Economics of Motherhood

For this section of the blog, I will be responding to readings and questions we discussed in the unit regarding the Economics of Motherhood, using both my sister's and mother's (who are both single moms) words as insight into some of my reflections. 

The question from this unit I most enjoyed learning about and discussing was the one regarding the lack of men who provide childcare. As a gay individual, gender roles are an incredibly important topic to me, as I see them as only a construct of our patriarchal society, and so discussing this is imperative. It is no secret that our society undervalues woman, so it's only logical to believe that society regards childcare, something that society see's as innate or natural to a woman, as work that isn't "real" work or something that is not difficult or with substance. This is one of our society's fatal flaws because the work mothers do (stay at home or otherwise) is real work, and difficult work at that, and because it creates a cycle that keeps the men in our society shying away from stepping up and providing child care themselves. Men within our society view other men who are stay-at-home as weaker, sensitive, and mostly unfulfilled. Society views them as a squandered opportunity, someone who did not achieve their life's ambitions and settled. Why is childcare considered natural for a woman, a fulfillment of her duty, but for a man it's considered abnormal? It is this attitude that keeps men insulting other child care providing fathers, stigmatizes it, and keeps men from ever breaking out of these societal restraints. 

My sister, Sarah, who is going through a divorce currently with a man who is incarcerated, while raising two small children, discusses mistakes she made due to these societal expectations of a man and what he is meant to provide (presumably not nurturing and care towards their children). "Though I was the breadwinner and essentially purchased our home I felt pressure from [my husband] to put his name on the house deed. I did not not want to take away his manhood." This obviously has caused many issues to arise now that a divorce is happening and deciding what is rightfully the property of my sister for the courts has become difficult. The idea that our society perpetuates that a man should be the one who brings home the bigger income and provides the home and fear of emasculation by our patriarchal society is essentially the cause of these issues, and as you can see with my sister as an example, women are not immune to this same pattern of thought. My sister was so concerned with her soon to be ex-husband's opinion of himself and the opinion of our society, that she was frightened into putting her husband's name on her house because our patriarchal society would presumably see him as the weaker one in the relationship, which has eventually caused her great difficulties. It is a dangerous pattern of thinking and a cycle that needs to be stopped by our society. We need to not only de-stigmatize men who are not bread winners in relationships and fathers who stay at home to provide childcare, but make it admirable because these men are breaking societal barriers (while also praising the women who have for so long provided and continue to provide childcare with little to no appreciation from our society).

My mother, who became widowed in 1998, also showed some insight into the lack of men willing to provide childcare to their own children and children in general. "It is so rare to see a man working a daycare job. I have never hired a man to babysit in my life. Not because I would doubt their abilities, but simply because men do not advertise themselves as the one's who are willing to take care of children." Not only is it a rarity to see men in childcare jobs, but some people even view it as strange or abnormal if they see a male working within one of these positions. It is the patriarchal society that perpetuates the idea that a man is not "normal" if he is paid to care for children and it is society's job to end this notion so that our society can progress.

Another interesting question posed in this unit, was why is it that a caregiver is not paid for the work that they do when a nurse or sentry is? After all, we pay these nurses and sentries to provide their expertise in case something goes wrong. Again, this has to do with our society not putting value on work that they see as innate or natural to women, which boils down to society undervaluing women in general. Why are our economists so reluctant to address maternal contributions to our economy? As we discussed, it may be because putting value on an action that is seemingly priceless may be too difficult. but I think it more has to do with men believing woman are merely "fulfilling their duties" when they provide caregiving, not straining themselves or doing work. First, our society must learn to value women, and then come to realize the role of caregiver is exceptionally difficult and profoundly important work, so that this role will be afforded the respect (and monetary value) it deserves.

Lesbian Motherhood

For this section of the blog, I will be responding to readings and questions we discussed in the unit regarding Lesbian Motherhood, analyze the experience of being a lesbian mother, and try to provide personal insight whenever possible about my own experiences as a homosexual in the context of our patriarchal society.

This is perhaps my favorite unit of the class or at least the one that hits closest to home. Many of the readings and questions we discussed on Lesbian Motherhood resonated with me and helped me to verbalize my pattern of thought (something I am normally terrible at) to people who might now understand two women wanting to have a child together. One of the most enduring questions of this class and particular unit in my mind was an examination at how we as individuals arrived at the idea of having children and how does this process differ from the subjects we read about in Mezey's articles on sociological experiments on lesbian individuals? I found this very interesting because I had to examine my own life experiences as a gay individual and see how they influenced my ideas on parenthood. 

I realized that I have a complicated relationship with the idea of fathering or adopting children. On one hand, I am overwhelmed by the amount of responsibility you have on your shoulders when you decide to become a parent. As a parent, you have to be selfless enough to put all your energy into how this other human turns out and often the child doesn't grow up to be what you hoped. But on the other hand, there's the idea of unconditional love that draws me into thinking I might one day want to be a parent. 

