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One Foot on the Soapbox
Elle magazine published an excerpt from Judith Warner's book Perfect Madness, which I skimmed in the last week of my pregnancy, all the time thinking that it was unfair that she was saying how much easier, happier, more relaxed it is for women to be mothers in France, so soon after the world began cooking up leek soup because French Women Don't Get Fat. (To be fair, I visited Paris in my second trimester and the French certainly love pregnant people. A waiter beamed at me as he piled my plate high with shaved truffles saying that they are "good for the baby." That was indeed blissful.)
Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety is the full title of Warner's book and it has taken me some time to read it in part because, with Felix around, I squash in reading at odd times, but also because it is a polemic and, as perhaps you can tell from my response to the leek soup mandate, I tend to argue with them. I did read the book, and I saw a lot of the arguments against it, but I have to say, in these early days of motherhood Perfect Madness moved me.
Since I don't have a serene disposition, I anticipated feeling anxious after having a baby. I didn't, however, realize how deep these currents of angst would run. The Vaccination Problem was shocking to me, in part because I was unable to soothe myself with common sense and reassuring information. Warner discusses this feeling: "What's really unique about maternal anxiety today is our belief that if something goes wrong with or for our children, it's a reflection on us as mothers. Because we believe we should be able to control life so perfectly that we can keep bad things from happening." It's like being on a kind of existential tightrope. If you keep your kid in the air, there's a chance he may be safe and happy, but there's no net.
I won't summarize the book, which some people object to because Warner mostly discusses the middle class (primarily the upper middle class). She realizes that many of the problems she talks about are laughable when it comes to the more immediate life-sustaining issues that the poor face. But one of the qualities about the (upper) middle class that makes it interesting to her is that this group both aspires and creates aspiration. The middle class always wants more, but it also shapes standards for taste and education and lifestyle that influence other classes and help generate this monster she calls The Mess.
The Mess is the enormous amount of guilt and obligation with which mothers find themselves saddled. They have trouble balancing work and home obligations, never feel they are doing enough to ensure their children's future success, get obsessed with planning perfect parties, getting kids into the best schools, and never feel ever that they are succeeding or doing anything but treading water. Warner elaborates: "It is a wall of inner noise that blocks out other thoughts, thoughts that are really much more challenging than the daily contests of perfection that we impose on ourselves, thoughts that lead places that we really don't want to go, toward problems that we really don't want to face. It blocks out problems that strike at the heart of our marriages, at our sense of ourselves as in-control women, and at our society's priorities and values."
I know a little about being overwhelmed and guilty now, and I dread feeling worse. When I quizzed a close friend with older children, who seems to handle being a parent with incredible grace and pleasure, she admitted to feeling anxious often and when I asked if she could just stop all the running in place she said: "Of course not. If you aren't on board with everything, your kids get left behind. That's the crazy part."
Is one of the things that makes some people reject the Perfect Madness polemic the fact that it suggests giving up a way of life by stopping the insane competition and struggle for perfection? True, it is an existence that doesn't reward, but then again, the obsessive compulsive doesn't continue washing her hands because of the pleasure. She does it because she is afraid that Something Horrible Will Happen if she doesn't maintain a routine, even if it is exhausting and unrewarding.
Warner believes all the extras that we keep chasing are distracting us from paying attention to the real problems that we stopped fighting for after the huge feminist breakthroughs of the 70's. Women worked hard to be able to choose what they wanted to do with their lives and their bodies, but now we feel we have to do everything perfectly, and our children's lives depend on it. Warner suggests that we would be best off dropping the "Mommy Mystique" and looking beyond ourselves, to society and our government to help change the circumstances that have brought us to this point. We need high quality, subsidized child-care, better public schools, affordable health care, vacation time- all sorts of things that have been squeezed out of our lives. We compensate for the feelings of hopelessness by trying to control what little we can, so we micromanage our kids and torment ourselves into exhaustion.
I write this now because I have a moment to consider it. Felix is happy as he is, and I'm OK with letting the dog drool on him and for now it is more than all right that I'm not bombarding him with flash cards and music classes. But it is possible these halcyon days will end and I'll look back on them and think I was a bad mother for not teaching him the ins and outs of Mandarin (which the inevitably annoying New York Magazine says is THE foreign language for kids these days because someday they will have to take part in the Global Economy). I wish I could become an advocate for future mothers. I wish Warner were more clear about how we could fight for relief. I hate the threat of guilt and the fear that I will not be good enough for my son if I am not a sufficient overachiever. If anyone has any ideas for social change, I'd love to hear them, because the Perfect Parent Bandwagon is one no one should aspire to get on.
posted by Elise at 11:02 AM
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parodie said...
I think one of the reasons that there are so many "shoulds" for parents (mothers especially) is that nothing is certain when it comes to child development. We know that certain things are very bad (e.g. abuse) and certain things are very good (e.g. love) and everything else is ... uncertain.
As someone with a BA in linguistics, for example, I can tell you that children will lose their amazing ability to discriminate foreign sounds within the first few months of their lives - but I have also seen proof that people can learn foreign languages well certainly well into childhood (generally, up to age 12) and even later in life. You are not doomed if your child doesn't know mandarin at age 2. Or even age 18! It might be useful... but it might not. And somehow mothers are supposed to translate possibilities into black & white certainties, and to compare these certainties with others.
As a society, we have trouble grasping nuances (they seem like, well, flip-flops?) and like clear categories. I think that is a large part of the mommy problem.
I also think most mothers do an absolutely amazing job.
4/15/2005 10:42 AM
said...
A suggestion....
I think we mom’s, (and dad’s), should realize that, when it really comes down to it, we don’t know what we are doing when we raise our kids. We need to remember that we are all doing the best we can with what we got. Some of us have more than others, (more stuff, more education, more status, etc.), but is that really all that is needed to be happy, well-adjusted adults?
All I know is that I have gone from the typical ‘I’ve got to do everything right for my kids’ kind of mom, to ‘I’ve got to take care of myself in all this too’ kind of person. Parenting almost took my life away before I realized what I was doing. At one point, I was making all of me about raising my children because I thought that they needed the best of everything I could possibly give them. I think, in the process of changing, I taught my children true empathy. I went from a person with little regard for myself compared to my regard for my children, to valuing myself as equally as them. I also learned to value my kids friends, and my neighbor’s children, and the children on the TV and in the newspapers. We are all in it together..... What does it matter that my kids are in Harvard, if they can’t connect with other’s because I taught them that they are superior to others and entitled to all of my resources, (which later translates into entitlement to all of the world’s resources).
I believe that empathy is vitally important to teach to children. Not the sugar coated, ‘oh poor them’, kind of sympathy. But the real heart connecting empathy that let’s kids know that they are no better, and no worse, than the kid down the street. I think moms should support each other, and each other’s kids, not try to push our offspring ahead of the next gal’s. What are we really teaching our children when we make their future success, ( and domination), our Main Priority, and have the resulting anxiety that they might be left behind. I think we are telling them that when they get older, they will need to sacrifice themselves for others, (the way we sacrificed ourselves for them), or that they can expect the the world will revolve around them, (the way our world revolves around them), or that they are entitled to the best of everything, even at the expense of others, (because, god damn it, they deserve it after all the expensive schooling, clubs, activities, etc.)
What kind of society are we creating for our children with this kind of child-raising. I think we are in danger of making a bunch of manipulative, condescending, entitled and narcissistic kids who believe that the world is a brutal, competitive, me-first place.
With a culture like that, who cares about who’s kids made Harvard’s short list........
4/20/2005 8:10 PM
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parodie said...
said...