mothering

The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued

tina — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Like many of my generation, I am a child of divorce. I watched as my newly single mother struggled to work, find and pay for childcare, and afford lawyers that could compete with my father’s during endless days of court. I watched as we plummeted into poverty while my wealthy father’s lifestyle barely changed. I am the daughter of a woman who chose to sacrifice her career to raise me, and who was subsequently penalized by a system that encouraged her to do precisely that. As such, I am profoundly grateful for the tenth anniversary edition of The Price of Motherhood, a book where former New York Times reporter Ann Crittenden reminds us that despite the incessant rhetoric about “family values,” America has yet to put its money where its mouth is and motherhood is still dangerously undervalued.

Crittenden seeks to demonstrate that it is motherhood and not being female that is the primary source of women’s inequality. Mothering, she claims, is dismissed by American culture as something menial, and the housewife’s work is neither politically nor economically recognized as labor. Despite this; however, inflexible workplaces almost guarantee that women will have to cut back or quit their job when they have children, resulting in a “mommy tax” of approximately $1 million in lost income for an educated mother. Moreover, when women sacrifice their careers to raise children, their unpaid labor does not entitle them to the breadwinner’s income during marriage or after a divorce. Women often have to ask their husbands for money to cover basic expenses or they’re put on an allowance that is only a fraction of the husband’s income. During divorces, many states are reluctant to give women half the assets or the highest child support payment. They also rarely go after dads who refuse to pay even the smallest sums. It is because of all of these reasons that Crittenden argues that motherhood is the single biggest risk factor for poverty, and women—who have fought to earn respect for their work in the workplace—need to keep fighting to win respect for their work in the home.

By design, Crittenden’s book promotes an intersectional approach to examining the “price of motherhood,” utilizing gender analysis, the law, public policy, and economics. Each chapter features an in-depth analysis of one of the problems facing mothers and multiple sources, including personal stories of Crittenden’s life as a mother and interviews with other women. Crittenden’s decision to use such a wide variety of sources, coupled with the structure of the book, ultimately facilitates her argument that “the price of motherhood” is derived and perpetuated from multiple locations. The book’s conclusion features a list of concrete suggestions and policy changes that should be made to “bring children up without putting women down,” a list that could be helpful to a wide array of readers, from mothers and feminist organizations to politicians.

Crittenden chooses not to rely heavily on theory, possibly in an attempt to make her book accessible to a wider audience and to better showcase her breezy, witty writing. Unfortunately; however, a lack of theory allows her to ignore feminist theorists who fear a focus on motherhood produces the idea that women are “naturally” suited for the family. She never addresses theorists, such as Wendy Brown, who argue that women should be wary of relying on the state—a patriarchal institution—for protection, or who argue that welfare regimes only swap a woman’s dependency on a husband’s paycheck for a (patriarchal) government’s check. Indeed, Crittenden seems slightly wary of taking a position on the “naturalness” of women’s mothering, hinting at times that there is something innately caring in women. I also felt she stressed the importance of having a mother at home too much, which could lead to a backlash.

Overall, I think The Price of Motherhood is a tremendously important book. It is perfect for an introductory women’s studies class, or any economics, law, and public policy class with a feminist focus. It is also a book I think every woman should read. We’re told repeatedly that we can “have it all,” but The Price of Motherhood reminds us that mothers don’t have it all—yet.

Written by: Shannon Hill, March 1st 2011

Mother Knows Best: Talking Back to the “Experts”

gwen — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Edited by Laura Camille Tuley, Jessica Nathanson

Demeter Press

Given the sassy title and equally feisty cartoon woman on the cover of this book, I expected a bold, yet playful critique of so-called mothering “experts.” Much to my disappointment, what I encountered within was a collection of essays and research papers that were heavy in academic terminology and short on the fun. This is not a book for the lighthearted reader, but rather for those who seek a more scholarly perspective on issues such as the bodily experience of being pregnant, breastfeeding and its associated politics, and how a “good” mother is defined.

