Across the chest, in clear, all-caps font, it reads, "This is what a feminist looks like."
"Feminist" can look like many things-- fat, thin, black, white, athletic, disabled, young, old, male, female. But I couldn't have imagined that the shirt would ever look so painfully ironic on me. I remember catching a glimpse of it in the mirror when my oldest child was two years old. I was emaciated, sick, dirty, and sallow. My eyes were mad with panic and sleep deprivation. I couldn't remember the last time I'd showered or slept. I was losing it.
This is what a feminist looks like, indeed.
We rarely discuss the hidden costs of what the crunchy community calls "natural" parenting. We rarely talk about the toll it takes on women and the number of moms who have struggled, hurt, and even died because of a desire to fill the role of Perfect Mom. But natural parenting has a human cost. And women are almost always the ones who pay the price.
Let's consider, for example, Charlotte Bevan. She and her baby died because she stopped taking her medication for schizophrenia so she could breastfeed her baby.
Then there's Joanne Whale. She wanted a natural birth and trusted her body. She died as a result.
Or what about Katy Isden? She took her own life in devastation because her baby was unable to breastfeed.
Those are only the deaths of course. They don't account for all the other pains and toils of being a "natural" mom. They don't account for how it feels when it's two in the morning and you're absolutely covered in vomit and you really need to put your crying child down for a minute to take a shower, but you can't because your child shouldn't ever have to cry.
They don't account for how it feels when your doctor prescribes you a medicine that might impact your sleep, and when you ask your mom friends for advice getting your baby to sleep in his own crib, they all tell you to stop taking your medicine or to let your baby sleep with you anyway-- and you know that they're telling you to choose between risking your life or your child's.
They don't account for when you're in your twenty-third hour of posterior labor with a nine-pound baby and you're screaming in pain but know that you'd be betraying everything you believe in if you ask for an epidural.
They don't account for when you're extremely sick and you're so dehydrated that you pass out every time you try to stand, but your spouse keeps bringing you the baby so you can breastfeed him, and you don't even think of formula as an option.
They don't account for when you're "baby-wearing" your four-year-old and your back hurts so bad that you're near tears, but because she's a special-needs kid with gross motor delays, you can't let her walk... and you always swore you'd never buy a stroller.
They don't account for when your baby has never taken a bottle, and Dr. Sears and Dr. Newman both say that's fine-- even preferable-- and while you nurse your baby, you start weeping over how much you would give to just be able to leave him with someone else for an hour.
They don't account for when you banned food coloring and preservatives from your home and have to explain to your children why they can't have a Superman birthday cake or eat their Halloween candy.
They don't account for when you have to shake rotavirus diarrhea out of a cloth diaper while you're struggling with untreated morning sickness, and you retch and gag and dry-heave over and over.
They don't account for when your two-year-old is screaming in pain from an ear infection and you just keep putting garlic oil in it, hoping that it will somehow solve the problem, until you finally go to the doctor and hope that your crunchy friends never find out.
They don't account for when you really, truly, desperately miss your career, and you fantasize all day about just having a normal job and picking you kids up from daycare, but instead, you're at home spraying poop off your cloth diapers and wondering if anyone is ever going to know your deep, dark secret about wanting to go to work.
"Natural" parenting hurts. But more than it hurts men or even children, it hurts women. We are held to a superhuman standard of behavior. We are not supposed to have human needs. We are not supposed to need a night out with friends, or a job, or hobbies. We're not supposed to want to spend the day anywhere besides the playground, the farmer's market, the kitchen, or the homeschool co-op. We are not supposed to want sex, or alcohol, or soda, or babysitters. We are supposed to spend every moment of every day enslaved to our children, folding to their every whim, and we are supposed to enjoy it.
