For a long time I have wondered why economists study economics like a found thing, instead of researching the construction of a new one that works better. One that values humanity, life and all the systems that support them.

For me, the ‘motherhood’ problem is also linked to classism. Strictly speaking, we can’t literally have all women stop having kids, or the human race will cease to exist. I don’t see anyone seriously advocating that, but when people start going on about how having children is disempowering, how motherhood is a tool of the patriarchy, how truly feminist women should eschew motherhood in favor of career/education/what-have-you… well, someone’s still going to have to reproduce, and when you set up this false dichotomy of motherhood versus empowerment, you basically ensure that the women who do choose to have children will be without support. The answer to the social and economic strains that mothers face is not to marginalize motherhood, but to reform the way society views women and reproduction.

(sorry for the soapbox-standing, this is a sensitive subject for me)

But the good bits, the bits that make one go back for a second child even though you’ve bitched about the first one, and it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done and you can see quite clearly how it’s the cause of your financial dependence on a bloke, the good bits are so good. In amongst the “will I ever go to the toilet alone ever again” and the “will the constant chatter ever end” and “I can’t believe I can be this tired without dying” there’s “where the hell did s/he learn that?” and “oh my god that’s the cutest thing ever” and “I taught him/her that” and the whole universe of possibilities for a kid’s future and you get to be in the front row watching how they turn out.

I’m so glad you wrote about that post of Twisty’s. I thought of you and wondered what you would say, when I read it yesterday.

I’ve wavered back and forth on wanting kids in the past, but never had to think about it in the context of mothering. Now I study this stuff in my degree, work in it, and think about it in relation to myself, I just can’t agree with people saying ‘having kids props up the patriarchy; do not have kids’. You just can’t do that.

Ariane hit the change to wanting kids on the head for me: for me, on the ‘pro’ side of having kids (adopted or naturally) would be, getting to teach someone about the world. And as part of that, getting to send forth my own little feminist fighter, male or female (even if they end up deciding to be different to me). It pisses me off so much that some people indoctrinate their kids to be nasty little bigots, or waste their time on religious education. That used to make me not want kids, but then I realised, Well hell! I can be the opposite.

anyway, once again, great post.

Penni, I loved what you said about having something coming out of your vagina. Brilliant.

Being a mother has made be better at doing all kinds of things. I don’t think it’s made me miraculously a better person (in fact I’m quite confident it has made me more doubtful, anxious and angry than ever). But it’s made me realise it doesn’t matter – I can do pretty much anything regardless. It’s made me know my toughness. I think that’s a pretty feminist outcome for me personally. On a broader political level, I get to contribute to a family raising a child while negotiating all the anti-woman, anti-family and anti-person crap that goes on. I often feel like we are a guerilla family, fighting against all kinds of things just by insisting on existing. And sometimes I don’t. But I’m sick of people feeling entitled to poke around in my ovaries.

I really enjoy the time I spend with my partner’s little girl, spending time seeing the world through non-cynical eyes, playing dollies, doing her hair, have her wake me up at 6.20 all bright-eyed and chirpy that another day has dawned.

But at the same time, being with her is such hard fucking work. Trying to get her to eat some damn food, having her ask 300 times if I am a boy or a girl over a 48 hour period and just generally having to be ‘on’ all the time. To be honest I’m actually quite relieved when she goes back to her mother’s house and I can back to being me again. But then I start missing her and the house seems oddly quiet without her around.

The patriarchy pokes my motherhood. I spit in its eye. I’m sorry but anyone saying ‘don’t have children because you are conducting the evil work of the patriarchy’ is doing the patriarchy’s work, delineating childbirth and motherhood and babies and children (and the future) as something for ‘the man’. It is anti-choice, anti-woman and anti-feminism. That makes me boil. If this is feminism then I want no part of it. I opted for feminism because it was multifarious, because it bloomed possibility. If I wanted to exist enclosed in a linear, phallocentric dictatorship…and so forth…