The women who contributed to this book share backgrounds in higher education. Many are professors and hold PhDs and other advanced degrees or positions of relative power and prestige. Taking this into account, it makes sense that their writing is at times overly cerebral in its deconstruction of motherhood. One would have to already be knowledgeable about the mainstream critiques in order to delve into this world of advanced analysis.

Some of the authors’ arguments were not new to me, such as that of breastfeeding. The mainstream media has a history of covering breastfeed-ins as well as studies about the benefits of breast milk. The buck usually stops here, and this is where the in-depth discussions come into use. The authors accurately deconstruct breastfeeding as it relates to the idealized image of a mother and the societal expectations that we are all inevitably caught up in. Breastfeed-ins are great and all, but to have the opportunity to engage in this type of activism also suggests a level of privilege. What about working mothers? What about otherwise marginalized women who have more at risk?

Then there is the whole question of how breastfeeding intersects with feminism. On one hand, women are held to impossible standards of motherhood in which the mother never blows up or grows frustrated and fosters a healthy sense of self in her children, quite possibly at the risk of losing her own self in the process. On the other hand, women have worked tirelessly to achieve even a semblance of equality in the workplace and are taught that they should aspire to anything and everything that they dream for themselves. Both of these paths involve a lot of input from outside sources, or the so-called “experts.” These experts tell women how they should feel, how they should birth their children, and how they should raise their children, yet tend to ignore or disregard the ultimate authorities on the subject—the mothers themselves.

At the core of this book, the authors propose that women can be experts of their own pregnancies and mothering experiences. There are many conflicting and compelling lines of reason behind many of the practices supported by experts, but ultimately the mother’s individual circumstances should be considered. Each woman must be her own mothering expert because, after all, she will be the one living it.

Written by: Shana Mattson, February 23rd 2011

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

gwen — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Claire Dederer

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

I’ve always wondered what prompts people to write memoirs. It’s one thing to be a celebrity riding the wave of success, but quite another to be a regular Jane baring it all for the judgment of strangers. As a critic for publications as prestigious as The New York Times, Claire Dederer is no stranger to criticism; nor does she seem to fear it. In her first book, Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, she bravely opens the cloak of privacy to reveal herself to the world. I suppose she is a writer who was ready to tell her own story for once, as opposed to reviewing those of others. Full of sincerity and love, this book is a cleverly written homage to her family, her friends, her marriage, and of course, her yoga.

Those of you turned off by “yoga” in the title should reconsider, as this is nothing like the New Age self-indulgence that has given the ancient tradition a bad reputation. Instead, Dederer loosely ties her yoga practice to the peaks and valleys of her life. In each chapter she recalls anecdotes and tells them in the context of a different yoga pose. This structural device offers comic relief and surprising tangents like this: “Back in college, we used to have a silly rubric: Never have sex with anyone who doesn’t like Van Morrison…based on the fact that [he] is embarrassing, and sex is embarrassing.” Then onto the next paragraph: “And Lion was embarrassing. It made you feel like Van Morrison, all uncontrollable noises and strange eruptions.” These are also moments for the reader to self-reflect, and this is where her writing is most profound and relatable.

Apart from being an extremely talented writer, she is a poster child for the ultimate alternative generation. In typical Northwest grunge fashion, Dederer is admirably cool without trying. Her book is packed with dry wit, self-deprecation, and cultural references that I only understand because of my older, Gen-X sister. After enough time self-reflecting in Seattle, a city known for its constant self-perfecting, Dederer and her husband move to the mountains of Boulder. This is when she dives into the implications of her childhood, the fine line between selfishness and personal happiness, and the pros and cons of moving back home.

