(no subject)

[sexy_romulan]

In my roaming the internets for material on feminist parenting, I found an interesting recurring tension/question as to whether "attachment parenting" is really compatible with a feminist lifestyle.


Since I haven't tried it yet, my comments involve limited insight, but I do plan to sort of cherry-pick from that philosophy. My cherry-picking is less ideological than utilitarian. I'd like to breastfeed, provided all the plumbing works, because hey - if I can make use of my boobs, why go to the trouble and expense of formula? (And besides, boobs this size had better be good for SOMETHING.) Similarly I wouldn't be averse to trying one of those bedside bassinets; I can see that it would be nice not to have to haul your ass out of bed every time the baby is crying. I am definitely investing in a sling, because my theory is that if I can cart the baby around the house with me in a relatively hands-free way, I can DO STUFF and look after her at the same time. And having driven past the Carp dump regularly means I am conscience-bound to at least try cloth diapers.

BUT - as the primary breadwinner in my Canadian household, I have to go back to work after a year. There's the faint possibility I may be able to reduce my hours, but that's entirely contingent upon "operational needs" in the office. And at that point, relying on my boobs for feeding and (depending on what caregivers I'm able to find) cloth diapering both become serious obstacles. After a year this is not such a big deal, but in the US - and for many Canadian women who don't qualify for EI or simply can't get by on 55% of their salary - you're faced with that point a lot earlier.

And oh, does it piss me off to hear people insisting or insinuating that UR DOING IT WRONG if you bottle-feed, if you let your child cry themselves to sleep, if you use disposable diapers, if you go back to work after three months. On its own, even the most zealous APing is just one among many choices; but as soon as it leads to browbeating and bragging, AP is most definitely anti-feminist. If you exert cultural pressure to adhere to this particular set of labour-intensive (and inevitably gendered) practices - whether you're actively proselytizing or just being passive-aggressive - you are acting to limit women's choices, regardless of how high you vaunt the mother-baby bond or how much you celebrate women's "natural" bodily capacities. To my mind this just turns motherhood into a dangerous "sentimental trap" (a phrase the awesome Ms. LeGuin used in a speech for Planned Parenthood). People are attempting this mountain of a job in all kinds of different circumstances, and the bottom line is that everyone does what works and what they can cope with.

But of course, if you DON'T go back to work, which really seems to be the implied AP ideal, then you have people looking down on you for not being ambitious enough and not doing it all. To be honest, while I see the unfairness of this, I also see serious problems with stay-at-home motherhood, mostly because (1) it seems unrealistic for most people - I simply cannot understand how anybody affords it, short of having more money than god, and (2) it seems naive and really pretty dangerous to blithely hand over so much responsibility for your welfare to your spouse. If he fucks off on you after you've been out of the workplace for 10 years, what then? Yes, yes, you trust your spouse not to do that, fine; what if he dies? What if he's gravely ill or injured? What if he loses his job? I suppose these two points are really your own beeswax, but the thing is that (3) you also set a precedent that asshole conservatives rely on in their efforts to limit other women's choices, even if you make no such efforts yourself. Witness Mr. Harper's appalling excuse for a child care subsidy, which screws working women over pretty badly in the name of allowing money to go to people who make "other choices" (which, in fact, it favours in several ways). EDIT: Mmm, no, I've put this badly. I shouldn't imply that you shouldn't stay home, much as it baffles me; browbeating women into working is no more helpful than browbeating them into staying home, and it's not on you what some asshole does with your choices. I guess the thing is that when you have to fight to make a non-traditional choice, it's easy to feel that people making the traditional choice are undermining your efforts. Weirdly, both sides of the debate seem to see themselves in this position. I don't see this dynamic as much up here - I think a year of maternity leave makes the choice a little less black and white - but on the american internets, it really seems to polarize people.

I guess the tension is really due to the super-mom meme, because really, nobody CAN do it all, and everybody strikes a different balance in their efforts to have it all; if you go all the way to one extreme, your autonomy suffers, and at the other extreme, your family suffers. What irritates the CRAP out of me is the implication that saintly motherly "selflessness" should tip the scales in one direction. Let's at least see that directed at some fathers, too, please (they seem to suffer the opposite implication, whereby manly "ambition" should tip the scales in the other direction). Seems to me that the best anybody can really expect is that their spouse is standing with them in the middle of the see-saw.

Comments

[xnuala.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love this.

[reyl.livejournal.com]

Maybe I haven't read enough AP books, but the only thing that strikes me as sexist about AP is an assumption that the mother is the one to do everything. Fathers are almost equally able (with the exception of breast feeding) to do the necessary parenting. I didn't have much help around the house when the Pumpkin was a baby, yet I still got a lot of AP in. I think it had a part in why she was such a calm baby.

I do understand where you're coming from though. There is a lot of pressure (especially in obnoxious mommy internet forums) to do *everything* right. I hope you don't buy into this. There are tons of different ways to raise a baby, and you should feel free to do what works for you and your sprogling. Being a superparent is not a realistic goal.

[ami-b.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I know nothing at all about AP literature - my reaction is mostly to the AP advocates whose responses I saw on the posts and articles that brought up the question (and to a lesser extent AP advocates on the one or two obnoxious mommy internet forums I've browsed). I see nothing wrong with any of the practices involved in AP - like I said, you do what works. It just makes me really mad to hear the pressure to Do Everything Right coming from people who claim to value women's bodies and choices so highly; or to hear the results when other women say they feel "guilty" for not being able to do more APing, or when they report crushing post-partum depression when all these supposedly "natural" instincts don't kick in.

[rabbitica.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I have so much I want to say about this! You are talking about a lot of the AP stuff I think about. Yes, yes, on the supermom thing, and on the biologizing difference ("women are naturally attuned to their babies! all women! it's genetic!" oh, are they bad at physics too? is that genetic?) And there's a lot AP stuff that is really intensely blaming, a lot of the problems I have with very intense breastfeeding and natural birth advocates are repeated there.

I do think that there is some biological basis in some of what AP covers (yes, breastfeeding is best, and yes, babies are happier if you hold them a lot vs. if you never hold them at all). It's the intensity of UR DOING IT WRONG that is very off-putting and this sanctification of the mother's "natural instincts". What if she has hardcore postpartum depression, and feels zero interest in her baby? What if she has a lot of problems with breastfeeding? Is she still a mother? Is she still a woman? They're problematic questions that AP doesn't properly address. I could go on...but I should go to bed.

Also, my main suggestion for breastfeeding success: lactation consultant, early and often. If they don't give one in the hospital, request one, and if there are ANY problems post-hospital, find a private one ASAP. The plumbing is functional 95% of the time, but you wouldn't know it from the number of people who succeed because support tends to be terrible, and people who do get help only get it after becoming thoroughly miserable because they think it's "supposed" to hurt (kind of like only going to the doctor after walking on a broken leg for a week - it makes everything more complicated). And I am totally backing you up that if I am going to cart my DDDs around for the rest of my life, at some point I plan to make them WORK! ;-)

[ami-b.livejournal.com]

ExACTly. If you have time and inclination to blog about this stuff sometime, I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this, as you're much more familiar with the territory than I am!

Thanks for the tip on lactation consultants - a bit of googling reveals several people available to pester if need be, so I will definitely keep that in mind.

[sinvokasha.livejournal.com]

Everything you write on this topic is awesome in my world. :D