Motherhood isn't for me

Full disclosure, I’ll probably never be a mom. I never grew up wanting to be one. I don’t even remember playing with dolls all that much as a kid. I know my sisters and I had them, and we owned Barbie (mine was a secret agent), but as for baby dolls with the mommy and me kind of stuff, not so much. And because of my disinterest in parenthood, I’ve never really given much thought to the whole, stay at home mom vs. working mom thing. I have some good friends who choose one or the other, and some who like me stare in wonder. When pushed (mostly by my breeder friends) I talk up adoption, and honestly, if I ever do end up with kids it will be because my partner and I bought adopted them.

So what has me thinking about all this? I heard Jessica Valenti speak on a podcast. She was interviewed about a variety of topics, and while I enjoy some of her work she leaves out a lot particularly around class. Like many progressives the obligatory head nod is given to all things not applicable to me as an individual and then we never speak of them again. This is why I prefer her work accompanied by someone else like Yes Means Yes over Full Frontal Feminism. However, the interview included aspects of her life as mother and experience writing Why Have Kids?. Valenti mentions that she offhandedly mentioned she didn’t define herself first as a mother, but instead as a person. She didn’t expect this to be a controversial aspect of the book, but obviously she was wrong.

A good friend of mine, who I rarely agree with on politics, is a stay at home mom. That is her choice, and she should be able to make that choice. She shouldn’t have to work outside the home because her family can’t afford not to have two incomes. But I remember when she told me that she and her husband had decided this was right for their family, but said it in a really defensive way like I am expected to have an issue with it. Naturally, I don’t. Again, whatever works for you is what you should do.

That being said we regularly argue about welfare. For the life of me I don’t understand why some people have the choice to stay home with their children and others are forced to work outside the home based on arbitrary regulations rooted in classism. Right, the assumption is that poor people are lazy, and they have to be forced to work outside the home, because childcare isn’t considered labor unless it is for other people’s kids and even then undervalued. By extension are we as a society saying that not only are the poor lazy, but they are incapable of teaching values to their children, and their children’s care should be entrusted to outsiders through Head Start Programs and daycares, which frequently employs the very people being forced to work outside the home in the first place.

Mother/child: Mother has to work outside home to receive + welfare benefit = Child in daycare

Work outside home = low-wage service work (most often). This includes fast food, child care, and house cleaning. So what am I missing?

Obviously, this comes down to privilege. The Valenti interview made me think of it because when the hosts and Valenti were talking about the other ways we know that motherhood isn’t actually the most important job a woman can do included maternity level, waged housework, etc, but it left out the poor who don’t have the option not to work. Hear that? That’s second wave feminism. I’m not accusing Valenti or the hosts of being second wavers nor do I mean to imply that it is negative, just demonstrating that logic has an origin. So I have no answers here. I have trouble even following the logic of the condescension when I say I don’t want kids of my own.  I usually get that, “Right now. You don’t want kids right now.” Nope, don’t want to go through a kind of pain that literally numbs your brain and rips your body open.

However, there is another side to this statement: Motherhood is the greatest most important job ever. If women are supposed to define themselves as mothers first, when shouldn’t men define themselves as fathers first?

Clearly, this is a double standard. Men are usually defined by what they do in the public sphere, which boils down to employment. I think this is a disservice to men because we are all more than our paycheck and wage. However, that is exactly the point right? You are this one quality and nothing more. So the simplistic version is caretaker vs. provider. But that’s not how things really work. This division of power is really unfair to everyone involved.

Essentially, this is a really complicated issue, but one that should probably be investigated further. I’ve never understood the good for me, but no one else argument, which seems to permeate these discussions. The “I as an individual should be able to do whatever I want, but anyone else needs to do it this way.” I find this frequent in discussions of welfare and welfare reform.

Given the school shooting in Connecticut, I feel I should state I wrote this Friday morning before I heard about the shooting. But I assume many a person will be highly emotional.