Elisabeth Badinter's "The Conflict" speaks to regidity
Hey SS. I’ve been thinking about how the reviews of Elisabeth Badinter’s latest book The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women which, as the Globe and Mail reports today, has caused "a motherlode of debate" (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/advice/more-advice/a-motherlode-of-debate), and how there has been a fierce backlash in the press against her ideas, often by mothers and feminists.
What is fascinating to me is the little analysis that’s offered about the minimal space and accommodation that’s made within capitalism and labour force arrangements for working parents, most particularly for mothers, to do the work of parenting. If families, and more specifically the lives and well-being of children, were at the center of our culture’s values and social mores, I believe the attention and work of parenting would be respected in a way that would translate into the respect and care for mothers that currently does not exist, and what I believe Badinter is alluding to some degree in her book.
It strikes me that should we honour and practice fluid maternities within societies and cultures that are also fluid in their construction and support for families, Badinter would not need to write such a critical piece, which in my mind, speaks many truths.
Your reflection in your last post on how you "LOVE the phrase same and different–for everything", and "how our experiences are so much the same and different too" would do much to shatter the binaries that continue to set mothers up as either "good" or "bad". The "mommy wars" rage as mothers continue to be scrutinized and judged by others, as well as each other, according to patriarchal motherhood ideals.
Narrow ideals and concepts about masculinities and fatherhood also contribute to the plight of all mothers (and fathers), regardless of how they do their motherwork / fatherwork.
I fully agree with you, as you note at the end of your last post regarding "failure to launch" messages and judgments ~ fluidity would help in many of life’s situations.
ciao for now. FFF
PS– I’m not sure what you meant in your PS by bully for us making it thru 70000 ways to divide up the #18–remember??. I don’t think I ever knew what this means.
What is fascinating to me is the little analysis that’s offered about the minimal space and accommodation that’s made within capitalism and labour force arrangements for working parents, most particularly for mothers, to do the work of parenting. If families, and more specifically the lives and well-being of children, were at the center of our culture’s values and social mores, I believe the attention and work of parenting would be respected in a way that would translate into the respect and care for mothers that currently does not exist, and what I believe Badinter is alluding to some degree in her book.
It strikes me that should we honour and practice fluid maternities within societies and cultures that are also fluid in their construction and support for families, Badinter would not need to write such a critical piece, which in my mind, speaks many truths.
Your reflection in your last post on how you "LOVE the phrase same and different–for everything", and "how our experiences are so much the same and different too" would do much to shatter the binaries that continue to set mothers up as either "good" or "bad". The "mommy wars" rage as mothers continue to be scrutinized and judged by others, as well as each other, according to patriarchal motherhood ideals.
Narrow ideals and concepts about masculinities and fatherhood also contribute to the plight of all mothers (and fathers), regardless of how they do their motherwork / fatherwork.
I fully agree with you, as you note at the end of your last post regarding "failure to launch" messages and judgments ~ fluidity would help in many of life’s situations.
ciao for now. FFF
PS– I’m not sure what you meant in your PS by bully for us making it thru 70000 ways to divide up the #18–remember??. I don’t think I ever knew what this means.
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