A Promise, Not A Threat
Talking with a friend yesterday, while sitting together in a busy public place and watching at all the families milling around us, and we were wondering…how did modern civilization manage before the industrial revolution? The topic came up because, at lunch that same day, when I said I hope I can read my child bedtime stories I wrote myself, another friend said to me, “Oh, but when you have kids you don’t have time for ANYTHING else!”
It confuses me.
Because, as we’ve been so famously told, a woman’s place was in the home, and her job was to do all the cooking and sewing (and before the sewing, the spinning in the weaving) and the storing and putting up of food, and the gathering, and the gardening, and the scrubbing of the clothing in the river or wash tub and everything else we now have machines to do for us….as well as having and raising babies. She did it all. And yet….women now tell me, “Oh honey, when you have a baby, you can’t do ANYTHING else. You have no time for ANYTHING else.” They laugh at me when I say that I’m an artist… (“Oh honey, forget that. Once you have kids, you’ll never have time for ANYTHING else.”) …so apparently there’s that college degree down the drain, right? (But I have to have a good job and be a liberated modern woman and also go to work every day, too, right Feminist Movement? LOL)
If I won’t even have time to draw a single picture or write a single sentence until my kids are in college, even with the added assistance of grocery stores and factory-made clothing, then how did society ever SURVIVE to even SEE an industrial revolution? I know that women in colonial America used to dress their infants in long cotton gowns because they could just set the table leg on the baby’s hem, and the kid couldn’t crawl away while Mom was darning socks or whatever she was doing. (I honestly think that’s rather brilliant. Now people look at me like I’m evil if I say I plan on letting Future Kid hang out in a play pen. I remember devouring Little House on the Prairie and never hearing anything about how Ma just couldn’t do anything because she was too busy trying to get baby Carrie to pay attention to her ‘Your Baby Can Read!’ program flashcards.
I asked my mother about this once, and she said she didn’t know what they were talking about. She used to sew my clothes (she likes to sew, its her hobby even now), and cook and clean AND work. She just put me in my playpen with some toys….or Dad or Grandma or my Aunt Kathy would watch me…or they brought me to the little daycare at our church…. and she went to work or her sewing machine or went and graded papers, and I was fine.
I told her, “Girls now tell me that I have to spend ALL my time stimulating the baby, that I should never leave it ‘unstimulated’ for a second, or it’ll stunt its mental development.”
She said, “The child’s going to end up looking like it stuck its finger in an electric socket.” Then we laughed.
But I’m really curious. How did we ever evolve as a species without LeapPads, and elite preschools, and Bratz dolls, and certain quotas of logged ‘stimulation’ time, and Baby Mozart, and infant flashcards, and elaborate Vtech toys, and hand sanitizer, and factory farming, and Publix, and cheap clothing made in China, and formula, and washing machines, and dishwashers, and all those other modern conveniences that were supposed to make our lives easier? Because we have all those things now, and I’m still told that I will never have time to do anything from the moment my child is born other than be with that child and stimulate that child and mother that child and fuss over that child and drive that child to a million classes and events and teams and obsess obsess obsess over that child.
...and if you have one child, and you NEVER HAVE TIME FOR ANYTHING ELSE, then how to people have TWO children? My god, it boggles the mind!
....unless....unless...just maybe....it's all bullshit?
Could be.
Thing is, if I do find out it's all bullshit, and if I found out that all the "BIRTH IS A HORRIBLE VIOLENT SCARY NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE" war stories that I've been fed over the years by so many women are bullshit, then I'll be calling all of modern womankind OUT on that bullshit.
...I guess I'll see, won't I?
It confuses me.
Because, as we’ve been so famously told, a woman’s place was in the home, and her job was to do all the cooking and sewing (and before the sewing, the spinning in the weaving) and the storing and putting up of food, and the gathering, and the gardening, and the scrubbing of the clothing in the river or wash tub and everything else we now have machines to do for us….as well as having and raising babies. She did it all. And yet….women now tell me, “Oh honey, when you have a baby, you can’t do ANYTHING else. You have no time for ANYTHING else.” They laugh at me when I say that I’m an artist… (“Oh honey, forget that. Once you have kids, you’ll never have time for ANYTHING else.”) …so apparently there’s that college degree down the drain, right? (But I have to have a good job and be a liberated modern woman and also go to work every day, too, right Feminist Movement? LOL)
If I won’t even have time to draw a single picture or write a single sentence until my kids are in college, even with the added assistance of grocery stores and factory-made clothing, then how did society ever SURVIVE to even SEE an industrial revolution? I know that women in colonial America used to dress their infants in long cotton gowns because they could just set the table leg on the baby’s hem, and the kid couldn’t crawl away while Mom was darning socks or whatever she was doing. (I honestly think that’s rather brilliant. Now people look at me like I’m evil if I say I plan on letting Future Kid hang out in a play pen. I remember devouring Little House on the Prairie and never hearing anything about how Ma just couldn’t do anything because she was too busy trying to get baby Carrie to pay attention to her ‘Your Baby Can Read!’ program flashcards.
I asked my mother about this once, and she said she didn’t know what they were talking about. She used to sew my clothes (she likes to sew, its her hobby even now), and cook and clean AND work. She just put me in my playpen with some toys….or Dad or Grandma or my Aunt Kathy would watch me…or they brought me to the little daycare at our church…. and she went to work or her sewing machine or went and graded papers, and I was fine.
I told her, “Girls now tell me that I have to spend ALL my time stimulating the baby, that I should never leave it ‘unstimulated’ for a second, or it’ll stunt its mental development.”
She said, “The child’s going to end up looking like it stuck its finger in an electric socket.” Then we laughed.
But I’m really curious. How did we ever evolve as a species without LeapPads, and elite preschools, and Bratz dolls, and certain quotas of logged ‘stimulation’ time, and Baby Mozart, and infant flashcards, and elaborate Vtech toys, and hand sanitizer, and factory farming, and Publix, and cheap clothing made in China, and formula, and washing machines, and dishwashers, and all those other modern conveniences that were supposed to make our lives easier? Because we have all those things now, and I’m still told that I will never have time to do anything from the moment my child is born other than be with that child and stimulate that child and mother that child and fuss over that child and drive that child to a million classes and events and teams and obsess obsess obsess over that child.
...and if you have one child, and you NEVER HAVE TIME FOR ANYTHING ELSE, then how to people have TWO children? My god, it boggles the mind!
....unless....unless...just maybe....it's all bullshit?
Could be.
Thing is, if I do find out it's all bullshit, and if I found out that all the "BIRTH IS A HORRIBLE VIOLENT SCARY NEGATIVE EXPERIENCE" war stories that I've been fed over the years by so many women are bullshit, then I'll be calling all of modern womankind OUT on that bullshit.
...I guess I'll see, won't I?