» getting along Underbellie

Mar 23 2011

breastfeeding: not just ladybusiness

This piece is featured in Squat! Birth Journal‘s Spring Issue. I encourage an exploration and/or support of this lovely zine (available in paper or digital form); certainly a great gift for an expecting family-to-be! It’s a wonderful publication.

Over my twitterstream my friend Wendy links to a piece of, once again, sex discrimination against a woman feeding her child¹). We’ve all heard it before. A woman is feeding her baby in a shop or a library or wherever, when an employee approaches and tells the woman she must leave, often invoking (their fallacious understanding of) the law and – at least in North America – usually in violation of protected rights. And certainly counter to common sense, compassion, and an understanding of public health.

It’s too bad more people don’t seem to see it that way.

Breastfeeding discussion is continually ignored and/or marginalized by the mainstream, made into a fringe issue although it concerns us all – our progress toward an egalitarian society, our support of families, our stewardship of the environment, and our county’s medical costs and spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being. Even movements self-identified as pro-woman often pick and choose which reproductive rights they support and advocate for, ignoring the societal edifices concerning birth, babies, and fulltime care of children – which necessarily ignores the women involved. If you Google “breastfeeding and feminism” you will see communities concerning the former subject discussing the latter, but rarely the reciprocal; mainstream pro-feminist discussions in general do not concern themselves with breastfeeding even though something like eighty percent of USian women do become parents at some point.

Keeping breastfeeding peripheral to social justice discussion contributes to extremely low breastfeeding rates in the so-called developed world (which are lower still in marginalized groups such as black mothers, teen mothers, and native or indigenous mothers, etc.). After all, anyone remedially-versed in the experiences of infant care and feeding understand that support, or lack thereof, is a major if not the major factor in aggregate breastfeeding success rates.

While some without children, or some with older children, or some men believe they can continue to ignore the health and well-being implications of poor breastfeeding rates and the compounded lack of choice afforded to already-stressed marginalized populations, such a luxury is not experienced for the child nor the child’s carer. These peoples’ daily realities are put under additional stressors. Thus when an individual receives repeated shaming messages or policing language and repressive strategies against her, she is most likely to experience discouragement, uncertainty, and isolation; she is at a very real disadvantage. Or as the author of “A tired hungry baby” writes:

I knew the law. I knew my rights. But I was still upset. And not the angry, self-important, righteous kind of upset. The teary, scared, “they”‘re going to kick me out of the store”, “I”‘m here with my kids” type of upset. It was clear I was about to be thrown out, and I was pretty sure that if I was going to be forced to justify feeding my baby, I was going to cry. And I felt truly alone.

This experience and this sentiment could have been written by so many of my friends – and many of these are “educated” women with class, hetero-, cis-, and racial privilege. Which puts the question: at what point does our mainstream dithering about “public decency” get real, and admit the costs we are requiring so many others to pay? “Gross, I shouldn’t have to see that!” seems incredibly trite and inhumane when considering our socioeconomically-classist culture, to put it frankly, requires black, brown, poor and working-class mamas and families pay multifaceted costs – and by heaping on body-shaming and gender-policing we’re just making it harder. “Gross, I shouldn’t have to see that!” tweeted by a white Portland hipster without children is such a disheartening and ignorant response when I consider, for instance, the lived reality of a child up all night screaming from a painful ear infection (and the work/sleep missed by carers and the stress for all involved). To get a little 101, ear infections, which account for thirty million trips to the doctor each year and are experienced by an estimated 75% of babies, is a risk decimated by a factor of at least two for a breastfed child². And that’s just one real-life health issue and one potential pragmatism for parents, and it makes me irritated enough to knock that Stumptown out of said urbanite’s hand.

“Gross, I shouldn’t have to see that!” hurts real-life families, real-life people.

“Gross, I shouldn’t have to see that!” is something that should have been eliminated from our public discourse a long, long time ago.

This is why it is key that those who are not at this moment stuffing a nipple into a baby’s face – including men, including formula-feeders, and including those without children – support breastfeeding and stand up for families’ rights and for mothers to young children. When the mainstream frames breastfeeding an issue that the individual mothers should be fighting, all on their own, it throws the game (especially considering the corporate power and cultural reach held by formula producers: phdinparenting.com has some great information on this). Concomitantly, framing infant feeding as solely individualistic and “choice”-based is also at heart of those who shame individual formula feeding families (moms) for “not trying/caring hard enough”, too (sadly, there are many of these voices, although for the purposes of this piece I should note bottle feeding mothers are generally not asked to leave public spaces based only on their method of feeding).

So while there are many breastfeeding mothers who stand up to pressure and have a generally positive feeding career, the vast majority of breastfeeding mothers have been pressured to stop feeding and most have been shamed explicitly or implicitly while others stand silently by or dismiss the topic as a “women’s issue” (because, you know, those aren’t important).

This means often, as in the above-cited author’s case, at the point an episode of discrimination is most acute and immediate, she is likely extremely disadvantaged in her response. Consider also that mothers who breastfeed:

* are expending 300 – 500 extra calories a day per breastfeeding child (yes, some women are breastfeeding more than one child), and those are just the calories required to produce milk, not those needed to care for, comfort and nurture, clean for, etc. anyone else in the family.

* are often severely sleep-deprived (personally, I cannot overstate this effect on my life when I had infants).

* are usually dealing with hormonal and physical changes while they:

* are also under endemic body-policing and -shaming pressures including scrutiny of their weight, the state of their skin or hair, and their changed or changing body shape.

* are often under cultural policing as well; this is levied at mothers of color, those without class privilege, those outside the heteronormative spectrum, those with multiple children, etc.

* are usually constantly segregated and policed in subtle and not-so-subtle ways by virtue of having children, by our adultist and child-unfriendly cultural norms.

* are often under-supported by their family, friends, neighbors – and, too-often, their partners (even well-intentioned ones), if they have one.

* are in the throes of what many would identify as one of the most life-changing experiences they’ve had - the twentyfour-seven care and responsibility for another human being, and an incredibly vulnerable one at that.

It is my position that any restriction of breastfeeding should be taken as sex discrimination - whether legally promoted or de facto by policy, societal attitudes, etc. As such, I haven’t yet heard a compelling argument to support it. A disdain for a function of women’s bodies doesn’t seem meritorious enough to warrant prescriptive measures.

It’s time for others to adopt that standard as well.

Because in North America, fighting for the unrecognized humanity of these women, babies, and families, often seems a never-ending job against a seemingly bottomless pit of ignorance and oppression. Today, as I finish this piece, a blogreader sends me an article from The Root, in which a woman nursing in the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. was hounded twice by security and told she must enter the bathroom and sit on the toilet to feed her child³.

So, yeah. “Gross, I shouldn’t have to see that!” needs to go.

* Photo credit: 3º Lugar – 2º Concurso Fotogra¡fico Regional “Fotografiando la Lactancia”. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

“A tired hungry baby” at breastfortheweary.com ↩
The American Academy of Pediatrics: “Ear Infections (Otitis Media)”; “Breastfeeding Benefits: How They Add Up” at breastfeedingbasics.com ↩
theroot.com, “Why Don’t More Black Mothers Breast-Feed?”, February 15, 20110 ↩

Tagged body politics, changing the status quo, classism, cultural yawn-inducers, culture, family, femininity, feminism, food health: step one, getting along, haters, human rights, motherhood, race, sex, sexism, women's lib

Feb 06 2011

culture, family, feminism

quick hit: feminist readers: have you leveled-up?

Sorry y'all, but your parents should have thought about that before they had you.

People of Color, People with Disabilities, LGBTQAI People, plenty of marginalized persons have movements behind them, and yet in social justice circles people feel free to openly say “I hate children” without repercussions. Children are routinely beaten in the name of “good order and discipline” (and parents are blamed for not doing so in the name of “not being attentive parents”) and no one pays attention. We expect children to be silent unless spoken to, and we often walk around and talk around them as if they aren”‘t even there. And possibly more importantly, like our little friend, they notice when we don”‘t notice them. They notice when we fail to take them into consideration. They notice when they don”‘t matter. They notice when the world, when those who are meant to love them, don”‘t fucking see them or hear them. – from “Children Take Up Space (and Notice When We Don’t Notice)” by Ouyang Dan

Young people are scary because they are a social group whose rights we are reluctant to recognize. They are human beings with personalities, attitudes, opinions and needs. Just like misogyny arises out of a fear of women exercising their human rights; hatred of children arises from our wish to subordinate children. – from “We Hate Children” by Feminist Avatar in Scotland

Today, after reading an incredibly awesome piece of rad fem by a stellar author, I put forth a genuine and heartfelt question: Why do so many (not all) feminists exhibit vitriol and/or a non-inclusive attitude for children and their carers? Specifically, with regard to carers, I find there is a huge void where sensitivity, inclusivity, and a valuing of nurture-work and mothers is needed – even more specifically, mothers usually excluded and/or belittled are those non-white, non-middle- or upper-class, child- and home-oriented, disabled, neurologically atypical, gay, queer, or trans.

Two from the commentariat weighed in. The upshot of their responses: it’s “ridiculous” to say feminists hate mothers*, and anyway feminists have no real power so they’re just angry (and hey, understandably so, from my perspective) but their words only “sting” and have no real-life repercussions.

My charges of child-hate sentiment in the feminist sphere and resultant oppressions went unacknowledged and unaddressed.

One comment contained the following, which really has me chewing over it. See, I’ve heard this sort of thing before. Lots:

“Many radical feminists question why women wish to become mothers, because the planet is overpopulated and children are men”‘s all-time favorite weapon of choice to use against women. Not to mention that having a child ensures that you”‘re either raising another potential victim or another potential perpetrator.”

Here’s the thing: I’m dashing this off while being tugged at by my kids, mother, partner, and cats. Here I’m deciding to write to my readers – not the Haters, not the developed rad fems or those who want to discuss or ‘splain theory whilst ignoring lived realities of mothers/carers and children, and frankly, not those who hold anti-child views (sadly many of them don’t even know who they are). But if you find yourself generally wondering if you have any anti-child lingering sentiments (hint: yes you do), please read on and more importantly, read the links supplied.