These universal and common issues make for a fascinating memoir that only a serious writer could pull off successfully. From beginning to end, this book carries the mantra that life can be as bizarre as putting your feet behind your head, and also as rewarding. Paraphrasing Patanjali in one of his Yoga Sutras: Yoga becomes firmly grounded when it is practiced for a long time, without a break, and with sincere devotion. I’d say that’s true of most good things in life, and why Dederer would choose yoga as the unifying theme for a book as dear to her heart as this. At one point she reflects, “What happens when a generation of children grows up with all these comings and goings; when a generation of children grows up with parents who want to be free, and who think that freedom is movement?” Well, Claire Dederer has personally shown us just exactly what happens, and why she chose to dig her heels in and never give up on her practice.

We sometimes duplicate a review. Click here for another writer's take on _Poser.

Written by: Katy Pine, February 23rd 2011

Twenty-first Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency

barbara — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Andrea O'Reilly

Columbia University Press

Motherhood is often a topic of confusion or contention among feminists. The process of birthing demonstrates just how awesome and powerful women’s bodies are. However, the institution of motherhood is constructed in ways that oppress women and privilege certain classes, races, and sexualities. In Of Woman Born Adrienne Rich writes, “We do not think of the power stolen from us and the power withheld from us in the name of the institution of motherhood.”

Taking their cue from Rich, writers of the new volume Twenty-first Century Motherhood: Experience, Identity, Policy, Agency look to reclaim some of this stolen and withheld power. This volume, which explores current issues in the burgeoning field of motherhood studies, shows how women have begun deconstructing motherhood through the practice of “empowered mothering” that has transformed this institution. Editor Andrea O’Reilly’s introduction to the volume gives readers a clear and succinct foundation of feminist theories surrounding motherhood studies including Sara Ruddick’s revolutionary idea that mothering is a practice and therefore a verb as opposed to a noun.

While O’Reilly’s introduction is much needed for motherhood studies amateurs such as myself, the essays in Twenty-first Century Motherhood range much further than a mere introduction to this exciting field. This volume, true to its title, explores how recent changes have altered forever the experience of mothering for women everywhere. The essays are divided into four sections— experience, identity, policy, and agency—and cover a huge range of topics which seem to particularly affect mothers in the Global North. The articles range, quite incredibly, from Chicana mothering and GBLTQ parenting to the role that the internet and biotechnology play in familial relations.

I was pleasantly caught off guard by Ana Villalobos’ thought-provoking essay, “Mothering in Fear: How Living in an Insecure-Feeling World Affects Parenting.” Villalobos does an excellent job exploring the question: what mothering strategies do parents use in reaction to today’s perceived fear and risk-abundant environment? Villalobos shows that while some mothers have become overly protective, others have developed inoculating parenting behaviors—exposing their children to the risks of the world. While these parents have often been criticized as lacking an intense love and care for their children, Villalobos shows that just the opposite is true. These inoculating parents believe that by exposing their children to moderate, but manageable, risks they are better caring for their children by allowing them to learn how to navigate such a complex and dangerous world.

In “Brown Bodies, White Eggs,” Harrison touches on some very pertinent issues surrounding race and labor in matters of cross-racial gestational surrogacy, when the surrogate female giving birth is of a different race than the child she is carrying. In her essay, Harrison proposes that while the inter-relations of people of different races in this process of birthing may seem to efface racialized gender hierarchies they actually do much more to enforce them.

Lastly, I was quite impressed with Rachel Epstien’s essay, “Queer Parenting in the New Millennium.” Toward the end of her essay, Epstien poignantly comes to the difficult question: how do queer parents obtain both the public recognition they desire as lovers and parents while at the same time persist in resisting the norm and questioning that which society sees as recognizable? In answer to this question, Epstien writes, “let our children learn that “sexuality and gender are varied, fluid, complex, messy, exciting, scary, fun and always changing.” Epstien here makes an excellent point. At the end of Twenty-first Century Motherhood however, it is easy to see that along with sexuality and gender, motherhood should also be taught as “varied, fluid, complex, messy, exciting, scary, fun, and always changing.”

