The Emperor is Naked
I see a lot of feminists blogging that the "Mommy Wars" and the "Opt Out Revolution" etc are cases of the emperor's new clothes. I don't really care much because I am, at best, interested in debating parenting choices with respectful people I know and like. So I read about this stuff with the soap opera like interest that fuels any kind of social controvercy that I don't think matters much nor affects me much. I feel I read a lot more commentary on the supposed phenomena than glimpses of the phenomena themselves.
In this light, I read the following piece from a feminist mother at Salon about how everyone hates mother's these days. Or at least they hate well off urban white mothers. Oh, hey, that was me. I pushed a stroller around the West Loop a lot, a very edgy gentrified neighborhood. Of course, being in the act of trying to get-the-hell-out-of-there made me feel distances from mothers who were there by choice, but I didn't wear a sign that said "trying to move to the suburbs." Anyway, I never noticed or felt this mommy hate, well, at least not from anyone else. I have experienced the occasional glare from people who thought I should either find a way to utterly control my kid or take him elesewhere. I don't think that counts.
I have generated, and kept mostly in my own mind, some mommy-derision toward those mothers whom I preceived as either crazy, rich, or too hip for their own good who choose to live and breed in the city (just to clarify, there are a million neighborhoods technically in the city of Chicago, many of them poor, many with very little enthnic diversity, many filled with tiny little houses that aren't that expensive and don't have a Starbucks on every corner. I am not talking about these neighborhoods or the families who live in them.).
My derision is best exemplified in my deep dislike of Wicker Park, a place that I personally couldn't afford to raise a child in and wouldn't want to. And when I see the moms at the playground in Wicker Park, in their super trendy clothes, expensive strollers, and skinny bodies, I feel an irrational dislike. And yes, when I learn that they are living in Wicker Park, own a house no less, and are stay at home moms, my dislike increases. But are they doing anything bad, except supposedly being happy, well off, etc? They aren't taking up any more space than anyone else (unless you count their SUVs). Their homes actually take up less space and they aren't contributing to suburban sprawl. They aren't making my life harder except by sucking up all the spots in the Montessori school in MY neighborhood. And mostly, my dislike is fueled by some vague sense that they must have a better life than me, be better parents, and that I am somehow supposed to be them but am not living up. I think that's called envy. I recognize it for being irrational, and so I make fun of them in my mind, and I don't make friends with them (How could I? They live way up in Wicker Park?), but I don't do anything else.
All that was an aside. I don't think my envy and resentment is contributing to the mommy hate, and I haven't seen it anywhere else. I would not claim that just because I don't experience something means no one else does. But if their claiming this is a whole movement, it sure has passed me by, and I am skeptical. Maybe it's a difference between Chicago and New York. Plenty of people offered me seats on the crowded bus when I was pregnant.
http://www.salon.com/life/motherhood/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2009/11/22/mommy_hate
In this light, I read the following piece from a feminist mother at Salon about how everyone hates mother's these days. Or at least they hate well off urban white mothers. Oh, hey, that was me. I pushed a stroller around the West Loop a lot, a very edgy gentrified neighborhood. Of course, being in the act of trying to get-the-hell-out-of-there made me feel distances from mothers who were there by choice, but I didn't wear a sign that said "trying to move to the suburbs." Anyway, I never noticed or felt this mommy hate, well, at least not from anyone else. I have experienced the occasional glare from people who thought I should either find a way to utterly control my kid or take him elesewhere. I don't think that counts.
I have generated, and kept mostly in my own mind, some mommy-derision toward those mothers whom I preceived as either crazy, rich, or too hip for their own good who choose to live and breed in the city (just to clarify, there are a million neighborhoods technically in the city of Chicago, many of them poor, many with very little enthnic diversity, many filled with tiny little houses that aren't that expensive and don't have a Starbucks on every corner. I am not talking about these neighborhoods or the families who live in them.).
My derision is best exemplified in my deep dislike of Wicker Park, a place that I personally couldn't afford to raise a child in and wouldn't want to. And when I see the moms at the playground in Wicker Park, in their super trendy clothes, expensive strollers, and skinny bodies, I feel an irrational dislike. And yes, when I learn that they are living in Wicker Park, own a house no less, and are stay at home moms, my dislike increases. But are they doing anything bad, except supposedly being happy, well off, etc? They aren't taking up any more space than anyone else (unless you count their SUVs). Their homes actually take up less space and they aren't contributing to suburban sprawl. They aren't making my life harder except by sucking up all the spots in the Montessori school in MY neighborhood. And mostly, my dislike is fueled by some vague sense that they must have a better life than me, be better parents, and that I am somehow supposed to be them but am not living up. I think that's called envy. I recognize it for being irrational, and so I make fun of them in my mind, and I don't make friends with them (How could I? They live way up in Wicker Park?), but I don't do anything else.
All that was an aside. I don't think my envy and resentment is contributing to the mommy hate, and I haven't seen it anywhere else. I would not claim that just because I don't experience something means no one else does. But if their claiming this is a whole movement, it sure has passed me by, and I am skeptical. Maybe it's a difference between Chicago and New York. Plenty of people offered me seats on the crowded bus when I was pregnant.
http://www.salon.com/life/motherhood/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2009/11/22/mommy_hate