour, and how parents might counter this.

Teaching and Learning

• Kathleen Deveny writes In Praise Of Bossy Girls, explaining how girls who are assertive are often accused of bossiness, whereas the same accusation is not placed on their male peers.

• Renee Martin talks about how We Teach Our Children Homophobia by passing on heterosexist notions to them, even unintentionally.

• In If She’s Not Having Fun You Have To Stop, Thomas writes about an occasion where he witnessed a father teaching his two-year-old an important lesson.

• Apu writes about raising liberal daughters, pondering the “gap between what parents expect and what young women would like to be and do”.

• Stephanie writes a critique of the book ‘Rules for My Unborn Son’, pulling apart some of the more problematic ‘rules’ in the book.

Breastfeeding

• Molly writes some more on breastfeeding, feminism, cost, and value, explaining why she believes breastfeeding is not an inherently antifeminist act, and is even a feminist act.

Gender Equality

• Kate Townshend talks about Gender in the playground, the ways in which children learn the gender divide and particularly how girls learn that their appearance is the most important thing.

• Renee Martin writes Don’t Let A Girl Beat You, talking about how boys are encouraged into sport while girls are discouraged from competing, and the messages this sends to both.

• In To tutu or not to tutu? Misty writes an intelligent, thoughtful response to a woman who is concerned by her son’s propensity towards traditionally ‘female’ clothing and toys.

Media

• In her post titled Fuck you Disney princesses, Jenn talks about the effects the Disney princesses had on her as a developing girl.

• Rosepixie gives us an excellent critique of Dora the Explorer’s massive transformation from brave explorer to “pink, fashionable and girly”.

• Catherine Porter writes about raising brave princesses in a Disneyfied world, negotiating the minefield that is the influence of Disney princesses upon our daughters.

Pregnancy & Childbirth

• Shira Happlin has a lot to say about The Loss of Childbirth to Male Physicians. It’s a very old article, but much that she says is still very true and relevant today.

• In Birth & Babies, Jennifer Fink uses the world’s first live birth as a springboard to talk about lack of belief in ourselves and adequate support during labour.

Reproductive Freedom

• Sandy Maple writes about the insurance company who told a woman to get sterilised or they wouldn’t cover her, simply because she had had a previous Caesarean  and for her to have another wouldn’t be profitable for them.

Parenthood

• In the Hot Moms Club post Motherhood and Feminism, the writer talks about how parenthood has changed her feminism, and the realisation that she can be – and is – both a stay-at-home mother and a feminist.

• In Feminism, fathers and valuing parenthood, PhDinParenting discusses the need for society to recognise fathers as parents in the same way it does mothers, and how this would benefit all.

• Laurie writes that she is a Wanna-be Selfish Mom, talking about the ‘Mummy Guilt’ she feels when she does things for herself, and promising herself a little selfishness.

• Judith Warner writes about The Choice Myth, positing that for many women, the choice between being a ‘working mum’ and a ‘stay at home mum’ is not really a choice at all.

• And finally, Nikki gives us a list of 10 things you probably shouldn’t say to a teenage mum. It’s concerning that anyone might need to be told not to say these things, but I heard almost all of them myself!

That concludes this edition of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting. The next edition will be here at Mothers For Women’s Lib as usual, on Sunday 13th December. Get your submissions for next month’s Carnival in by Sunday 6th December using our carnival submission form. You can also submit articles by sending your link as a reply or DM on Twitter to @m4wl.

If you’d like to read the previous editions of the Carnival of Feminist Parenting, they can be found here – 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th – enjoy!

My child is two and a half now, and although I’ve been getting this question since he was about one, it’s gotten more frequent, the older he gets:

“Any plans for number two yet?” or worse still “When’s number two then?”

Firstly, let me explain why I think this is a feminist issue, rather than just a “you’re being bloody rude” issue.

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I think part of it has to do with women’s bodies being considered “public property” and another part is to do with child care and child rearing seen as purely a woman’s role, and whether or not to have children is seen as something the woman in a het relationship decides.

The first part, the “public property” thing, is particularly noticeable in pregnancy with the bump groping. I am one of the few women I know who didn’t mind people touching my bump (although only if they asked first, and sometimes they didn’t) when I was pregnant; but I was also in a relationship without much physical affection at the time, so I was “taking it where I could get it”. But on the whole, most of my Mum friends have told me how they didn’t enjoy it, and that they only said “yes” (if they were asked) because of a feeling of obligation.