Written by: Colleen S. Kenny, January 30th 2011

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses

farhana — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Claire Dederer

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

In Poser, Claire Dederer takes on two of the most en vogue trends for young women in the early twenty-first century: yoga and attachment parenting. After a liberated childhood, having been raised in Seattle in the 1970s and 1980s by parents who embraced many of the hippie ideals of the 1960s, Dederer took those lessons of freedom to heart. She, like many others in her generation, went to college but delayed getting a 9-5 job, marriage, and childrearing into her third decade.

Having settled down, she quickly found herself closer to the 1950s, with a husband who was the sole breadwinner except for the emphasis on organic food and co-sleeping and public breastfeeding. Thanks to a back problem and subtle social pressure from her fellow Supermoms, Claire decided to try yoga.

The book is cleverly divided into chapters based on yoga poses that the author was mastering. Throughout her struggle with balance and strength and patience in the yoga studio, the reader follows Dederer as these trials and successes translate into the rest of her life. Without sounding trite or cliché, she manages to draw the reader in to the lessons she is learning about being present in her life in every moment without worrying about perfection—admittedly a difficult concept for someone who grew up being told over and over again that she could, and should, be anything she wanted.

The cast of characters includes two children, Claire’s overworked and underpaid husband, and an assortment of immediate family members who are never more than a stone’s throw away. Each of these relationships shifts ever so slightly as the author becomes more comfortable with her own discomfort, both in various yoga studios and in her everyday life.

Many mothers will immediately identify with her visceral need to measure up to the other mothers in her circle and be perfect and her message comes across in a refreshingly humorous but not self-deprecating way. Whether or not you engage in a yoga practice, there are lessons to be learned from this book.

Written by: Kari O’Driscoll, December 7th 2010

Mothers Who Deliver: Feminist Interventions in Public and Interpersonal Discourse

gwen — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Edited by Pegeen Reichert Powell, Jocelyn Fenton Stitt

SUNY Press

While the field of mothering studies is approximately thirty years old, there’s no question that the experience of motherhood and the accompanying discourse and silence that surround it has existed for far longer. In this academic anthology, Stitt and Powell cast a wide net into this interdisciplinary field, bringing back articles that speak to everything from the “mommyblogging” revolution to single mothers’ groups and how they operate on university campuses. It is a bit broad for a text that comes in under 315 pages, but then again, it seems that attempting to narrow this field of study would be counterintuitive. The message of mothering studies scholars is clear: each mother’s experience deserves exploration.

The book is divided into two parts: “Feminist Interventions in Public Discourse,” and “Feminist Interventions in Interpersonal Discourse.” That organizational style doesn’t help or hurt the book since it’s a well-curated set of articles, but it is interesting to think about the public and private spheres that mothering dually occupies. In a feminist collection like this, it is difficult to highlight certain articles over others, especially because readers know how intimate these experiences are. However, there are certain pieces in this anthology that truly do stand apart from the rest. “Cyborg Mothering” by Shelley Park offers a unique, maternal perspective on technology. This is a woman who once refused to own a cell phone because she didn’t want to be in constant contact with anyone. Upon her separation from her husband and as a result of their joint custody of their two daughters, that same woman now relies on that mobile device and various web tools to maintain a presence in her daughters’ lives when they spend time with her ex-husband. It’s fascinating to see technology in this light, as a tool that truly does keep the lines of communication open, rather than as a distraction or a way to connect with an old high school friend.

Lynn Kuechle offers her thoughts on the current lack of mothering scripts, and expresses her frustration as a master’s student in speech communication and a mother, which culminates in a series of monologues about mothering. When read against another article in this text, “Mommyblogging Is a Radical Act!: Weblog Communities and the Construction of Maternal Identity,” one begins to question what “lack of mothering scripts” Kuechle is referring to. According to Lisa Hammond, mommybloggers are rewriting scripts every day on the web. The issues like these that are raised by the mere combination of articles in this text are the most rewarding aspects of reading Mothers Who Deliver. The articles themselves promote introspection, but it is the act of reading them in the same space against seemingly disparate articles that fosters questioning and eventual understanding of just how personal and political a field like mothering studies can be.

Written by: Alyssa Vincent, November 13th 2010