Homebirth Barbie

From here at inhabitots.

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One more time for breastfeeding while glamorous

Nicole Trunfio breastfeeding her son on the cover of Elle.

Trunfio has used the cover as an opportunity to advocate for a change in the stigma surrounding women who breastfeed in public.

More models and others being glamorous while breastfeeding and why I like it.

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The cultural shift in ‘Mama’

Fascinating thoughts on the rise of the term ‘Mama’ and what it represents. From Elissa Strauss in Long Reads:

Like most cultural shifts in language, the rise of white, upper-middle class women who call themselves “mama” seemed to happen slowly, and then all at once. And like most cultural shifts in language, the rise of “mama” is about power and discontent. “In the interstices of language lie powerful secrets of the culture,” writes Adrienne Rich in Of Woman Born, Rich’s influential book examining the institution of motherhood.

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“You’re so busy playing house, which in the beginning is such a new adventure”

Want to see this film. (Review here).

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For parents who look good during school drop-off

Some of you really have it together in the mornings.

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Rachel Cusk reviewing motherhood memoirs

God, I love Cusk’s writing.

Here, as elsewhere, the appearance of honesty, the willingness to “own up” to certain unorthodoxies, merely conceals a deeper strain of social competitiveness. The “good” mother, with her fixed smile, her rigidity, her goody-goody outlook, her obsession with unnecessary hygiene, is in fact a fool. It is the “bad” mother, unafraid of a joke and a glass of wine, richly self-expressive, scornful of suburban values, who is in reality good.

A review of Confessions of a Bad Mother by Stephanie Calman in New Statesman.

Enright is a patient writer. Her real triumph, as she plots her slow transformation into the mother of two children, is to capture the delicate sense of parenthood as something that, for all its frequent impositions, stems so profoundly from the self that it is almost an act of reading, of self-interpretation.

A review of Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood by Anne Enright in New Statesman. 

 

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On passive aggressive martyrdom

Another writer to watch is Glosswitch for the NewStatesman, she writes about parenting and politics from a feminist perspective. Perfect combination, in my humble opinion. Her latest article asks why is it that mothers end up having their lives marketed back to them, piece by piece, as “me time”?

Then it’s “me time”! Yay! Hooray for “me time”! Aren’t you really, really grateful it exists? For this is one of the first rules of motherhood: be pathetically, ostentatiously thankful for any time whatsoever which isn’t spent wiping arses or cleaning behind the fridge. For lo! You have been granted some “me time”! Rejoice! Whether you spend these precious “you” moments drinking a cup of tea or shaving your pubes, never forget to do it with a beatific smile on your face. For you are so, so lucky! All that stuff other people, including fathers, just do — well, for you, it’s now a bit selfish to do it. But go on, we’ll let you. As an extra-special treat.

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Vogue does breastfeeding.. and it hurts

Vogue Netherlands has included a photograph of their model breastfeeding in a fashion spread and the photo looks great.  As some of you may know, I love a non-traditional breastfeeding photo and I collect them on this blog. Mothers looking glamorous or dangerous while breastfeeding are my favourites.

But I just want to say about this photo.. that is a terrible latch, madam. Hurts like hell when a baby sucks on the end of your nipple instead of latching on properly.

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“But strolling to the park with your infant in his designer stroller is not the same as counting out your bonus in your private jet”

Andrea O’Reilly: For me the challenge is to validate the important work of mothering while at the same time show that maternal work, as it is currently defined under intensive mothering, is not necessary or required. Yes, children need to have their self esteem nurtured but that does not mean they need to take piano on Tuesday, French immersion on Wednesday, or are never told to go out to the back yard and play…

Sara Ruddick: Your critique of intensive mothering reminds me that maternal ideals can serve unwanted ends. The ideology of “good mothering”, or our desire to do mothering really well, may intensify inequalities and provoke or excuse status hunger and domineering competition. There will be occasions when we – mothers and our advocates – should stop celebrating ourselves or our children and instead begin to hold each other accountable for our contribution to the spoiling of lives.

I follow you into that conversation but I want to maintain a sense of proportion. I do not doubt that the driven competition and consumer display that you describe has serious costs. But strolling to the park with your infant in his designer stroller is not the same as counting out your bonus in your private jet. Status hunger and envy may unravel the mind, but the fiercest competition for college places rarely kills.

From Maternal Thinking: Philosophy, Politics, Practice. Maintaining a sense of proportion in ‘mother blaming’ – Andrea O’Reilly and Sara Ruddick remain some of the very best voices in maternal feminism.

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My new article on motherhood and identity

Roiphe says my generation of mothers “leaches itself of sexuality”. Truth is, some of motherhood is sexless. In the earliest days of mothering I was at peace with that. My body awed me in new ways and I did not need sex to feel excitement or sensuality. But eventually I began to feel lost. So, I did things that made me feel tended to and that weren’t terribly feminist. I bought products for my skin and hair, television grade make-up, tight skirts that forced me to hold my stomach in, and I stuffed myself back into bras with under-wire. It worked. I have several decades experience weaving self-worth out of artificial constructs of beauty. Performing these rituals made me feel like an adult woman again, as though motherhood, with all its stoic sincerity, had detached me from seriousness and grooming was somehow more sophisticated. And with my beauty regime restored it wasn’t ‘free’ I felt, and it wasn’t necessarily more ‘me’ either, but I did feel more present, and that was enough.

So, I’m a Roiphe success story. My children aren’t in my Facebook profile photo. My photo hints at the two more acceptable preoccupations in a woman’s life today – paid work and polite sex. It’s a flattering photo; I have a new haircut, and I’m wearing make-up and smart clothes. But Facebook photos awaken a pit of anxiety in me. I do my own disappearing.

From “Disappearing Mums” in Daily Life.

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