There's a new Mommy Wars book on the market, this one issuing an
order to cease and desist with all the trivial fighting between working
and lounging mothers. Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself,
has a "Calgon, take me away" title, but it's written by feminist author
Amy Richards so, you know, it's surely not all about the power of the
mani-pedi.
However! As a ground soldier in the Mommy Wars, having
been stopped-lossed with my second kid just as things were easing up
with the first, I have to say I was taken aback with this description
of the book's aim, as summarized by an interviewer who spoke to the
author on Salon:
If motherhood is going to be a less harried and more equal enterprise,
she suggests, it has to be about more than changing diapers. It has to
be about changing ourselves.
Well, see, I don't want to change myself so much.
Sure, I'm an imperfect mess. And I can accept that. But after seven years and two tours of duty -- with no end in sight -- I would submit that change starts -- or at least picks up -- outside the home, not within it.
I'm not asking "society" to fetishize my kids. No, I don't want you to fill in for me -- just one more time -- while I run out for a soccer game and ballet performance. But I would like this culture of personal responsiblity over societal obligations to change just enough that let's me and my husband (and you and your partner) work and have a family and afford a house and good -- no, we'll settle for decent -- schools for the kids and, for God's sake, some fucking affordable, flexible, quality (and, yes, I mean subsidized) childcare for the babies, all babies, and preschoolers, each and everyone that wants some!
I think that would go a long way in letting women decide for themselves -- as the author encourages -- what they want. Because there would be actual options available to the masses. I would submit that work/career issues are the catalyst for all the personal shit that can take over our new lives as parents.
Here's what Richards says:
When I titled the book "Opting In," I meant to say, opt in to your own
life, make yourselves aware of the options that are available to you.
Because I think women approach motherhood rather passively and just let
it happen instead of seeing themselves as the active agents they are or
could be. So I have chapters about our relationships with our friends
and mothers, as well as our husbands or our same-sex partners. I'm
trying to show how parenting affects all aspects. Assuming it only
affects the workplace trivializes how much parenting takes over our
whole lives.
I haven't read the book and maybe she's all over the idea that women with the biggie jobs have more options than those who don't. In which case, yay. And maybe her book really isn't coaching us on evenly splitting housework (the LEAST of my worries). I hope her take on the Mommy Wars conflict winds up being less about me, the mom, and more about us, all of us, the adults -- the ones who make stuff happen, the ones who are in charge.
What do you think? Does our culture keep us in the trenches, fighting battle after battle in an unwinnable war? Or am I being a big baby?
Photo: defenselink.mil