I’ve written before, briefly (F-word example), of the unwillingness of some feminist discussion to acknowledge deeply-entrenched adultist tenets. These worldviews simmer under the surface but make themselves known in commentstreams of any article daring to defend children and their carers, especially one supporting their rights to be out in public at their levels of need (hey listen… I simply couldn’t bring myself to link to multiple vitriolic examples of breastfeeding hate, which are endemic in the US). One of the reasons I don’t self-identify as a feminist (although I absolutely support many feminist goals, and read and support many self-identified feminist activists) is because of the many ways feminist discussion has let down so many groups and continues to do so: today’s mainstream feminist discussion is often rife with demonstrations of racism, ableism, psychophobia, transphobia, adultism, and classism.

When discussing children the conversation – in mainstream and social justice spheres alike – is usually two-dimensional and frankly, played out: it seems we divide children into two classes: children parents can afford to feed – so parents have a duty to raise them “well-behaved” (regardless of the costs and pro-oppression indoctrination) and forcefully educated according to the institutional system – versus poor families with children. The solution in the latter case is – you shouldn’t have had them in the first place. In these often class-stratified discussions, pregnancy is often only discussed in terms of abortion rights (which are absolutely under attack) but not birth rights or holistic child-stewardship and nurture practices (including, shocker, the right to raise children without by-rote institutionalism). Like many in the self-identified right-wing, prominant progressives concern themselves with the care and quality of life – the life of babies or mothers (or non-babies and the right not to be a mother, which I unreservedly support) – concern which ends abruptly if a child emerges from the womb. I’m thinking of a progressive behemoth site with thousands of readers that describes itself as staunchly feminist; on this site a single author has posted merely two articles – out of thousands, scores of which concern abortion – that discuss birth culture and attendant realities in America (more dismal than you might imagine; yet it is still only considered fringe to advocate for revolution therein). There is – wait for it – one article discussing breastfeeding. One. In my opinion a feminist schema worth its salt would hold breastfeeding as a reproductive right and would, y’know, tackle birth reform. I won’t hold my breath.

The abovementioned rad fem comment seems to place a lot of value in asking WHY a woman would reproduce given how shitty things are. First of all, I commend objections to the multifaceted and ubiquitous narratives that a woman’s sole function is to reproduce. And things are pretty bad – and not only that, many people don’t even know it nor concern themselves. However, the reality is in having these same 101 social justice queries ad infinitum without deeper explorations of mother-and-child life we are letting down the women who do breed (something at present count, around 80% of women) as well as their children and (if they have them) partners.

Most women who feel and exercise what they believe is free choose to have children, even the “educated” (or seemly or middle class or whatever) ones, likely had little idea just how hollow the promises of “equality” (socially or within heterosexual partnerships) really are today. In my opinon this is largely due to misogynistic and kyriarchal mindsets – and in no small part also fallout from a child-segregationist culture. Many first-time parents have had little to no experiences caring for or being around well-nurtured children nor exposed at length to healthy child environs; almost every adult has moved from the position of child-as-oppressed to adult-in-privilege, and often will enact the damaging scripts they were forced into for so many years. The concepts of happy, celebrated, and idyllic motherhood are promised but ill-supported once baby arrives (although many mothers and fathers and carers manage to find genuine enjoyment and meaning from parenting). Our culture still functions to make many women choose between the family life she’d like and meaningful or respected paid work and financial support (and note: routinely criticizing and belittling traditional “women’s work” skews our ability to find meaning therein), even while we criticize these women for ever making sacrifices of one for the benefit of the other. We sentimentalize family life and mothering, but we also continue to frame parenting as huge drain that is less meaningful than Statusy Career or material acquisition, which of course erases the millions for who Statusy Career is not an option, a current reality, and/or a life-calling. More to the point, the needs of children are routinely, routinely ignored and the child class is raised while often being relegated to – still! – being seen, or not, and not heard – and often ill-protected (child abuse – verbal, physical, emotional, spiritual, and sexual – another endemic and tragic occurrence that our school systems and supposedly progressive American ideals have not done nearly enough to halt or stem). On the subject of child-raising anyone with an opinion weighs in and often gets a clown-horn for the front pages, while those who continue to successfully advocate and care for babies and children largely outside oppressive schema are relegated to the fringe or downright vilified.

I think I can understand a lot of feminist anger regarding children and motherhood, although I wish those vocalizing anger would consider their words carefully. Many women without children are tired of the oft-fed line that one’s life is not fulfilled unless one reproduces and that without kids a life is empty or sad or even “selfish”. And I agree, this seems like a lot of bullshit. But that is precisely my point – the promises and Hallmark-sentiments surrounding “motherhood” are deeply problematic and when many women step into this role – for reasons and in quantities that are no one’s business to be prescriptive about – the reality is quite shocking.

As for the arguments against marriage, motherhood, etc. due to these institutions functioning as patriarchal tools – yes, I get it (although find me an institution that never does function thusly). But here’s my thing – once the child is on the premises Planet Earth is it really appropriate and helpful to discuss how they shouldn’t have been born in the first place – or espouse a glum scenario that the child is destined to be either “victim” or “perpetrator” (that is they are a cipher and academic subject – not a whole, multi-faceted human being with a heart, mind, integrity, and a future full of mistakes and triumphs)? In asking for feminist responses to mother and child, to be told another version of “women shouldn’t become mothers/children should think about that before existing” is not addressing living mothers and children; it’s requesting we just have fewer mothers and children. Very, very tolerant, supportive, helpful, and on point (tongue planted firmly in cheek).

Where is the acknowledgment that if the world is ever going to experience positive change – either episodically or by the whole – it is precisely the raising of children outside oppressive regimes and mindsets that will make this happen?

While discussing the wretched state of Child, where is the attendant activist discussion and pragmatic approaches to treat the living and breathing children, here and now, who need adult advocacy and increased agency?

Bizarrely, sometimes social justice conversation indulges in the make-believe that each person (or nuclear/bio-family) is an island. Self-sufficient and all that. This framing ignores the fact our lives began with others caring for us – however many mistakes our carers may have made, the vast majority of us received an incredible amount of work and nurture – and most of us will have a period of vulnerability bookending the end of our lives, too (those with disabilities or extenuating circumstances may not have the luxury of the normative but false “self sufficiency” narrative often promoted). It’s incredible to me how many grownups pretend they are separate, apart, do not rely on others, never did, never shall.

Author Naomi Aldort, who I’ve referenced here, wrote a book called Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves. I’ve found it to be absolutely true that in the vocation of caring for other human beings my spiritual, emotional, and intellectual life has benefitted. My reality – mine – is that until I had children my activist mentality was almost non-existant and my passions were self-focussed; I rarely thought about how many others needed help, how many others had fewer privileges and resources and abilities than I. I am a flawed human being and continue to do my work, including self-improvement while trying to increase my stewardship for other people, for animals, for the planet. I am not perfect, but I will probably never support a worldview that doesn’t make it an active discussion point: helping those who need help and compassion, whatever population or class they belong to. Using such populations merely as theoretical entities (not human beings) might be necessary to get the ball rolling sometimes – but runs the risk of being a very underdeveloped and condescending strategy.

Some reading:

“On Hating Kids” at Feministe

“On childhate and feminism” at the Noble Savage

“My Child Takes Up Space” at Womanist-Musings

“The Ethics of Representing Childhood in Western Culture” by Naomi Aldort

And finally, “Children Take Up Space (and Notice When We Don’t Notice)” at Random Babble (quoted above), from which I offer this summation:

“[W]e as feminists, womanists, and social justice activists (and I”‘ll let you know where I fall on that scale when I figure it out) really fail hard at seeing children as what they truly are; a marginalized class of people who need their rights fought for and protected.”

Absolutement.

*(Um. Really.)

Tagged changing the status quo, classism, culture, family, fatherhood, feminism, getting along, haters, human rights, mentors, motherhood, women's lib

Oct 27 2010

culture, everything else, family

part 2 (.Tenderness.)

Few insights gained in the last twenty years are so securely established as the realization that what we do to children when they are small – good things and bad things – will later form part of their behavioral repertoire. Battered children will batter others, punished children will act punitively, children lied to will become liars themselves, protected children will learn to be protective, and respected children will learn to respect others weaker than themselves.

- from Isa Helfield’s paper ”Poisonous Pedagogy”, International Conference on Women and Literacy, January, 2001¹

***

About three weeks ago I wrote about the limitations of the Good Parent model – the Good Parentâ„¢ who raises the Good Childâ„¢ – and the suffering these concepts necessarily inflict (briefly, on everyone – but especially women, children, babies, families with disabilities, those living in poverty, and any marginalized group or minority).²

I’ve thought a lot about how I needed to see the subject through. I want to edify, instruct, and help – not merely deconstruct and analyze – so a follow-up seemed necessary. The task is not simple. See, I’ve been elaborating on better models for parenting and better village practices, from the general to the specific, for some time now. I can say with authority the ideas I express, now matter how clearly and circumspectly and appropriately I put them forth, upset a lot of people. Our culture is so built on the necessity of child-as-second-class there is an immediate and vitriolic response to those of us who challenge these edifices. I’m reminded of a quotation I recently read by Dresden James, British novelist and scriptwriter: ”A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed.” This, in short, is why people get so angry if you identify “spanking” as merely a special word for the practice of hitting children. This is why if one writes about the abstention of domination in parenting strategy, people trot out very old, unimaginative, and tired-out examples of “What if a child tries to run into the street?” and “Why don’t parents control their children in restaurants?” This is why so many try to frame any discussion of best practices for children as a cultural war between parent vs. non-parent, even though it is absolutely not (many parents enforce unhelpful and authoritarian – and failing – models of child-stewardship while many without children have some of the best and most creative ideas for a better society), which inevitably creates a rather terrifying and depressing cultural concept of “every man for himself” – an ethos singularly toxic and horrifying to thrust on our young ones as we wholly do.

I’m tired of some of these rather predictable conversations, and I’m disappointed in individuals and groups that should be doing better. This site was started as a social justice project within the blogosphere, but the current grassroots activist field therein has been an utter disappointment – and that’s an understatement – in discussing the rights of children and our responsibilities toward and treatment of the child class. Children are not “choices” (as so many other normally-astute activists frame them) but are a part of all of us; furthermore our commitment to bettering the world means recognizing they are our most vulnerable, most exploited, and suffering populations, across all racial and socioeconomic groupings, faith models and belief systems, class strata, and community models. I’ve discovered many social activists if not most are not willing or able to commit to a greater intersectionality in their efforts (probably because they don’t want to examine their own adult privilege).

