Emma in Dream writing about her feminist motherhood wonders why we don’t talk more about ‘mother love’. I frequently wonder the same thing. Seems only Hallmark Mother’s Day cards talk about it and they do such a naff job of it that none of us want to be associated with it. But Emma is right, for me, having children has been like falling in love times a billion and I’m surprised that that all came as such a shock to me. Emma’s response to my 10 questions about your feminist motherhood is such an interesting one because she allows herself to pursue several intriguing tangents as she answers the questions.
What has surprised you most about motherhood?
I had no idea I would fall in love so completely and overwhelmingly. Really it makes every other love I’ve ever felt seem way less significant.
It amazes me that there is this big cultural silence on this issue. Where are the songs, the stories about any form of love other than the romantic sort? About friendship, love for your family, and most especially love for children.
Since I’ve had my two girls several people (actually, women, lots of women) have told me privately that their lives would be complete without their husbands but not without their children. And then they say that’s not something they can tell to many people.
I find this enormous silence very confusing.
Emma is a single mother by choice. I find this a fascinating choice.
I was raised by a single mother (my mother was single for the second half of my childhood but was with my father for the first half). I always knew I wanted children and I remember being quite young when I realised that if I needed to do parenthood on my own for whatever reason then I could. I knew it would be bloody hard work, but I knew it was possible on your own. In the end, I think this confidence gave me an advantage in relationships with boys/men, I never felt particularly dependent upon them and maybe that helped me negotiate the terms of our relationships.
Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why?
I think people identify me as a feminist mother as soon as I introduce my children. I say, blah blah, wanted kids, blah, no husband, blah blah, fertility clinic, donor, blah blah, late 30s, blah, lucky enough to have two children.
People hear independent, strong minded, did lots of research and immediately go to feminist. Or, no doubt, some hear crazy man hater and they go to feminist. Either way, there is no need for me to come out as a feminist.
This post is part of the 10 questions about your feminist motherhood series. You can find all the many other responses in this series here. If you’d like to respond to these questions yourself you can either email me your answers and I’ll put them on blue milk as a guest post or you can post them elsewhere and let me know and I’ll link to them.
Yes, indeed why don’t we hear more about it? I think it has something to do with why I only have one child. How could I possibly love anyone else in the world like this? She is the benchmark of love for me. I could watch her sleep for hours, I cried for the first year of her life, cried with joy that I was so lucky and so desperately in love. No one told me. No one.
( of course at times she drives me crazy too!)
I seriously worried that I would not love my second child the same way I loved the first. It was really a factor in my deliberations about having a second one.
This really struck me trying to find poetry for my son’s first birthday/family welcome event. There’s very little literary canon poetry about parentlove. (I ended up using Margaret Atwood’s “You Begin”.)
Around here it’s akin to a celebrity crush shared among teenagers, the parentlove. Gives us something to talk about!
There’s a whole heap of children’s stories about parent/child love, like *Guess How Much I Love You* but very little for older readers.
I was thinking about this intense mother love when I was reading your post about co-sleeping. We’re co-sleepers. When my daughter (now 4mths and snoring away next to me as I type) was born my husband took over settling duties with my 3 yr old son. I’d only just weaned my son 1mth before the birth. I could’t believe the tumult of emotions I felt. It was like breaking up and falling in love at the same time. I cried every night for weeks as I rocked the baby in my room and listened to my husband settle my son, my heart ached for him, yet I’d stare into my daughters eyes and feel complete joy.
I still miss that settling time, my husband now shares a bed with my son, while I sleep in the main bed with my daughter. I’d love to get us all in one big bed together, but I don’t know how other people do it and get any sleep at all. I’ve even been tempted to suggest taking over settling both kids myself, it’s been so nice the couple of nights that my husband’s been away. There’s nothing like the peaceful bliss of having your child fall asleep in your arms.
Blue Milk, I’ve put together a compilation of mothering songs – Ill send a cd to Marie at UQ for you to pick up at the conference.
Thanks!
I think a big part of the silence is just that it’s really hard to articulate – words seem pretty inadequate to the task. I end up deleting most of what I attempt on the subject for that reason.
Finding words to do justice to an emotion like love is difficult but we’ve spent a lot of time and energy describing sexual love, how come we can’t find the words for maternal love?
There is an English poet/comedian who wrote a lovely poem about her son and how he is now so tall and how fast it all happened. If I can find her name and/or poem I will post a link.
Gah! How can Wikipedia have a ‘list’ of British comedians that is almost exclusively male? [rhetorical question]
Anyway, after googling ‘poem about rugby playing son’ I came up with Pam Ayers ‘How can that be my baby?’