That's what the culture of crunchy motherhood-- the greener-than-thou cliques of organic Stepford Wives-- orders of us. That's why, in the "Bible" of attachment parenting authored by definitely-not-a-mother William Sears, all but one in twenty paragraphs is directed at mothers. It's why attachment parenting Facebook groups have a 98% female membership. It's why there are no beards anywhere to be seen at cloth diaper meetups. The culture of natural parenthood tells us that parenting is hard, and that those of us who give birth have an obligation to bear these burdens ourselves.
Real "natural" parenting: Aka Father with his son.
Perhaps the strangest reality of natural motherhood is that it isn't, in fact, natural. Women in hunter-gatherer societies actually have a tremendous amount of help caring for their children. Aka fathers, for example, hold their babies for about 20% of the day and most of the night, only passing them off to Mom or grandma to feed. Overall, hunter-gatherer fathers are actually more involved and more attached to their babies than people surviving by any other means of agriculture or production. If we want to live "naturally," we need to hold other caregivers responsible for our babies-- not just the parent who happens to have given birth.
Of course, it's never a good idea to do anything just because it's natural. But, if your goal is to live in the way that humans were designed to live, the kind of attachment parenting that places near-sole responsibility of children on their mothers' shoulders isn't the way to go. Real natural mothers have help. They have sisters, brothers, husbands, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who feed, nurse, and otherwise care for their babies. They don't spend the first three years of their babies' lives as most crunchy moms do-- drowning in sleep deprivation and worry. They have help.
We need to abandon the toxic, sexist culture that has come to dominate the natural parenting community. The culture of crunchy moms that values a child's every whim over the human needs of his mother is not a sustainable culture at all. It's time to shed our conceptions of motherhood as an arms-race to see who is the most successful martyr of natural parenting. It's time to stop shaming mothers who can't, or don't, breastfeed, cloth-diaper, stay at home, homeschool, buy organic, and cosleep.
It's time to evolve.
Honestly, I think making blanket pronouncements about what kind of parenting can and cannot be feminist is unfemenist. Women have been told and shamed for so long about how they should or shouldn't parent, I feel like what is most feminist is to respect parenting choices, provide support, and encourage intentional and self-nurturing parenting choices. I embrace many aspects of natural and high-effort parenting, including doing things that would make many people miserable, like hand-making marzipan bees (organic, and with food-based coloring, of course) for my kid's birthday cake, sewing toys and building furniture for my babe, making almost all of my kid's food from scratch, and working from home. I love having great support and child care, but I also prefer to spend most of my time with my baby. I find these aspects of parenting really enjoyable. Many parents don't enjoy them, and would find this type of parenting more stressful.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great for all moms (and dads) to find the balance in parenting that works for them. I don't think moms who choose not to parent like I do are worse moms than I am, and I don't feel the need to judge how they parent (even if they parent in a way that would make me unhappy). Similarly, I think the blanket statement that natural parenting "hurts" or is necessarily draining or miserable is an unfeminist and unfair judgment of other moms who enjoy natural parenting. If it's not for you, that's great. But crapping on one group of moms to support another group doesn't really get anyone ahead in the end.
I will also say that, while I believe these really negative and judgmental attitudes may exist among some "natural" parents, I have never encountered them among any of the natural parents that I know, including midwives, natural health care practitioners, LLL groups, and other very crunchy folk. What I hear extolled most is the value of a supportive community, self-care, and balance. I'm sorry you have had this experience, but I don't know that it is typical of natural parents or the natural parenting community.
I think we're 100% in agreement there. But the complexity and nuance can't fit in the headline. I am completely in agreement with you as someone who enjoys attachment parenting. The criticism isn't of mothers who choose this (like I did) but of the mommy-war culture that tells women that there is no other way, and that places near-exclusive responsibility for childcare on mothers.