So today I’m going to speak to a rather small group, I think. Those who already know we’re failing – who already see the “boiled frog”³, the troubling results of our practices invested on children. I’m speaking to those who know we need to do better but aren’t sure exactly how. I’m speaking, mostly, to parents/carers who feel haunted and amiss – and to compassionate and intelligent adults who care about our future. I’m speaking to those who want to parent their hopes, not their fears, and the non-parents who are ready and willing to be a part of this.

I’m going to talk about Tenderness.

We don’t much value tenderness in our world. It’s one of those optional and circumstantial things, an occasional indulgence rather than a commitment to a way of life. We think of tenderness as a feeling, not a practice – something akin to the experience of affection. But tenderness is an exercise, a way of life, and functioning in our larger communities I might call it a discipline. It only improves with practice and wisdom.

When it comes to children many like to talk about the Real World (whilst they work at creating or supporting singularly artificial institutional environs for said children, like compulsory schooling). And of those who invoke the looming spectre of this Real World, many are ready with talons out to dash apart an enthusiastic practice or promotion of tenderness. You see, in their worldview “soft” or “permissive” parenting will result in a Failure in the Real World (or Spoiled Children). Usually those quick to criticize don’t even bother reading, with any critical or considered analysis, the most humane and deeply rugged practices put forth by stellar authors, thinkers, and spiritual teachers. Critics of more humane treatment of children create strawmen (sometimes straw-hippies, ha!) as fast as they can to tear them down. Their words are filled with deep-seated cynicism, pain, anger, and fear.

Of course, in the longest view, how we raise our children – and we are all raising the children around us, whether we admit it or not – is instrumental in creating the Real World. We have been doing a fairly poor job, as shown by our failing educational system, the endemicity of youth anxiety disorders, eating disorders, depression and suicide (the recent bullycides⁴ have called attention to some of these very serious problems) – and just the garden-variety symptoms of misery I see in so many children today: duplicity, unhappiness, suppressed authenticity, and fear.

Besides, even if we were to pretend this rather dismal “hard guy” view of You Need To Learn To Cope in the Real World wasn’t a perpetuating cycle of dominator culture⁵, poisonous pedagogy⁶, and a rationalization of sadism⁷, “tough love” parenting strictures actually countermand healthy functioning and growth in children – in other words, we end up seeing more aggressive, angry, fear-based behaviors and children who learn very quickly to behave differently depending on who’s watching or Who’s In Charge (as opposed to growing their intrinsic moral center)⁸. We are, in short, growing Bullies and those who will be hurt by them – not compassionate citizens and heroes.

Most parents/carers/adults want children to survive. Whatever my differences from USian mainstream parenting practices, we have this in common. It’s my view and experience that treating children with tenderness and protecting them while they are under our care prepares them supremely for the nasty aspects of this Real World (that is, if you believe Nature didn’t screw up when she built us, the most successful ape on the planet) and in fact positions them best to be the change we need in this world.

Many parents, carers, teachers, and adults without children intuit the need for better models for child-caring than our recent history affords; there are swelling movements, sometimes fragmented, to reclaim humane parenting and save not only our children but ourselves. You can see this burgeoning awareness in communities that align themselves with principles of Consensual Living, Non-Violent Communication, Natural or Authentic Parenting, Attachment Parenting, Attraction Parenting, Radical Unschooling, Life Learning, and Autodidacticism, etc. Still, even well-intentioned adults have a hard time releasing models of coercion and control with regard to children: hence you see discussions of “positive discipline” and “gentle discipline” (in other words, for example, a rejection of hitting alongside laboriously-crafted defenses of “time-outs”). These concepts of “gentle” discipline make no sense or at least are only cosmetically or by-degree different from those who use more loaded or violent words, strategies, and physical responses. Discipline is discipline and there’s nothing gentle or positive about it; that is, an authority big and strong and (to most children) scary who will Have Their Way whether they sugar-coat it with words like “bummer” or enforce by a systemic removal of “privileges” and loved possessions or time spent doing the things they want to. “Discipline” has nothing to do with safety – keeping our children safe and occasionally keeping others safe from our children – but it is an almost universally-accepted lie that it does.

Authoritarian and authoritative parenting (more hair-splitting of dominator culture) are exhausting battlefields we lay out. The skirmishes are grim or heated and brief moments of triumph are soon eclipsed in bouts of fear and shame and anger and confusion. Eventually our children move across town or the country or the world. Walls are set up. Parents are left lonely and uncertain and brittle. Children are left wounded and have cut themselves off from their parents; children, now grown, carry childhood injuries. They have lost even the desire to repair the lost connection with their parents.

Authoritative/authoritarian parenting propagates suffering.

But tenderness is life-changing.

From here on in this piece I’m going to refer to parenting, but really the concepts can be applied to any adult in relationship with a child.

What is tenderness? Tenderness is a spiritual practice: for those few individuals who do not believe we have souls, I suppose one could call it a logical one as well as it generally serves our health and herd relationships. It’s hard to articulate the practice of tenderness in a thorough, quantified way here in a short article; spiritual and humanist teachers have written entire tomes on similar concepts. I identify with concepts learned through studies of Christian and Buddhist works so my practice and concepts around tenderness are thus informed.

Briefly and significantly with regards to caring for other human beings, in the pursuit of the practice of tenderness I first must acknowledge my own suffering. I must – at least temporarily – abandon my scripts of blame and rehearsed anger and recrimination (note I am not offering a judgment on the validity or invalidity of such scripts) and instead simply see my suffering for a moment, with clarity, feel the shape of it – observe it and see it is not Me (“I” am who is doing the observing). This is the beginning.

Now for many if not most of us, our suffering is often such we cannot simply wish it away or banish it. Yet our suffering is at root of why we cling to worldviews and behaviors that are dysfunctional – and harm others. This is deeply relevant to the practice of parenting as the relative helplessness (enforced legally and socially in almost every way) of our world’s children puts us in power positions; we inflict deep damage. This is both an awesome and a scary responsibility, and one reason many are fearful at the thought of having children or even disgusted by the idea (such individuals also often want to believe they can just “opt out”, that they aren’t in fact participating in the larger village of child-rearing by their silent support of the status quo). On the other hand, this mission can be incredibly transformative; it is why, for some, having the care of another human being, a dependent – often their own child, but not always – can be the catalyst to a spiritual awakening unlike any they’ve yet experienced.

When we have the presence and space from our mind’s rehearsals of suffering and anxieties – that’s when we are best equipped to care for another human being (and not just children, either). That space is the fertile ground for the beginnings of the practice of tenderness.

When we parent from this place we respond to our children’s needs while having a longer view of our job as parents. This is such a tremendous gift, and I wonder how many parents and carers experience it. Instead I believe, most are familiar with the tension-wire feeling we have at all times or that can be activated at any moment (sitting in a restaurant, we haven’t eaten all day, our two year old begins making happy noises, the table over shoots the very familiar toxic glares, our stomach knots, “not again”, our acute awareness of how unwelcome we are here and in the entire public sphere until our children sit still enough and are quiet enough for everyone else…). Ugh. I’ve been there. It sucks, and as I’ve said before, ultimately it is our children that pay the price as we lash out, restrict them, suppress them, require Obedience and Submission, hit and shout when “no one’s looking”, work ourselves ragged in the culturally-supported ritual of performing Good Parentâ„¢… and so on.

Yet parenting from a place of tenderness and Presence has the ability to lift these experiences, as incredible as this may sound, to transform them. Parenting with tenderness involves a deep-seated sense of unshakable joy; it involves my awareness it is my child I am with and the world around us in its chaos and coarseness and anger and fear, is just another presence in our day, nothing personal, not a boot to crush me (try as it occasionally might), powerful – is it? Time and time again my smile, which begins deep inside me, in my stomach, and emerges from my Being, I smile at the next table and I smile at my child (and I help my child) and I smile at my hunger (which may go unsated, for now) and I smile (with sadness) at how many adults react with such anger and fear to small children – and my calmness has soothed everyone – myself, my child, sometimes even, but not always, the angry customer at the next table. The trick is, you can’t fake it. But when obtained, it’s real.

Parenting from a place of tenderness keeps me strong for the times my children suffer or make mistakes and the times these events surprise or hurt me – or others. It is not “turning off” my instincts or alacrity or my loyalty to the rest of the human race, it is going deeper within myself where I find an indomitable ground, a strong woman, not her first rodeo, a person I like very much indeed as it turns out. Therefore some of the old fretting worries surface like they always have – Why is he/she doing this? Have I failed as a parent (mother)? What’s wrong with him/her/me? - but instead of the anxiety, fear, anger, and confusion I’ve typically experienced in the past I often feel calm, alive, aware – even amused. As author Eckhart Tolle relates after a disturbing event at his then-workplace long ago, “There was a brief shifting from thinking to awareness. I was still in the men’s room, but alone now, looking at my face in the mirror. At that moment of detachment from my mind, I laughed out loud. It may have sounded insane, but it was the laughter of sanity, the laughter of the big-bellied Buddha. ‘Life isn’t as serious as my mind makes it out to be.’ That was what the laughter seemed to be saying…”

Parenting with tenderness means trusting the process of growth; it means giving love and support and assistance instead of withholding it or provisionally doling it out in order to coerce children into “better” behavior, like the Operant Conditioning experiments performed on rats (sadly, many, many adults do this by rote to children). It means folding a crying child into your arms and not believing the thought (formed out of fear and narrowness) that their emotional display is “babyish” (over time, this thought coupled with negative judgment will not come at all… and what a beautiful experience for me to have left it behind!). It means over time seeing your child and their suffering with deep compassion and intelligence and depths and calm, not identifying with the phrases “throwing a fit” or “having a tantrum” (imagine my surprise and delight when this awareness began to evidence itself in my experience with other grownups!), nor identifying with the fear that would have you rush to “fix” their pain. Parenting this way, or beginning to anyway, has resulted in more peace and happiness in my home – and “better behaved” children – than I would have thought possible.