It’s probably more for when they are grown up, but it is still lovely.
http://www.llanelliwanderersrfc.co.uk/how_can_that_be_my_baby.htm
You are so right when you say that this isn’t discussed enough. I have had the same, somewhat guilty, realisation as the women Emma refers to; that I could live without my husband (as much as I do love him), but not my children! And I do feel a bit guilty about it – he was in my life before they were, and he helped me to make them, but now I love them more than I love him! I wasn’t really prepared for this, and I don’t think my husband was, either. We have had one awkward little discussion about it, where we both admitted that we’d choose our children over each other, if we had to, while guiltily avoiding eye contact. We were telling each other that we’d both found someone else. Three little ‘someone elses’, actually!
Yet, if a mother comes out and says she would choose her husband over her children (someone famous did this recently, an author?) she is hounded for it as if she is a bad mother for feeling that way.
Maybe the problem is that it is assumed that mothers will feel this way?
It was Ayelet Shachar. She got such a hard time about it.
Here is a beautiful song about loving your unborn baby, by Jenny Morris:
I’ve asked myself this question so many times.
I don’t know.
Honestly, for me I can imagine life without my son but not without my husband. Does that make me terrible? I don’t know. Not that I don’t love my son, but parenting is bloody hard and I miss my freedom. I didn’t know how easy life was until it got hard.
So our partners don’t feel threatened? Maybe they feel the same??
I’ve suspected as much.
I think it was Ayelet Shachar who wrote an essay about how her children were satellites to her relationship with her husband (she is married to Michael Chabon). That she nutures her relationship with her husband more and “benevolently neglects” her children. She didn’t say that she loved her husband more than her children. She said she loved her children but was in love with her husband – there is definitely a difference.
Maternal love and the love one has for one’s partner are not the same, for me at least. What she wrote really resonated with me and I have never really understood maternal infatuation with their children at the expense on one’s partner.
Way back in the blog time capsule I wrote this… https://bluemilk.wordpress.com/2007/07/22/bad-mothers-and-their-good-marriages/
Oh wonderful! I look forward to reading that post properly. I had a quick skim and it seems she does say she loves her husband more. I was going on a radio interview I heard with her where she said they were different types of love.
As an aside, have you tried to read any of Waldman’s novels? Most disappointing, in my humble opinion. She said she took up novel-writing because she was sick of working long hours as a lawyer away from the home. If only that were an option…
Okay, so, TMI, but I actually told my husband this morning after a little morning nookie, “Now I’m late for our kids’ toddler group, but that’s okay since you’re higher on my priority list.”
And he said, “Thanks, I appreciate that. You’d still go for him in a fire, though, right?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
Rebecca Barnard has a great song for her teenage son, “own time”, on her latest album.maybe we don’t have time to write songs until they’re old enough to make their own breakfast!
Good point.
I may be going out on a limb here, but I think it’s because part of the way we express such love is with our bodies (and for those lucky enough to breastfeed, our breasts), which are sexualized like whoa. Saying “I give myself wholly to my son” is an entirely different sentiment than “I give myself wholly to my partner,” but it’s often confused with romantic love by people who haven’t yet experienced it. I know the transition from sexual being to (sexual being + person who expresses love using portions of myself that were once and still are and will be in the future sexual) has been quite difficult and at times awkward.
Your comments on the sexualisation of the boobs made me think about how people justify extended feeding (which I am doing as my eldest is nearly 3) in terms of WHO recommendations and nutrition but steer clear of the way it is like the best kind of contact with them.
I think this is a sound theory.
Hi! Just thought I’d point out that I managed to fully answer one of your 10 questions. I’d love to do more eventually. http://reproductiverites.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/feminist-coming-out-day-and-sacrifice/
It’s quite hard for me to express my position on this. I have not experienced the overwhelmingly strong feelings of love for my children as others have described. I love them very much and feel very close to them but not at the intensity many of you describe. I put this down to my general nature, which is pretty mild. I sometimes worry that this makes me a “bad mother” but I tend to dismiss this worry by focussing on my good parenting. I’m not much of a worrier either!
If I try to imagine life without my children or my partner I feel some distress but it’s about even between the two. If I had to choose I would my children because they need me more than he does and I suppose I feel more joined to them when it comes down to it. But not infatuated!
I think the feelings about the partner are more likely to change from time to time, depending on how much we are sharing the parenting. At the moment we are in nice bubble of joint parenting and child adoration but it may not last! So I suppose how much I adore him directly depends on how much he joins in with the parenting!
Tamara – I think this is such a valid point to have made and I am glad you did so. I remember at my feminist mothers’ discussion group at least one other mother in the room had the same experience as you when we were talking about ‘maternal desire’ and it is easy for the ‘mother love intensity’ talk to crowd out other ways of experiencing love, so thank you for putting it out here as many others will relate.
[…] not everyone loves breastfeeding (I mostly love it, but recognize that it ain’t easy); and sometimes your love for your child replaces your love for your spouse (no […]
After my girl was born I remember singing her songs like Everything I Do (I do it for you) and Your Song and thinking I had been let into this big secret that actually ALL love songs are about children. I am going to hang onto that belief despite all evidence otherwise!