Parenting is unconditional love. The kind of love one feels when they have to give up their own life ambitions (although I am not saying that a parent cannot achieve their own goals and successfully raise children) to insure that this other person is cared for and has the most meaningful life they can possibly have. This is the kind of love my own strictly Catholic mother, born on a farm in 1950, showed me when I told her I was gay my freshman year of high school. To become a parent is one of the most selfless acts one can commit. I've realized how profoundly my own childhood has affected my own views on parenting. A part of me wants to become a parent so that I can give a child a childhood they deserve or correct the mistakes I feel my parents made while I was a child. Watching my friends interact with their parents as a child has also strongly influenced my views on parenthood as well as (to be completely truthful) romanticized versions of parent-child relationships played out in movies that I watched so often as a sort of haven when I was a child. I'd usually go to these movies when I was having a particularly bad argument with my mother and I suppose these moments are burned into my psyche juxtaposed with the shining examples of parents in The Parent Trap, Matilda, and It Takes Two. I'm also aware that another reason I lean toward wanting to be a parent is to raise a child that would not treat others the way I was treated throughout elementary and middle school by my peers for being more effeminate than the other boys.
I do think my somewhat ambivalent (but leaning towards parenthood) feelings towards wanting to raise children came very similarly to me than they came to Mezey's subjects. It is true that my childhood shaped my ideas and desires regarding childhood, which has likely influenced the way I feel towards parenthood now. Very much like Mezey's lesbian subjects, because of discrimination I feel I faced as a child, particularly from my own peers, has influenced my desire to become a parent. I do believe that gay individuals are very sensitive to feelings of alienation and isolation that we face when we are younger and we either decide yes, I want to be a parent to raise a child who doesn't have to go through what I went through, or no, I am not having a child because this world has treated me poorly and I cannot protect my child from this kind of pain. I want to raise a child who wouldn't think to ever make fun of the way someone is, but as a homosexual male I'd have to actively pursue parenthood (like Mezey explains about her lesbian subjects), which means one day my ambivalence has to lead to action. I also feel like Mezey's subjects in that I see the way my mother's life was and how it remains, see the difficulties she faced raising four children after my father passed away, and feel worry that my life could end similarly to this. Where I believe I differ with Mezey's subjects is my lack of having my desires influenced by early experiences with childcare.

Toni Morrison's Beloved & Motherhood

For this section of my blog, I will be responding to questions we discussed in the unit regarding the classic Pulitzer prize winning Toni Morrison novel, Beloved, using some of my own mother's words as insight into some of my reflections, Toni Morrison's own words on the subject of motherhood, and discuss motherhood in the context of the horrible conditions of slavery and some of the big moral questions this novel poses. 

Firstly, I want to express how excited I was to read this novel, as I am very familiar with Morrison's work and I had never gotten around to reading this particular title. It lived up to all my expectations then exceeded them. The prose is lyrical and dense, adding up to a heartbreaking and powerful novel that is essentially about what it is like to be a mother, particularly grappling with what is it to be a mother against the backdrop of the horrific institution of slavery. One of the many horrors that slavery caused was an impossibility for mothers to actually mother their children. Who knows when this child could be shipped off or sold to another plantation? How can I swaddle and nurse my child when have painstaking labor to finish or i'll get beaten? How can I allow myself to care about this child I created when I do not have ownership over it or myself? There is every possibility that my child will get raped or beaten by a slave owner in its life. How can I let myself feel for something that is going to experience a life full of pain? These are some of the questions the novel's protagonist Sethe has to grapple with and what eventually leads her to commit infanticide against her third child. In the context of being a mother, how do we judge Sethe's actions?

Before arriving conclusively to an opinion on this act I analyzed the reaction of the other characters in the novel, imagined the unknowable horrors of not having ownership of your own body (an idea that is nearly unbearable), and imagined the worry a mother would feel for her children knowing they would soon know this horror. The other characters in the novel who were slaves themselves are not shy about casting judgement at Sethe, with most of the community avoiding 124 at all costs. Paul D, a slave that worked alongside Sethe at Sweet Home, offers his opinion on how the concept of love should be treated in a slave's life when he witnesses Sethe's affection for Denver and Beloved commenting, “Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.” This is a less a judgment of the act and more so a judgment of letting yourself getting to a point where you would have to commit such an act out of love. Baby Suggs, the murdered child's grandmother, is seemingly the only character in the novel who understands Sethe's decision, though she remains quiet on the subject. As a mother who has lost eight or nine children herself, she seems to quietly understand why Sethe did what she did. 

I spoke to my own mother about Toni Morrison's Beloved and told her of Sethe's actions the novel revolves around and I asked for her opinion on what Sethe did and if she would do that to/for me. Of course my mother and I, two white individuals, could never know the true horrors of slavery, but we often have hypothetical discussions that include a lot of "what-ifs". My mother looked contemplatively as she thought about it for a moment and then finally said she would be unable to do that to me (kill me in order to protect me from a worse fate). For me, my mother saying this, made Sethe's action seem all the more admirable. My mother, who i'd say I have a fairly good relationship with, would not be able to actually commit the one act (however grisly) that would save her child from a lifelong nightmare, but Sethe's motherlove (perhaps the main theme of Morrison's Beloved) is so endless, even though she has faced so much hate, that she selflessly ends her baby's life so that she does not have to face the horrors Sethe's life has seen. To me, Sethe's actions are justifiable and not worthy of admonishment, and come from an unknowable amount of love after a life that has seen an unknowable amount of pain. Sethe is a shining example of what a mother is, no matter the historical backdrop, but she is particularly impressive as a mother while slavery was still rampant. She loves her children selflessly and will do even the most painful things in order to protect them.

Final Thoughts

This is one of the most purposeful classes I have ever taken and has profoundly influenced my ideas on motherhood. Though I've always been aware of how patriarchal our society is and had great respect for mothers or those who provide childcare, this class has essentially given me proof, and allowed me to easily communicate these ideas verbally to others, something I have never been quite good at.