Parenting with tenderness means not looking over our kids’ shoulders for the accolades of others (or the label of Good Parent) as we hustle them to the Accomplishment – reading, writing, riding a bike, ”please and thank yous”, multiplication tables, straight As, Miss Congeniality – but being with them as they set their own goals and helping them in every way we can and watching with amazement what they can do (not watching what we can make them do).

Children have or develop, when nurtured and not exposed repeatedly to the trammels of adult privilege – or exposed as little as possible anyway, innate reserves of intuition, wisdom, compassion, righteous outrage, brilliant humor, fair-mindedness, and a capacity for forgiveness and love that rivals any bodhisattva. Tenderness and responsive, considered stewardship of our children will not only raise wonderfully-adapted and “well-behaved” children (promise!) but will also promote our own healing. Tenderness and nurture assist our children (because much as a doctor does not heal our body, rather our body does the work – children grow themselves) more than any artificially-prescribed “boot camps” parents/adults convince themselves are necessary⁹. To paraphrase author Naomi Aldort (and I wish I had her exact words here) – adversity is good for children, but not when organized by those whose job is to nurture and protect the child. I have seen this bourne out in our own family life countless times – countless.

Tenderness is meeting a child at their expressed need; tenderness is rejecting our arrogance when we attempt to direct what our children need, or what they need to be rescued from (the oft-maligned “helicopter parenting”), rather developing the extraordinary presence and observation and longer, more spiritually-centered awareness so many children find incredibly nurturing (my own father had this gift, despite much idiosyncratic coarseness). When we are in tune with our children, they will ask us with clarity (or we will be able to see with clarity) when they need our help. To my surprise, it’s been less often than I’d have imagined.

Tenderness is the only thing that has given me a compassionate awareness of my previous mistakes; after all, I could have heard all the well-reasoned and logical arguments in the world for more humane parenting but my mind could have dismissed them (as inconvenient or only for the “privileged few” or as naive or simplistic) – had I not been open and seen the suffering I was inflicting on these beloved children. Tenderness is the part of me that has, over the years, acknowledged the personhood of my child at the soul-level (or whatever you’d call it) – not merely a foil for my own ego and Expert status¹⁰. Acknowledging my mistakes – instead of clinging to my dung pile¹¹ - I have gained humility and wisdom (and hope to gain more). Our children will experience our improvements as healing, if they are not too far hardened to us. And on that account, it’s never too late to attempt to restore harmony between us.

And here, I would like to say a few more things about my own family.

The other day I heard my son Nels set up a cry and he came into the living room. His face was flushed and his eyes were full of hurt. His sister had bit him. Their skirmishes are increasingly rare; thus for one to proceed to such a level was surprising. Even as I opened my arms I knew something was wrong for my daughter, for her to hurt him thusly (not that long ago, before my husband and I began a deeper awareness of gentleness, a fight between my children that escalated to this level would be more commonplace and we’d have Laid Down The Law on them, more shame clouding up her own inner sense of justice and betrayal, obfuscating her integrity in a scary and humilating lecture…).

But now, in this moment, my son buries himself in my open arms. His bite is angry-looking indeed. But in less time than it takes to settle on the couch together he has stopped crying. My mind is calm and I am sad for his pain; I empathize without anxiety. Untainted by the fear and anger his sister’s behavior would have triggered in me only a short time ago, I have an awareness I must talk to her and we must try to discover what is wrong (which I later do). I have another moment of clarity: the wrongs the two commit against one another along with any redress will ultimately have to be navigated within their own relationship (in other words, I will not seek to force insincere apologies). My son soon hops down, his body language and spirit calm, fully recovered. He kisses me, his face tear-streaked and warm, he tells me he loves me.

Tenderness is making the time, later, to speak to my daughter Phoenix. She and I are sitting in her closet. She is silent and suffering (sadness, not anger), out of the reach of my loving hands, but she is stoic. I ask her if she wants to know what I think. She tells me Yes. I say, “I think you feel bad about yourself as a person.” “Yes,” she whispers. I say, “Part of this, maybe a lot of this, is my fault. I’m sorry.” After a beat I say, “I’d like to help you feel better about yourself. Would you like my help?” “Yes,” she says, again, and then slides into my arms. We sit for quite some time in calmness and I stroke her hair. I am sorry for my mistakes in the past but I am here with her now instead of there. After a while she makes a joke about her father, cooking dinner in the kitchen, his efforts coupled with much noise and clamor. We laugh.

Tenderness is my son in the car last night. “This is my golden apple. It is precious,” he says, as he smells its fragrance and holds it in his hand for along while. Later, he carefully eats it to the core and set it aside on a napkin so as not to mess the car upholstery. Later still, he tells my husband and I he wants to tell us something something. He says, “I know I always change my mind, and I’m sorry for that. But I regret coming on this car trip. I wish I’d stayed home and played.” (He is six years old.)

Tenderness is my daughter, as I type, from the living room: “Mom, can you please help me?” She asks. I come into the living room. She directs me clearly and with confidence (she is setting up a huge, messy living room fort for herself and two friends). “Thank you,” she tells me when I have finished assisting her, and I return to my writing.

Tenderness is a bit later as the house full of kids gets a bit rowdier. My daughter pops her head through the door and asks, “I’m sorry, are we being too loud for your writing?”

Tenderness is in our mistakes; tenderness is me seeing the children have poured too much milk and the half-full bowl sits on the counter and I am troubled as my mind goes to grim realities of grocery monies and I, exasperated, tell them to please try not to waste food. The kids smile and share the rest of the bowl of milk, drinking it up, standing in the kitchen, laughing. I apologize (which is accepted) and I ruffle their warm sleepy hair and I think how much smarter they are than I.

Tenderness is in our mistakes: tenderness is later at night when my husband, at the end of his ability to cope, very tired, snaps at our son and our son cries; our daughter puts his arms around him immediately and comforts him. A few minutes later my husband puts his arms around our (now calm) son and says he’s sorry.

Tenderness is my son sliding into bed with me this morning. I whisper, “Are you okay?” and he says, “Yes,” his entire Being infused with the knowledge of Self, security, and love provided for him. Tenderness is holding him in my arms while he falls back asleep.

Tenderness is the root – the only solution that will save our children, and will help them save others. It can help save us, too.

You are free to join us.

“You don”‘t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King

You can read the whole piece here. ↩
“Hi. My name is Kelly. I’m a recovering “good parent. (part one)” at underbellie. ↩
“Boiling Frog”, Wikipedia entry ↩
“Bullycide”, Wikipedia entry, with references ↩
“Dominator culture”, Wikipedia entry ↩
Poisonous Pedagogy on Wikipedia & more cultural implications ↩
See Study – half of high school students admit to bullying at CNN ↩
See “Spanking Makes Kids More Aggressive: The Research Is Clear” at psychologytoday.com; followed by “Spanking in the U.S.A.: a sad state of affairs and why spanking is never okay” at child-psyche.org and the typical backlash against anyone who speaks out against hitting children, followed by the tired-out “but I turned out fine!” single data-point anecdotal refuting and unwillingness to make the conversation about something larger than Oneself ↩
See Love and Logic, a well-intentioned mess with many levels of Fail, built almost entirely on the (false) principles that parents MAKE children, not that children grow themselves despite our attempts, for good or ill, to help or hinder ↩
“On Seeing Children as ‘Cute’” by John Holt at The Natural Child Project ↩
“The Worm”, an allegory ↩

Tagged changing the status quo, culture, family, fatherhood, feminism, getting along, haters, human rights, motherhood, parenthood, the village, women's lib

Jun 10 2010

culture, feminism

look fabulous or go home

"Why on EARTH she'd think box pleats were acceptable in society is beyond me!"

I’ve been meaning to write a post about Nice White Lady Syndrome, a condition I myself struggle with. Hell, I used to be a walking Typhoid Mary (I’m trying to heal, people). NWLS is elusive for me to describe but it’s real. I could easily off-hand name some of the common traits. We with NWLS are concerned with being “nice”, of course, and will go to great lengths (including avoidance of subjects or people) to ensure the facade does not shatter. We are incessantly – internally or aloud – policing the bodies, clothes, manners and appearance of ourselves as well as other women, thereby making sure any concept of “sisterhood” runs concomitant to the pledging of a sorority that allows some (worthy ladies) in, while some are most stridently refused.

Yet despite the desire to be “nice” many afflicted with NWLS will devolve to hateful language and ad hominem attacks if you call out – however respectfully and accurately – problematic behaviors. In fact in our rigidity against admitting wrongdoing we have a core of steel that matches the most unapologetic purveyor of hate speech. Now I hardly need point out that not all white ladies who are nice suffer from NWLS (so please don’t be bringing me that bunk). ¹ I shall leave it for another post to write much more about my thoughts on this little syndrome but I will say: you see its true colors when you disagree with our most treasured bigotries, perpetrations, and prejudices.

Case in point, I enjoy following Gertie’s Blog for Better Sewing, a lovely series of entries that are akin to one of those entrancing, snapping insect-killer lamps for so many American mid-to-upper class white ladies like myself (we’re in the “working class” category if you’re curious). On May 28th Gertie wrote a bit about her experiences in classes with (illustrious and amazing) professional Kenneth King. In brief, her post stated the following: that as she pursues an interest in fashion and fitting clothes for oneself, inevitably she begins to find problems in the fit of ready-to-wear (RTW) clothing she sees out in the world. Thus her passion for personal clothing construction becomes a nit-picking enterprise on other people’s clothing – and this troubles her a bit. Or as Gertie herself says, “It makes sense that as we become more proficient fitters and sewers, we’ll become more observant of the garments all around us. (Unfortunately, we might also become more annoying, petty people in the process!)”²

Gertie makes a good point but the issue is not so simple as mere “nit-picking” or “petty[ness]“, since the intersection of a whole mess of issues comes to the fore when we begin to look at other (usually female) bodies and decide what looks good or bad (I think of sexism, racism and classism FAIL right off the bat, but of course homophobia and transphobia rate quite high).

Sure enough, many comments following this post exhibited quite the buffet of harmful worldviews: mostly with regards to body shaming, a whiff of slut shaming, and socio-economic class insensitivity to put it mildly. Essentially the reader is treated to many lectures on people who wear too tight jeans and too-small stretch fabrics which means they are basically Letting Us All Down by not looking good enough.

