So I was reading a blog post over at Ph.D. in Parenting about Empowered mothering vs. Feminist mothering. She asks folks about what kind of mothers they are. I’ll wait while you get an idea what she means….
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Done?
Ok. 🙂 So that was a really interesting thought provoking blog for me. I’m fresh back into the I-have-no-identity-cause-I-have-a-newborn stage. Yeah. I’m not feeling very empowered right this minute. But, one of the awesome things about this being my second time through this gig is that I feel rather Zen about the fact that this will pass (PPD and all). Seriously. This too shall change. Right this minute my needs are getting ignored left and right and I am totally subsuming myself into the role of Mother. I’m not doing it because I am oppressed by the Patriarchy. I’m doing it because after doing a lot of research on child/human development it is what I believe is the right thing to do when you have a kid. Newborns need this kind of dominance of place. But she’s not going to be a newborn forever (Halle-fucking-lujah) and behaving like this with regards to her needs and my needs… not going to be healthy forever.
So! This is a blip in the life of my kid so I’m going to pretend that this is not really indicative of my ‘parenting’ for the rest of this conversation. The thing that struck me the most about that blog post was how the difference seems to be “Am I more concerned about myself or society?” which seems to be one more go round about how women are not supposed to be selfish. “Well… if you are serving your own needs above your child’s it should only be if you are really serving these larger social/political goals.” Well, uhm… fuck that. (I don’t think that the blogger in question is saying that in the slightest. It’s just how I read the difference between Empowered Mothering and Feminist Mothering in the descriptions.) Let me take a moment to say hell-to-the-no. I bloody well matter. ME ME ME MEMEMEMEMEME. I matter. I am absolutely not going to sign on to some passive aggressive bullshit that says I can only meet my needs if I can justify them as really serving something ‘larger than myself’. Hell no. I think that ultimately that is not good for my kids. I think that is really continuing the bullshit the patriarchy/kyriarchy/whatever bullshit societal ideal that individual women don’t matter much and I am not teaching my daughters that.
That said, yeah it’s a balance. I am not going to fuck my kids over. They didn’t choose to be born and they are real people with real needs and they deserve to have their needs met. I think one of the most important things I will teach my kids (hopefully–if I do my job right) is the difference between their wants and their needs. Yeah, my kids absolutely deserve to have their needs met and I am going to work hard at doing that. But their wants are not the most important thing ever and that’s just the breaks. And just because their needs have to be met doesn’t mean I have to meet them every time. That’s a lot of why I am working so hard to cultivate community, oh and let’s be sure to mention they have a rockstar father.
I guess that makes me an Empowered Mother. However, being empowered (by this definition) does not mean you have to be an asshole. 😛
yeah, I feel kind of concerned by these definitions. I don’t really like the idea of mothering with an agenda. I mean, I do do the gender-neutral parenting thing, but just because it seems fair and right to me, not because…ironically I feel I don’t have time to think about and explain this properly because I should go help my kids. I identify as a feminist mother, but more because I do the first set of things, and try to support other women (and girls, and boys, too, i suppose) to make the choices that feel empowering to them.