Louise Curtis is a reader of my blog and is also the author of a contemporary fantasy ebook. Recently she turned her attention to responding to my 10 questions about your feminist parenthood and her answers are both fascinating and honest. After writing this not so long ago on my own blog, I really appreciate the way Louise examines the relationship dynamics with her male partner as one of the more potentially difficult challenges faced in feminist parenting. I have included part of her response below and you will find links to the rest of her response and her book at the end of the post.
(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).
How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism?
Getting married turned gender roles into an obsession long before I had a baby. When little Louisette arrived, the spotlight on my marriage grew even more intense.
For me, the weakest point of my marriage is the risk of falling into a mother-child relationship with my husband. Anyone who can’t be trusted to do their share of household chores is not an adult.
I knew it was the weakest point of our relationship before we married, and have carefully (often tearfully) explained it to my husband over and over. He simply doesn’t understand what I’m saying. The more powerful members of society never do understand what it’s like to be the less powerful member. That’s one of the perks of power – everything seems fair from where you’re standing.
It’s not all his fault, however. Organising things and making household decisions (from groceries to what kind of house to buy) makes me feel powerful, so I have a tendency to jump in before he has a chance to do his part. It’s not like he’s the only one sending us in that fatal mother-child direction. (And yes, it’s definitely fatal. How can I be in love with someone I see as a child? How can he be in love with his mother?)
Having a daughter also gives me a highly convenient litmus test for feminism. All I have to do is think, “How would I want my daughter treated in this situation?” and I know when someone is treating me badly. I hope that by the time Louisette grows up she’ll have enough self-worth to figure out her rights without needing a prop.
What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting?
I tread a compromised path, like all mothers. To survive in our society, I think a woman must be able to believe in her own attractiveness, and I choose not to fight that particular battle, because I know Louisette would suffer for it. My prettifying efforts started from her birth, when I dressed her in attractive and usually pink clothing. I believe a girl who is constantly told how pretty she is as a child will be better able to handle the sudden awareness of societal messages saying, “Shouldn’t you be thinner? Shouldn’t you have bigger breasts? Shouldn’t you have blonder hair?” as she grows up. I will teach her to use make-up, to shave her legs, to do her hair. She can stop doing any of those things if she wants to, but she’ll have the skills to fit in if she chooses the more comfortable path.
At the same time I already try to steer her away from the stories that equate goodness and worth with beauty, and that tell the reader the purpose of life is to get married – like Cinderella. Beauty is nice, and everyone has a little bit – but there must be more to you than that.
As a writer, I believe stories tell us who we are and what matters. When I write my own novels, my protagonists are almost always female. They have problems, and they solve them – actively. When they like a boy, they generally tell him, and if a boy treats them badly they don’t stick around. Why would they? But generally they’re too busy saving the day to care too much what boys think. Isn’t that true of all the world’s most interesting women?
Most of all I try to be aware of the contradictions in both society and myself, so that when my little one is old enough she can sort truth from lies, and choose what compromises to make in her own life.
Mental illness runs in my family, so I try to teach Louisette resilience as both a preventative and a cure. I watched a psychology video once that presented toddlers with a problem. Both started off by crying for help, but when no help arrived in a few moments the boys stopped crying and attempted to solve the problem themselves. The girls continued crying.
I try so hard to sit on my hands when my own baby has a frustrating problem to solve – so she learns that waiting to be rescued isn’t the solution to everything. You can’t learn resilience without frustration, and you can’t learn it without pain. Sometimes I have to let her fall down. I remind myself constantly that we all unconsciously let little girls fall down less often than little boys – and that’s not a good thing. (We also shush little girls more than little boys, but that’s another story.)
Louise Curtis blogs here and you can read her full answers to the questions here. Her first published book (young adult contemporary fantasy) is for sale here for $2.99 (the beginning is free).
Amy is a young empath stolen from her Normal parents by law on her fifth birthday – with deadly consequences. Her carefully constructed serenity is ripped away a second time when her empath community in Canberra is attacked from within.
blue milk 
Well, that certainly resonated with me.
Thank you. I’m so grateful for communities like this blog that open my eyes to my own contradictions.
Louise Curtis
[…] Regular readers will know that I’m a fan of feminist blog blue milk*. She likes to read the responses of other feminist mums to the following ten questions, and since I’m currently promoting my ebook SEE THROUGH, she’ll be posting extracts of this on her blog. […]
LOVED reading this. One of the points that Louise made that immediately reminded me of my own experience was the difference in her home between her husband being happy to take on his share of the housework and her still being the one who saw what needed to be done and when and logistically how to fit it in between kids nap time/before friends come over or whatever. Ultimately this still puts you in the position she explains she doesn’t want to be of being the “mom” to your husband and being “in charge” of house work.
Despite admitting that she also admits to sometimes liking being the authority in the home. A dichotomy that I’m sure a lot of women (like myself can recognise). As a former professional and currently stay at home parent I like to think I’m the authority on something and often the cooking, cleaning and childcare take up the majority of my time. So when my husband helps me, all too often I criticise or try to take over. Stupid of me, I know.
Louise was really honest and insightful so thanks for sharing.
Oh, this was great to read. Housework is also our biggest weakness, one I’m not sure we will ever find the perfect balance for.
I recently met some friends of my husband who were just married. I blurted out my thoughts on chores to them, and how terrified I was in the first month of marriage when, despite our careful talks pre-marriage, I found myself reminding CJ to do his weekend chores, and I thought, “THIS is the beginning!?! What about when things aren’t new and shiny for him??” and was utterly panicked. I was meaning to be reassuring about that overwhelming first year of marriage.
Then the woman said, “So how is it now?”
“Oh,” I lied as calmly as possible, realising my reassurance had gone horribly awry, “much better.”
Louise Curtis
Loved this. The comments about telling your daughter she is beautiful resonate with my own thinking, which I was worried was heterodox in the feminist community. My mother always told me how beautiful I was and I think that has freed me later in life to focus on things I can really work at such as intelligence, knowledge, sport etc without being obsessed with bettering myself physically. I was told I was beautiful but it was smarts that were valued. It is fine line but somehow my mother managed to strike it perfectly and I hope to do the same for my own daughter. I worry that not telling little girls they are beautiful leads them to worry that they are not when confronted by those expectations in broader society when they are older.