Wait, why am I writing “people”? The vast, vast majority of the eighty-three (so far) comments on this post concern women’s bodies, full stop. The list went on: people (women) are in denial about their size; thus they wear ill-fitting clothes which are somehow a grievance committed against us, the viewer; people are gross for being fat but they’re really gross for not disguising this fat in some way according to the standards of the poor innocent bystander who has to see this body. All women should consider body shapers or getting their bra fitted. People should make sure to have their pants properly hemmed because please – “spare a few bucks”, your dry-cleaner can do it for you. Shaming and dehumanizing language abounds: “embarrassing sausage-in-a-casing look”, “trashy”, “rubbish”, “gross”. Muffin-tops, camel-toes, and skeletal women are all disgusting. Anyone and everyone outside of the parlances of what fashion provides should either learn to sew or do whatever it takes to not look slovenly.

I won’t deny that, as a seamstress myself, fit analysis is a huge subject and once you get some chops you may notice poor fit all around you. It’s where one crosses the line into the many types of dehumanizing language and assumptions, insensitivities, and unacknowledged privilege that things get gross. Along with this nasty stuff comes the adjunct prescription that all women owe everyone, everywhere the duty to wear something flattering or becoming according to – well, I’m not sure who gets to decide that part (the “flattering” prescription for ladies is a feverish mantra in our society).³ In these four-score comments only one (Tasia’s) pointed out there might be financial and lifestyle considerations that might excuse someone for not making Looking Their Absolute Best a high priority.

There were glimmers of hope in the conversation. Several commentors laid the issue of poor fit in part at the fashion industry’s ill-service to women in particular aspects. But many comments were kind of muddy – like this one, which took me on a roller coaster of hope before quickly plummeting into more typical territory regarding fat people and compulsory-DIY⁴:

I also deplore baggy shoulders and shapeless side seams on plus size women, myself included. I don’t blame the women for this, they can’t help it because many manufacturers offer poorly executed plus size designs. And at certain income ranges that is all that is available to them. When I see this I want to grab the women and tell her, “Yes, you can buy a t-shirt for ten dollars, but if you make your own it will actually fit you and look good and you will feel better about yourself when you see how sleek you really can look!”

Oh dear good Lord.

Then there was: “there is nothing more tragic than a larger busted woman with a seam that SHOULD go under her bust…”

Nothing! More! Tragic!

Believe it or not dear reader, I could go on with more problematic content. Wondering what might happen, I sent this email to Gertie:

I think it’s awesome you are starting to really SEE clothes and fit issues – and that you have the means, time, and privilege to explore a self-education in creating well-made, homesewn clothes. It’s also wonderful you are sharing your experiences with your readers! I have you in my feed reader and look forward to your writings.

But with your last post, I’m sure your intent was not to start a classist bunch of fashion-and-clothes policing. Where I live lots of people are just trying to pay the bills and feed their kids and have clothes on their backs and try not to freeze their asses while they wait an hour between buses (and of course, I’m a white American and surrounded by far more wealth and privilege than many global citizens have). I seriously cannot imagine looking at ANY fellow human being and picking on their “rubbish” or “trashy” or “cheap” sense of style.

I know there are ways to talk about fashion and the pursuant fun of achieving it that respect all human beings. I am sad to see your comment stream is not a respectful space in that manner.

I love your writings and I hope you take my comment knowing I come from that place.

Gertie wrote back almost immediately and asked if she could publish my email in an Op-Ed on the site. I agreed, although my stomach sank because You know? I’m not super-awesome about wanting to speak up about social justice a crowd of inter-netz anonymous who had committed such egregious class and size acceptance FAIL already. But hell, I know I’m okay with what I wrote so I said Sure. The morning of May 31st the little “Op-Ed” was published with my email and a sparse introduction from Gertie.⁵

Since most my Underbellie readers are beyond 101, you can imagine what happened next. A very small series of comments granted my points; many sent up defensive arguments and of course, ad hominen attacks on yours truly (one commenter described me as “insane”! Shoehorning in the ableist pejorative – w00t!). A handful of people said I was “unfair” and handing out “badges” of wrongdoing (so apparently, no matter how politic you point something like this out, you’re being – let’s face it – a pesky bitch to cite it at all). Notable too were the many who said there was “nothing wrong with Gertie’s original post” (although I’d made clear I was speaking about the reader comment stream specifically), a classic Derail that carried through the discussion over. & over. & over.⁶ I was accused of taking myself too seriously, told I should take on a “real” social issue, and that everyone should wear “sackcloth and ashes” to meet my standards of social justice. I expected a few attacks, but I will admit I was surprised to hear how many people claimed style and clothing options have nothing to do with socioeconomic class.

Interestingly enough, those who defended my points said when it comes to commenting on other people’s clothing, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” (this happens to be another adage in the NWLS canon). Although I have often employed the “don’t say mean shit” strategy at specific instances in my life, what’s funny is of course, we absolutely can discuss fashion and fit and style – holding there are good and poor strategies and builds for clothing – whilst respecting other human beings who inhabit clothes we personally wouldn’t wear (and due to our various degrees of privilege may not have to). Eschewing describing a woman as “trashy” is something I can commit to while discussing an erroneously-drafted or ill-fitting empire waist – this latter an interesting subject to me in terms of garment fitting as I don’t often wear this particular style myself. And yet again, discussions on this subject often devolve into that policing bit; that is, a woman who fully knows well where her empire seam is and doesn’t give a Good Goddamn is thrown under the wheels as Unsightly; so too is her sister who is busy thinking about things other than clothing like – oh I dunno for example, food, shelter, her job(s), her family, her passions, her aging father she’s providing round-the-clock care for in the home, her chronic pain issues, her looming layoff, etc. etc.

Most odd of all were the accusations I was this kind of lurky dark-sided outlander trying to make Gertie “feel bad” for her silly hobby (someone claimed I said “frivolous” and of course as you see – I didn’t). As most my readers here know I share the same exact hobby (garment sewing). Sewing is a life-blood creative source of joy for me; incidentally, I also share some of the same types of privilege Gertie does. I don’t require her to feel bad about any of these things to make my points.

So you know, my whole speaking up thing just felt like oh, making-fart-noises-with-my-mouth. Fail.

But you know? Amongst the comments following the “Op-Ed” were some diamonds in the rough:

purplesews wrote:

I grew up steeped in the idea that the best thing to do was go home and stay indoors until you’d lost blankity pounds and then buy clothing – and it’s taken me some time to unlearn that and learn to fit my own unique figure without jumping right to disliking myself – so yeah, that comment thread did make me sad in places. The idea that you owe it to other people to wear “the right” clothing for your age/size/coloring/whatever tends to annoy me – while the fact that the market can’t presently provide most of us with the right clothes for our bodies is one of my hobbyhorses. But then, I feel this way about a lot of kindly-meant fashion advice, right down to good old Stacy and Clinton: I feel like if you walked up to the average poorly-dressed person and handed them $1500 and walked away, they would – well, probably pay off part of their mortgage, but if they had to spend it on clothes, they would probably be better dressed immediately, advice or no advice. I also think it’s interesting that we as a culture look down on vanity – there’s definitely some puritanism to the everybody-in-t-shirts aesthetic – but are very gung-ho about having some duty to others to look nice. It’s a strange dynamic.

emadethis wrote:

This is well-said. I shudder to think of people stopping others on the street and pointing out the defects in their garments. I’m distressed when I see poorly made garments on the rack. The deeper you get into sewing, finding these defects becomes just an outgrowth of your learning. A lot of people cannot afford well-constructed items, myself included. I consider myself blessed that I can sew for myself, but many are not in that camp either, and we need to respect where people are on that continuum.

Solitary Crafter writes:

Maybe I just have low expectations of people on the internet, but I avoided the comments on that post because I assumed that it would devolve into critiquing body size and that comments would be made about people shopping at walmart and all the rest.

As much as I enjoy sewing and crafting magazines and blogs, it’s always clear that people like me – poor, redneck, white trash – aren’t considered to be the ‘class’ of readers or commenters desired or expected and the issues faced by poor sewers and crafters, those of us who shop at walmart and thrift stores for fabric and patterns, tend to be either ignored or brushed away as unimportant.

No, I don’t expect everyone to cover the issues facing people like me, I have other resources for that, but neither do I expect understanding when the issue comes up.

Maybe I’m a coward and maybe I’m just pragmatic, but this is one subject that never can be resolved, even among people with the best of intentions.

A handful of comments like these in an otherwise rather dismal showing gives me hope that what I write and speak about is important (enough). In particular Solitary Crafter’s comment tugs my heartstrings – I know exactly the exclusion and dismissal she speaks of and indeed was pointing it out.

Part of me aches for the person (woman) who is defensive and angry at my observations. I really do know what it’s like to suffer the pain of having my “niceness” bubble popped, especially in an exposed setting. I know what it’s like to be called out in public (which the inter-netz obviously is) and while many can shake it off, I have on occasion blanched and felt my heart race at such things. In short, I really do have empathy for how upsetting this sort of thing can feel (and I was only calling comments out primarily with regards to classism; you want to see NWLS in full-blown danger mode, speak up when a white lady has said or done something racist - and yes I’m aware by even suggesting “white” has anything to do with these kinds of behavior I am inviting some indignant denial-screeches!).

An investment in being “nice” is/was a seductive condition. There were so many perks (if I had good “intentions” my actions could not, I repeat not be called into question) even while it took away my ability to handle constructive criticism and listen to other worldviews. Additional “perks” came in the form of believing I was someone who Meant Well and was Part of the Solution and it was totally other people who were Part of the Problem. Since I had a black boyfriend or a few gay friends or since I came from a “poor” background I’d passed some kind of test where if someone ever brought up those issues with regard to my behavior I’d know I wasn’t in the wrong(, ever), so please do not ever point that out.

I won’t say learning differently wasn’t painful. It was (still is sometimes). In my case (personal story), I became active on a social networking site that had a significant proportion of women of color and queer women and unmarried women with children and I got schooled more than once. I was told when I had said something racist, or classist, or elitest, or using heteronormative language or being a garden-variety asshole. It hurt.