DeleteI think we are in agreement in spirit, but that the way you are expressing these feelings is through statements of judgment, not a call for flexibility and *less* criticism/shaming of mothers. Statements like "'Natural' parenting hurts" and "'Natural' Parenting is Unfeminist and Unnatural" are absolute and don't leave room for the opinions of (a) people who don't feel that way about "natural" parenting; or (b) any type of "natural" parenting that doesn't fit within your description. I generally think that your pronouncements of what is and isn't feminist often become restrictive of what women can/should think or feel, and are shaming (a post about how the Feminist Breeder wasn't feminist because she talked publicly about a pregnancy comes to mind, a criticism I know you later acknowledged as being unfair). It strikes me as being an iteration of this problem: http://viralwomen.com/post/feminists_shouldnt_police_other_womens_clothing_choices
DeleteThat's fair. I didn't express the nuance of my opinion very clearly or completely. I don't think these choices are inherently unfeminist. They're the choices I made, and I'm glad for them (with the exception of when I clung to them in ways that hurt me and/or my kids-- like when I was still breastfeeding my two-and-a-half-year-old even though I was severely malnourished). The problem (and what I'm trying to get across on this blog) isn't natural parenting itself, but when we hold the *idea* of natural parenting above the actual benefits it offers parents and children.
DeleteIt *is* inherently unfeminist to expect and encourage women to do these things even when it's dangerous to them. That's, by nature, placing women in a position of martyrdom that reduces them to their reproductive capacity. While statements like "it's unfeminist" or "it hurts women" do certainly sound like hypocritical condemnation and I could have worded it better, I was trying to make it clear in-context that what's unfeminist is the very toxic idealistic *culture* behind natural parenting, not the choices made on a person-by-person basis.
And thanks so much of the discussion and feedback! :D
Actually, I think Juniper's description of the natural parenting community is absolutely spot on. I've been parenting for almost thirty years and over that time, I have seen this movement become ever more extreme.
ReplyDeleteI find it ironic that so much of early feminist thought centered on woman having the right to define themselves outside of their biological ability to reproduce and now in 2015 so many feminists are sacrificing themselves on the altar of biological essentialism. These "intensive" mothering practices are not only not in the best interest women, they are often destructive to families. Attachment parenting seems to have evolved into something more akin to the "cult of the golden uterus" where not only must baby must be attached to mom- but only mom, to the exclusion of all other caregivers (This has never made sense to me from an evolutionary perspective. Given the rate of death by disease or accident, it seems that it would be in the infant's best interest to attach to numerous caregivers to insure survival if mom gets eaten by a tiger or falls off a cliff.)
It’s not enough for moms to love their children, their children must be FIRST at all times. I remember the absolute vitriol directed at Ayelet Waldman, when she admitted in a 2005 article that she loved her husband more than her children. I remember listening to other mothers talking about how their children ALWAYS came first no MATTER what and any REAL man would understand and support that. As I listened to them talk about how their husbands had been sleeping in the guest room for years because the children “weren’t ready” to stop cosleeping and how they hadn’t been out without the children EVER as if these things were badges of honor, I began to realize that maybe Waldman had a point. Is it really fair to our children to put the entire weight of our identity on them? Withholding emotional support, affection and sex is considered a form of domestic violence- one which the attachment parenting crowd seems to think is entirely justified as long as it’s “for the kids”. I would be really curious to know if there is a correlation between adherence to intensive mothering/attachment parenting ideology and marital breakdown.
I remember my terror prior to my first child’s birth that hospital policy had the potentialto utterly destroy my relationship with my newborn if he did not immediately nurse and “bond” with me. I blamed my months long postpartum depression on the fact that the nurses had taken my son for a few hours in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. His colic was clearly a sign of trauma from that separation and the only solution was for me to devote myself 100% to “making it up to him and re-establishing his trust” In retrospect, that sounds silly, but the echo chamber of “natural mamas” assured me that this was absolutely the case. The fact that I suffered increasing postpartum depression with two subsequent children, despite their being born at home was brushed aside…. because well. Reasons. My youngest child was born through international gestational surrogacy. She and I did not meet until she was ten days old. Despite her “unnatural” beginnings, she is a happy well adjusted bonded seven month old…. who knows from experience that her needs can be met by daddy, and big brother and sister, and grandma and grandpa and many others.