I think the part of “when’s number two?” that stems from that is the feeling that it isn’t your body any more; if you’ve had a baby, there’s almost a part of you that’s seen as an incubation chamber, and it’s everyone else’s business what that body’s going to do next.

Don’t get me wrong, I am personally incredibly proud of being a mother and I think I do a damn good job of it. For me, personally, it is my main job and the biggest part of me. But that involves a hell of a lot more than “getting pregnant and giving birth”. That’s just the very first stage. Even if we’re just talking about what my body does when it comes to being a mother; it nurses my child, it picks him up, it carries him around, it plays with him, it gets down on the floor and lets him ride on its back… and more. For me personally (but not for every mother) I’ve given over a lot of my body to childcare, the majority, even. But that’s a lot more than pregnancy, and I resent being thought of as a vessel to carry babies. Because, even though that’s part of it, it’s a very small part. And it’s not public property; it’s my property, and who I use it for, and how, is none of your business.

And if that’s me, whose identity is primarily tied up with being a mother, how much more would someone who’d given birth to a child, but whose identity was more tied up in things outside of “mothering” feel?

The other thing, the “women=destined to have children” starts before the second child, of course. I remember when I got married to my (now ex) husband; people asked me when I was going to have children. Notice they asked me, not him.

It continues through employers asking “are you planning to have children” in job interviews, even though they’re not allowed to. I also think this attitude is partly responsible for some of the child-hate within the feminist and child-free movements (and oh yes, it does exist). A bit like, “if I go on about how much I hate children, my employer will never mistake me for being one of those people who ‘goes off and has a kid and doesn’t come back after mat leave’ and therefore I will get promoted”, and so on. Or just wanting to disassociate with the whole “woman=carer of children” meme by trying to prove how much that isn’t them because they hate children.

But when people ask about number two, they already have something to go on. Obviously, you don’t hate children, because after all, you had one. And because you like children, you must want more than one, surely? And if you do, why aren’t you doing your womanly duty and “getting yourself pregnant” again?

So yeah, feminist issue. (And, yes, it is also a “bloody rude” issue, too!)

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And there are so many reasons why it’s wrong to ask. And why, sometimes, it really, really hurts.

See, for me, personally, it stings to be asked that, especially at the moment. Because I would love to have more children. I always wanted to have three or four children, actually. But when I had my first, and currently only child, it was hard. Things between me and my then-husband turned sour as soon as my bump appeared and didn’t get any better. But even then, right up until I left him, I still planned to have a second child with him.

Some of you might think that was foolish, that plan; but if anything, it was less foolish than having my first child with him. I knew what he was like, and I knew I’d get little to no support from him, and a lot of grief.  I planned to do things differently; I would create my own support network from friends and on the internet. I wouldn’t have the heartbreak of turning to him in my time of need and being pushed away, because I’d know not to turn to him in the first place.

And if we’d stayed together, it would have been now that we would have been trying. If we’d stayed together, I might be typing a very different post now, one about early pregnancy.

But we didn’t. And much as I don’t miss our relationship, and I am better off emotionally without him, I still grieve that second child that I won’t have, certainly not for a long time, if at all. I try not to think about it too much, but asking that question forces me to think about it, and it hurts.

I’m in a long distance relationship with a woman now; she can’t move over here for at least two years, and even when she does, we’ll not be able to think about having a baby for a while, for reasons of money, studying, career and so on. And when we finally can, it’s a more complicated thing for two woman to have a baby together. Plus I’ll be older, and less fertile (and that’s assuming I’m even fertile now; I could well have secondary infertility and not be aware of it); who knows if I’ll even have another? I want to, and my fiancée wants it too, but wanting isn’t always enough.

And it’s worth it; my fiancée is an amazing woman and I don’t regret leaving my husband for her for a minute. I wouldn’t swap her for a brood of children. But that doesn’t mean I don’t grieve the situation regarding a second child.

So also, by asking that question, you’re asking me to come out to you as queer/bi; you also ask me to justify my decision to leave my husband, even to explain some of the emotionally upsetting things that happened in our relationship.

And that’s just me. There are many, many other reasons why someone who gave birth once, might not either want, or be able to have, another child. It’s incredibly personal, and can be incredibly hurtful.

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And it’s none of your business. It’s my body, it’s my life, and it’s my choice, limited by circumstances though that choice is.

And if you really must ask that question? At least, take “it’s complicated,” or “I’d rather not discuss it” for an answer!