Funny thing is even after I left this community I kept seeking out those types of spaces online. I kept wanting to learn more even if it meant being called out (sometimes in error, but often with a fair bit of accuracy), yes “publicly” and often not nearly as politic as I myself tried to intervene here.

In attempting to shed my biases and denials and sense of White Lady Sainthood (and I hasten to add I am still working through these things) I’ve become a much better listener and I have a broader perspective. I’ve experienced a greater diversity of friends online and IRL who value what I bring to the party.

But some, it seems, still prefer to stay “nice” – until they have to shout rudely over someone else. I wish them the best in their journey.

Do read the links below, especially the writings of Tasha and Natalie.

***

Thanks Arwen and Paige for your personal assistance in writing this post.

Photo credit: clotho98 on Flickr

Mentioned/Further Reading:

“Body Image, mothers, classism, fashion, Karl Lagerfield, and social inclusion” at lisaschweitzer.com

“Nice White Lady to the Rescue!” at Alas, A Blog

stuff white people do, a blog

“Defensiveness as a Signpost of Privilege” at Shakesville

“Where My Sistas At? The Underrepresentation of Black Plus Size Models in Mainstream Fashion” at racialicious

“Are There Class Cultures?” at classmatters.org

Very brief primer on how classism functions within feminism or women who consider themselves pro-woman, at everything2.com

“Women and Class” (and the avoidance to discuss the latter) at classmatters.org

Tangentially and to sort of soul-destroy anyone still clicking through my links, while searching for a CC-licensed picture I found this charming series of comments under the photo titled “Fatties”. If yer so inclined you can sooth your eyeballs on the photo caption of this treasure: “My Neighbor Is A Big Fat Ugly Pig”. OK, I’ll stop now. Promise. Just: it was rough finding a photo.

A little ray of sunshine – because there are many people out there working for the Good: definatalie is writing some of the best articles re: fashion snark. Besides her “skinny jeans” post you can read “Confessions of a Former Snarker” recently published on her blog.

This is similar to nice guy vs “Nice Guy“, as explained here and many, many other places. ↩
You can find “Like ANTS Crawling on Your SKIN: Clothing Pet Peeves.” at BfBS. ↩
One of the most amazing, wonderful rebuttals to this very common and socially-enforced meme is definatalie’s “You Can’t Bully Me Out Of My Skinny Jeans” ↩
Concomitant but not in response to Gertie’s post, blogger Tasha Fierce wrote beautifully on this subject the next day: “The Class Dynamics of DIY” ↩
Op/Ed Column: on Fashion Policing at blogforbettersewing ↩
Derailing for Dummies ↩

Tagged changing the status quo, craftivism, culture, getting along, haters, race, sewing, whiteness

Jun 07 2010

culture, feminism

the cost of “manners” amongst the ladyfolk

What lies beneath? Hint: sometimes, Very Big Scary Feelings.

“Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.” – Honore de Balzac

Recently on another mommy blog a question is put forth: How do we respond to friends who parent differently? The blog author relates a story of her friend, a carpool mom who one day drops a child off to the mother and says, “I ran through McDonalds for dinner because we were pressed for time, hope that’s okay” to which the mom replied, “Well, it’s really not” [emphasis by the blog author]. The blogger asked us to weigh in on the interaction.

Before I scrolled down to read the comments I predicted the following: the public (and predominantly female) voice would be against the woman who voiced her displeasure. Sure enough: as comments trickle in they cite her as “rude”, “self-righteous”, and “proselytizing”¹; public sentiment is set against her (although notably she has been relegated to third-party status, the carpooling friend having related her version to the blog author).

Look, no one needs to say the word “bitch”. We all know how women who slip up and display a lack of social grace or who stand up – if at all imperfectly or “not nice enough” – for their values are going to get heavily policed socially (for instance one commentator says that since the child was being carpooled and this is a service, it was “rude” of the anti-fast food mother to speak up regarding food preferences).

In the comments section I put forth the following: if I ask a friend if something is “okay” I believe I should be prepared to hear the answer, warts and all. The blog author responded quickly and alternatively inflated or ignored my points: thus my advocacy for authenticity amongst friends meant I was opposed to “civilities” like “How are you?” and that I wanted “every single conversation in my day to be an earnest, honest, heartfelt one”. The blog owner also set up a strawman defense defending her friend’s choice to buy McDonalds (since I am in agreement the mother did nothing “wrong” by purchasing this food, the relevancy of this defense escapes me).

Let me get to my point.

In many female friendships in my peer group, the rituals of “manners” and socially-policed quid pro quo often supplants authenticity and openness.

Go ahead and read the sentence again, carefully. I know it’s kind of a long labored thing. But I wanted to be super accurate in what I’m trying to say.

Look, if I was in the carpooling mom’s position I’d probably have felt stung. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to do right by a friend and received either a tacit or explicit referendum on my choice. Most women reading here know the pain of having one’s friend snub us verbally or speak with a “tone”. It hurts, badly. We simultaneously empathize with our friend and feel horrid about letting her down while we also respond with a reflexive and defensive anger. These things all make up a big bag of Suffering and like any animal we seek to avoid suffering.

Given that, it can seem seductive to just agree we’ll all play by “manners”.

I like talking about punctuality to illustrate my points on “manners” because this is an issue I have seen play out over and over again over the years. For instance: according to the code of “manners” I should be on time to your dinner. But if I am late (which it’s easy to be while juggling small children and a job and daycare and a partner and pets and a household) I may attempt to stifle my feelings of failure at having not performed my social duty of perfection: I will offer an apology and then, right on the heels of that, an excuse for why I was not on time. This apology-cum-excuse is a nullifying maneuver; as the latecomer I am breathlessly expounding on why the whole issue is all about me and my (small or large) drama, while my host(ess) may feel hurt and/or angry but is powerless to say as much without looking like a troll according to our codes of conduct (I am perfectly aware that in some scenarios lateness does not give offense whatsoever). The host has been outplayed, not so much deliberately but as a side effect of the feminine-means-perfection roles and rituals that create severe social and personal fallout.

Do you know how many women I’ve heard say, “Maria, I’m sorry I’m late.” with the pause and presence that a true apology deserves, perhaps with a gentle hand on Maria’s arm or at least eye contact? A small handful. These days I apologize in this manner when I’m late but it’s something I’ve had to work on. I still hate being late not only because I want to be considerate to the host(ess) but because of my resultant feelings of female-fail. Manners are ostensibly about the former considerations, yet the rituals of “manners” often play out according to the ugly morass of the latter. In female society it is so tempting to avoid our discomfort by playing the game, almost a chess match of thrust-and-parry because we don’t want to feel shame and we don’t want to feel “wrong”.

If only our self-saving machinations didn’t have such potential to hurt our friends.

I have long lost count of the times I’ve seen women in a social setting say something is “okay” when really, deep down, it isn’t. Using the example of lateness, I once heard my friend E. excuse herself for being an hour tardy to the dinner fÃªte her friend H. had thrown, because H. had been late to a party E. threw a half year ago. E. kept a list of her friend’s perceived faults (she never once paid for the pot they’d share; she let her kids eat “too much” candy) and then applied her own barter and balancing act based on this internal scorecard (respectively: therefore it was okay if H. footed the booze bill entirely; H. was responsible for the sabotage in E.’s otherwise flawless family dietary plan). This all happened internally; these trades were not negotiated openly nor made known in the friendship. And if it sounds like normal “human” behavior to some I can tell you E. and H. had deep hurts levied against one another (I got to hear some of them) that also rarely, if ever, were aired directly with one another. No, they were aired more or less to other women entirely. More third-party speech.

I wish I could say the example of E. and H. is a rare one; however it was all too common in my peer group at the time.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Many years ago I had the good fortune to make friends with a woman who was both authentic and purposefully opposed to ad hoc quid pro quo arrangements. She was going through a hard time in her life and had decided (in self-protection) that relationships should exist with contractual agreements (either verbal or written). These agreements would, in her mind, keep her “safe” from the types of betrayals (one severe and of marital nature) that had hurt her so in the past. (More on her contracts and their success in a minute.)

At first my new friend puzzled me because she didn’t play by the “rules”. She would, for instance, not allow me to purchase her latte when I was flush with cash and wished to do so. It was apparent to me she was not doing this to rebuff me or out of a prickly sensibility around money; she simply didn’t want to risk engaging in the Game. Although I was surprised by her stubborn refusal – which never wavered – my mind also immediately flashed to the many “hints” and jabs that other women voiced about friends who “owed” money for this or that transaction that had been offered in the spirit of a gift. In this first interaction with my friend I intuited issues around money would be considerable safer and less anxiety-inducing between us (incidentally, this meant a lot to me at the time; being a family of four with all sorts of financial problems cropping up I had little room to spare; life is easier for me today). Over the years my prediction proved correct.

My friend’s worldview was formed as a self-protective one but as a near side-effect I came to trust her, immensely. I could ask her if she would buy my dinner and she would say, “As a gift, or for repayment? When will you pay me back?” while being truly open to either (and holding herself able to refuse). If I asked her for a favor or an opinion I could trust her response; I wouldn’t have to “prove” my virtue if I asked for something. Concomitantly, I was treated to her direct advocacy; if she didn’t want to watch a movie or eat a certain kind of food she would simply say so. One time she removed a chair from my house (with my permission) and had a carpenter friend bolster it to support her weight (we had very rickety chairs as a rule). At first I felt an immediate small humiliation that I had so failed in a hostess as to not have adequate furniture. I felt slight aches of shame and reflexive anger. But knowing her I had no reason to fear she was doing anything other than problem solving for the sake of her comfort so we could enjoy our friendship to its fullest. Over a short period of time my discomfort subsided and I felt gratitude for her action. It also was not lost on me that as a family of four with one income and two small children I perhaps could be forgiven my lapse of furnishings.

Our friendship is longstanding and it has had a portion of wrongs committed and apologies; it has not been free of strife. I will say that considering how intimate we have been the amount of conflict and hurt I’ve felt is much lower than any friendship I’ve experienced. The quality of trust, openness, and authenticity in this friendship is still a standout in my life. I am glad for her example as it has informed me in my other friendships. I wish more women would catch on.

As for my friend’s concepts of protective contracts and agreements, this was an issue she struggled much over and her views altered, morphed, spread, and softened. She experienced over time a reality that nothing, not really, could protect her from betrayal and victimization. But she retains her stalwart sense of authenticity, her ability to voice her feelings clearly, and a receptivity when I do the same.