(continued because I am admittedly far too verbose for my own good)
DeleteAll of my children were exclusively breastfed until my six year old came along. He has a life threatening genetic disorder which caused cyclic vomiting. Kelly mom’s advice was for me to limit my diet. I was down to eating nothing but turkey, rice, pears, and sweet potatoes when finally my husband said, “This has to stop.” At four months old, my son was diagnosed with failure to thrive (he had dropped completely off the growth chart). As a result, his GI doctor advised he be put on elemental formula. I cried for three days, feeling that somehow I had failed my baby. Over and over and over friends told me to ignore medical advice and continue breastfeeding. One person even advised ME to drink the elemental formula and then breastfeed. But I couldn’t ignore the reality that after a week on elemental formula, my son gained six ounces. After a month, he had put on almost a pound. That’s when I realized that sometimes, breast isn’t best.
I induced lactation during my surrogate’s pregnancy, so that I could breastfeed my twins. I was very lucky in that my body responded well to the meds and the hormones I pumped into it. I was able to establish a good supply. Unfortunately, my son passed away when he was ten days old. I was exceptionally depressed and by the time my daughter was six weeks old, I realized that I needed help to manage my anxiety and depression. So I quit breastfeeding. I cannot count the number of people who raked me over the coals with “Wow, I’m surprised that after everything you went through to have that baby that you wouldn’t want to give her the absolute best.” or “Why get donor milk off Facebook?” (Um… the unscreened bodily fluids of multiple strangers is NOT a risk I was willing to take.) Despite that knowledge, despite knowing that in a first world country where clean water is plentiful and formula is highly regulated and a perfectly appropriate food for babies- I still felt guilty and ashamed of “taking the easy way out” The presumption that breastmilk was so valuable that I should sacrifice my sanity in order to give it to my daughter is and was offensive. As a feminist, I feel it is critical for me to model self care to my daughters.
There are still “natural parenting” things that I do because they work for my family. “Baby wearing” helps me care for my daughter while caring for my medically complex, special needs son. But I’ve learned that if I’m doing something that exhausts and drains me, I need to listen to both my mind and my body and change what we’re doing. If that means that baby sits in her bouncer for a few minutes while brother plays iPad so mommy can pee in peace…. so be it.
Anyway, this reply has gotten way more verbose than I intended. I just want to say thank you for articulating something so very important for women, babies, and families, for reminding us that sacrificing ourselves on the altar of perfect martyring motherhood benefits no one and can actually be dangerous.
I'm so sorry that you lost your son; that is unimaginably awful.
DeleteI think it's great that you found a good balance in your parenting, and it's unfortunate that anyone has or would judge you for what are clearly compassionate parenting choices.
Maybe it's a geographic thing (I'm in Colorado), or the fact that I avoid zealots of any kind, but my experience certainly hasn't been anything like yours or Juniper's. It seems like a shame to me to demonize one sect of parenting for a problem that is culture-wide (e.g. the judging of mothers, the expectation that women sacrifice their lives for their children, the lack of support for mothers, etc.), especially when many aspects of that sect of parenting can really promote greater happiness for children *and* mothers.
Rhy, I'm so sorry for your loss and I'm glad that the post resonated with you.
DeleteMary, I think geographic distance might be a huge factor in our differing experiences. I was living in rural Alabama when I had my oldest, where crunchy parenting groups and fundamentalist/Quiverful groups were one and the same. Even in a more cosmopolitan area of the South, our local AP and natural-mom groups are composed largely of members of the Christian Patriarchy Movement. I think that even among secular crunchy parents, a lot of the mentality of fundamentalism might bleed over and have an impact on ideas like gender roles and martyrdom. That's likely not as big of a thing in your area.
*Note: I understand that not all Christianity is sexist and that not all Christian crunchy parents are part of the CP movement.