While I could talk more about the quality of this friendship I would like to get back on point with a radical concept. When our friends respond with honesty (in their words and their tone) that reveals displeasure or hurt in response to our actions, let’s try to remember something. The anger and hurt we so immediately feel? This cannot be truthfully attributed as The Entire Fault of the Person Who Is Wronging Us. We can remind ourselves it is our lifelong socialization to be properly feminized and to police other women that is causing us the most pain.

The pain is real but our reactions can improve. We can ask ourselves with gentleness and curiosity, “Why do I put so much pressure on myself to never make a mistake?” We can ask ourselves, “Why do I feel so humiliated and angry so quickly?” We can remind ourselves, “My friend is trusting me enough to be honest in her communication. Take a deep breath; this is an important moment.” We can say, “Please tell me more,” and mean it. We can say (if we decide it is called for) “I’m sorry” to our friend – and mean it. We can stop saying “sorry” when we don’t mean it.

Maybe we’ll even be brave enough to tell her, when the moment is right, that her tone or response hurt our feelings; maybe we can tell her with openness, without undue attachment to outcome, without reprisal waiting in the wings, with intimacy and honesty and Love. My guess is she’ll surprise you by apologizing in turn (if she didn’t earlier in that wonderful, open and vulnerable moment). These are transactions in a friendship that are rare, difficult, beautiful, and form strong relationships. Real female friendship can be accomplished with an eschewal of malicious speech, hidden daggers and the dwelling on hurt feelings, without chewing one’s nails and suffering in silence or venting in the ears of a third-party, never to be aired with clarity to the one who needs us to seek reparations.

“Manners” may serve us reasonably well in fitting in socially (like not shouting “Fuck!” in church) but they are a meager edifice to secure our hearts and minds upon in lieu of honesty; besides the obvious that no two people can agree on when “manners” are called for and when they must be eschewed, and no two people have the same background and therefore education in “manners”, they are in final analysis rituals that are not solely adequate in times of interpersonal difficulties. I have seen the most “mannered” women harbor the deepest and darkest angers, there to fester and become something silent and resentful and twisted.

In contrast I remain in supreme trust that my friend will tell me if I hurt her, and she remains trustful I will listen openly if she tells me.

And yes, we still say “Please” and “Thank you” and “How are you?”

This post is dedicated to my good friend Cynthia.

***

Photo credit: x-ray_delta_one on Flickr

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” ↩

Tagged changing the status quo, culture, friendship, getting along, women's lib

Mar 31 2010

culture, feminism

guest post: we’re coming to eat your CHILDREN!

Turns out this headless fattie has a head. And a brain. Heart, mind, passion.

This was posted today at my friend Jasie’s blog, By The Seat Of Our Pants. It’s what we might call an excellent dish of 101 with awesomeness on the side. Please go to the original article at Jasie’s site if you’d like to join the discussion.

Seriously? In my opinion if you are serious about human rights and not espousing and supporting the opinions of a myriad of Haters (plenty of people will give articles like this a skim-over but will not in fact be serious about these things), you’ll read this essay and the links Jasie provides. Bookmark the article and come back to it. It will still be here for you. Promise.

And thanks, Jasie. Well done.

OMGOBESITY epidemic – We’re coming to eat your children!

Except… we’re not. We’re totally not. Fat people have no secret agenda to “make the rest of society fat”. Those of us involved in the Fat Acceptance Movement don’t have any hidden ulterior motive to try and assimilate you into FATNESS. Because it simply doesn’t work that way. Scientists and dietitians and creators of weight loss and diet programs have not found a safe and effective way to permanently turn fat people into thin people. Alternately, there is no proven way to take a thin person and make them permanently fat. So don’t lose sleep over it.

I know that for some of my readers, this post is going to come off eye-rollingly 101, but I don’t touch on the subject of fatness and Health At Every Size all that often outside of my FATshion outfit posts, so I really would like to go there.

These truths we hold to be self evident:

You cannot claim to know anything about my health just by looking at my size. No, I am not riding the fast train towards Diabetes, I do not have high blood pressure, my knees are doing just fine supporting my weight, and I have never once had a doctor express concern that I may develop any of those conditions. I don’t have a family history of diabetes, and while, yes, there has been hypertension in my family history, I have personally found that avoiding stress and getting enough sleep and exercise has kept high BP at bay.

You cannot tell anything about my diet or activity level just by looking at my fat body. I have known many thin people who are sedentary and many fat people who are avid joggers, swimmers, tennis enthusiasts, ultimate frisbee players, belly dancers, hikers, and yes, fitness instructors. Fat people don’t inherently avoid exercise or stuff their faces full of twinkies all day. I have known fat vegans, vegetarians, locavores, omnivores, and eat whatever is around-vores. The same goes for people who happen to inhabit thinner bodies. Plainly put – people are unique and different from eachother. This includes our bodies.

If you are a person who used to be fat and has lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off for over 5 years, congratulations – you are either a unique and special snowflake, or the higher weight you used to be was NOT your bodies natural set-point. Our bodies do have a natural weight-range that they settle into, based on many factors. These include, but are not limited to: genetics, environment, whether your body has birthed children or not, lifestyle and career, metabolism, access to fresh air and pure food, income and socioeconomic status… the list goes on. I have maintained the weight I am at for awhile now because that is the weight my body settled at. Sometimes I eat quite healthily, sometimes I forget to eat regularly, sometimes I eat large amounts of calorie-dense foods because they are delicious and pleasurable. My exercise level also fluctuates depending on my mood, the weather, my amount of free-time to participate in athletic activities, etc. Through all of those fluctuations, my weight remains steady between 225 and 230 lbs. I am between 5’2″ and 5’3″, this weight puts me into the “morbidly obese” category. Many people have certain connotations associated with the term “morbidly obese” and from what I have seen, they don’t include a body like mine that enjoys physical activity, home-cooked meals and good health.

Headless fatties who are portrayed in the media to illustrate the “obesity epidemic/crisis” are people. They DO have heads… and names and personalities and families and lives and are whole people. Please remember this when spouting off about “personal responsibility” and how all those OBESE people are costing YOU money because of their assumed ill-health and grossness. Thankyouverymuch.

My health and my body is not public property. It is no one’s business but my own. The fact that I put myself out there and publicly give details about my life is MY choice. I don’t owe it to anyone to be the “good fatty” who does everything right and is still *gasp*… FAT. I don’t owe it to anyone to be visible and upfront and honest about my health. It is MY choice.

With that said – I do think that the governing body of our country has a responsibility to provide decent health care and resources for its citizens. I support universal health care and am 100% for whole foods being served in schools, people getting off the couch and out into the fresh air, advocating cooking at home with wholesome ingredients, fresh seasonal produce being available to people of all races, income-levels, and sizes. All too often I see these ideas trotted out under the guise of “fighting obesity”, though, and that saddens me to no end. So many well-meaning people who truly want better health for all, whose hearts are very much in the right place are putting their focus on the wrong thing and/or are getting dangerously close to suggesting that a portion of the population is somehow “wrong” for existing the way they currently are. Those are some mighty dangerous waters we’re swimming in. Michelle Obama, Jaime Oliver, Michael Pollan, Lenore Skenazy – please, please, please stop focusing on eradicating fat in our nations children (and everyone in general). It’s not going to happen and it shouldn’t be expected to happen. We’re on the same page in so many ways, but when I see headlines that read “Is It OK to be Fat?” or “Obesity Killing Millions” it’s hard not to get a little worked up and a little defensive… See what I’m saying?

By eschewing the diet & weight-loss mentality I have not “given up” or chosen to just be FAT FAT FAT. I have simply decided to do what’s best for my sanity and my health by leaving behind disordered eating practices and unrealistic “goals”. I don’t owe it to you or my mother or society at large to fit into some arbitrary little niche of what is acceptable. I’m listening to my internal voice and harnessing my power and strength to buck a system that IS NOT WORKING.

a little bit of related reading/viewing for you:

Tagged 101, changing the status quo, FA, fat acceptance, feminism, getting along, human rights, women's lib

Feb 25 2010

culture, family, feminism

breeding, & how not to be an (inadvertent) jerk

Me (far right) and my girlhood (and non-babybirthing, so far) friends, some of whom may resent me or think I

I want to talk about the people you know – your friends, your family, those who may be dear to you – who don’t have children. Because seriously – Mama, Daddy? You could probably be doing better – if you’re ready and willing to try.

Here’s the thing: once you have a kid, there’s a faction of people that will just hate on your (and your child[ren]‘s) ass(es). I’ve read up on and thought about and pondered these examples of Hate in our culture – and no matter what the specific rant may be (pregnant women do not deserve extra consideration on a bus because they choozes to be pregnant, urban parents’ strollers are too big and full of too much expensive stuff and they’re such assholes for this) – what it really comes down to is that some childfree hate on parents because we, and our kids, have the audacity to exist. It’s about taking up space, mostly – space coming at more of a premium these days, our environment and planet being strained, and here we toddle out our snot-nosed little vacuum cleaners, sucking up even more of everything. Children are, to an extent, reliant on grownups – they are almost entirely helpless when they are born. They need our care, plain and simple. Some childfree folks can’t wrap their mind around this – after all, taking care of oneself can be a difficult business! – so their head just asplodes.

That’s not all, though: some versions of childfree hate-of-breeders are informed by the attitudes of many who feel pressured that they aren’t deemed “worthy” by society until they’ve Married and Babied (this is their baggage, but it’s more complex than that, and I’ll discuss this more in a minute), a hefty dollop of Ignorance – thinking that by seeing how you and your bambino behave on your worst day of the week tells them, really, anything much about the whole picture – as well as an illusion of Control, which many of us parents and caregivers have now had mercifully shattered thanks to our pants-shitting and willful progeny.

I don’t really need to link you to or quote any specific breeder-hate, do I? If you’ve parented your children for a couple years you’re well-seasoned in it. Sometimes I wish I could rid my mind of it certain examples so chilling and ugly they remain with me like an indelible soul-stain: off and on for the last couple months, my mind keeps going over a rant on heartless-bitches.com entitled “Entitlement-Minded Mommies (and their partners)” – such a caustic, soulless, and judgy spewing of vitriol I won’t even link below.

My purpose here is not to address the Haters out there, who will never particularly care about our actual experiences – any discussion of what it’s really like for us to meet our friends and family’s needs will be met with, “Maybe you should have thought about that before you had a kid” (ha! Hahahaha!) – nor expand their worldview to include reflection on Fact: every person who has ever existed has for a significant number of years needed the care and stewardship of others (if we live a long and full life, indeed our span may be bookended by such realities).

I’d like to talk about friendship.

First, Acknowledge: You Have More People To Feed
I think as parents, maybe sometime around year two, we should be allowed at least one full month in a closet hysterically crying, because it’s just that big a deal and that much of a strain for so many of us. You know, kind of constantly, and in the backdrop, whatever others may see on the surface. We have good days and feel on top of the world; our bad days bring us so very much lower than we thought Low could go; besides watching our children suffer we get to feel like whatever is wrong hurts or threatens our babies is Our Fault – such low points are like a straight-up toxic cocktail of fear, remorse, anxiety, and what can sometimes seem like a neverending burden to bear.

So sure, most childfree have very little concept of what parenthood is like: the care for, feeding of, nurturing of, worrying about (something very, very few – if any – involved parent could avoid), and guidance of the children; the constancy of financial, spiritual, emotional, and physical (including the feeding of, cleaning up after, bodily care of, and provision of clothing) resources needed. But guess what? Our responsibilities shouldn’t give us a free pass to stop doing, you know, the rest of life.

In my experience not every friend, acquaintance, or family member has understood my circumstances as a mother. Well, fine. It’s the truth, and they don’t have to understand it fully. The question is: how am I going to do what’s right given these are my circumstances? How can I love my friends and be there for them even if I’m not who I used to be?

Watch Your Mouth
Seriously? When you say stuff about your husband and your kids, are you being careful? Our culture gives special support to those who are the following: white, upper- or middle-class, cis-gender, able-bodied, straight, and married. This support for a “typical” life is so pervasive and seen as is-ought (or preferred) that it ends up creating a pressured and unpleasant place to live for many who exist outside these parameters: they end up marginalized both directly and indirectly, coarsely and with finesse. Since I myself fall into these categories I’m guessing many of my readers do too.

So, stop talking and consider what you’re saying. Are you through your words and actions in any way implying that the married, straight, breeding life is normative and prescriptive, an experience all should live or are going to live? Just stop that business right now. Consider dissolving your marriage, if you’re totally bad-ass and want to support equal rights for gay and lesbian couples. If you can’t (or won’t) do that you can read up on heterosexism, you can refer to your husband or wife as “spouse” or “partner”, you can stop doing unthinking things at Moms’ groups like saying, “Where does your husband work?” (which assumes this woman you just met is straight and married to a traditional breadwinner). Language is important because in part it forms the reality for those around us; even more important are the assumptions we carry and those we pass on – sometimes to harmful effect.

So, stop. Stop assuming anyone else has, or should have, a partner or child(ren). Seriously, I feel so silly writing this out because it’s rather 101, and this space is not generally a 101 space. But I see enough of this kind of thing it bears mention.

There’s more: do not say, “When you’re a parent you will understand.” Duh! You can say, “I didn’t understand this until I was a parent,” if that applies. Because it’s true, and hell, probably valuable to say! And it doesn’t sound condescending nor assume everyone should squirt out some kids to be able to have a well-enough formed opinion!

Language is more than language, and the pursuit of better language – besides influencing other people, and our society and peer groups – changes us within. When I stop assuming that Parenthood is some kind of journey essential to Wholeness – when I systematically begin to stamp out the wisps of this wrong-headed thinking – I am more open to my world, my friends, their needs and their potential positive influences. When I stop assuming everyone should (and wants to) get Married I appreciate my own partner at the same time as recognizing, to some extent, the circumstantial nature of our union; I acknowledge the impermanence of this arrangement – however important I hold it – and feel humble, open, and grateful.

Take Care Of Yourself & Whomever Else You Can
I don’t owe my childfree friends a visit to the bar, or a hang-out at their black tie party, or my appearance at their child-excluding housewarming fete (these are real examples from my real life). I owe them my friendship – more about this in a minute – but the truth is, when you’re a parent you have a few obstacles they’ve likely not considered, and the first that immediately comes to mind is a little complex:

As a family of four on one income, paid-for sitting is something of a fucking luxury, that is when I can find someone on a Friday night in the first place. And maybe a party or the bar with girlfriends wouldn’t be a first choice when that luxury is obtained: for instance, if I have the kids out of the house I’d like to have the night with my spouse working on projects together, maybe watching a movie, and then getting up to dirty, dirty lovin’. There’s no friend in the world who can compete with that most days. In fact, if I do go out with you while my kids are being looked after and my partner is available for that movie-watching, house-work, and spousal intercourse? Then you should consider yourself highly esteemed in my eyes.

Another truth adding to the complexity of the “Why don’t you get out more?” business: our culture is a terrible, terrible village when it comes to raising kids. Thusly before I had children I thought you know, now and then others would care for them. And yet in my eight years as a parent, most of those who’ve cared for my kids have been either A. my own mother, or B. other mothers. My childfree friends have not watched my kids gratis but a handful of times (and those that did have been predominantly female); my male relatives, not once.

Do I “expect” those in my life to watch my kids? Not really, as in I did not feel particularly entitled to that assistance. Have I been surprised just how segregated and hands-off the non-parents of this world are? Hell yes. Seriously – what is going on there? My children are not that terrifying!

Another reality: you can’t leave little ones in the house alone; and our culture currently pressures parents to not leave a child unsupervised until age twelve.* In terms of social nightlife – unless you can afford regular babysitting or repeatedly burdening your mom-friends with additional kid-care – that’s like a jail sentence!

So when it comes to friendships, for many of us it hasn’t been easy to maintain them without kids in attendance; and yet, some childfree begrudge the accompaniment of said youngsters into the friendship sphere. No matter the amount of time you can and choose to take from your little ones, give yourself credit: your time is a precious commodity these days in a way others may not understand.

Be There
You’re probably reading this and, if you have kids, feeling hey, possibly you have let down some of your friends and family. Fine. The point is not that you should feel terrible for having been swallowed up by the care of children (Hey, guess what, people who haven’t had babies! Did you know newborn babies require to be fed and diapered about every hour and a half, around the clock! It’s fucking crazy! Just a little informational tidbit!), but that you can show your friends your love by re-committing to the relationship.

The ways to do this are literally endless: it might be as simple as making an effort to listen more and talk less. Last night I spent about a half hour in deep discussion with two friends regarding the training, care of, and feeding of their purebred dogs, and I didn’t once minimize their experiences by you know, comparing dog-ownership to child-raising while concluding child-raising is so much harder, or more important.** I wasn’t pretending to care about my friends’ pets; it’s a genuine interest of mine. I want to know my friends, not merely exchange quid pro quo fake expressions of interest.

Respect
Your kids? Oh my gosh. Your kids are so awesome. They are literally the awesomest things ever. I know this, because I too have THE CHILDRENZ. But, how would you feel if you had a friend who bought some bright-red sportscar and then talked about little else for, oh, years? Not too good, eh?

So, don’t talk just about your kids. Again, duh, but – there it is, a complaint I’ve heard more often regarding new parents than those who’ve been doing this a while (but seriously, non-parents, did you read the part about how babies eat and poo around the clock and it’s like Anti-Sleep Boot Camp? Yeah, turns out it kind of occupies your Life a while). So anyway, parents and caregivers: Listen. Settle down. Be present. Be grateful for your time with your friends when you can get it. If family needs are pressing or stressful, fine. But realize that often our childfree friends and family aren’t in a great position to empathize or advise. You can know if they’ve turned off or unable to comprehend by the tone of their voice, the quality of eye contact. Whether you choose to continue the discussion is up to you.

That thing about listening? Yes, that means occasionally listening to subjects that at first seem to hold little interest. You cannot fake this one. If you truly believe deep-down that your children and familyhood are more important than your friend’s passion for mountain climbing, or your sister’s squawky love birds, well first off: you’re an asshole (imagine how you’d feel back before you had children and were juggling three jobs or maybe college and an internship and a terrible cheating girlfriend or whatever, and your friend was condescending and disinterested because in their eyes you weren’t living some version of “real life”? Not too fun, eh?). Secondly: if you can’t bring yourself to care about what they’ve got going for themselves, ask yourself why you’re friends with this person. If you can’t meet them at their needs maybe what you have is a drinking buddy or an ego-boost or whatever – not a true friend. Be honest with yourself.

And then, hell, you may have to end a few friendships. I broke up with a friend five years ago because even though I followed him down his fork of the road, and cared about his interests, these sentiments were ultimately not reciprocated (the letter, as linked below, intimates that I did not tell him my feelings; actually, I did change my mind and send him a copy). This actually hurt, a lot, even though I don’t kid myself he felt the same. Still, it was the honest and appropriate response: we simply weren’t friends any more.

Life’s too short to be regularly half-assed. Your childfree friends deserve your respect and consideration as much as they ever did, no matter how much your circumstances have changed. And they can learn a lot from you, too – if their minds are open and you represent yourself fearlessly and honestly.

* Age twelve is not a legal requirement; that is a cultural standard that makes little sense to me, more about that some other time.

** It must be said: I have heard many childfree pet owners claim the responsibilities inherent in pet care to be identical to that of having children. LOL<sob!>

Mentioned / Further Reading:

Heterosexism at Wikipedia (I particularly liked the section on Heterosexism vs. Homophobia)

Heterosexism 101, a questionaire from One Hundred Little Dolls

“Dear Ex-Fellow Collegiate”, from my blog – five years ago

Tagged culture, family, friendship, getting along, haters, human rights, parenthood

Underbellie

feminazi propaganda, mostly, w/ a dash of pop culture, b-movies, & the latest thing either tickling my fancy or eating my lunch

Tagged with getting along …

breastfeeding: not just ladybusiness

quick hit: feminist readers: have you leveled-up?

part 2 (.Tenderness.)

look fabulous or go home

the cost of “manners” amongst the ladyfolk

guest post: we’re coming to eat your CHILDREN!

breeding, & how not to be an (inadvertent) jerk