Caregiving is not a choice for any of us!

Lynn Harris wrote a thoughtful, detailed feature on Salon.com, Everybody Hates Mommy. And unfortunately, yet predictably, the haters are coming out on the comments. The second commenter wrote in to vote in FAVOR of Harris' synopsis of anti-parent sentiment:

"I am sick and tired of young mothers' sense of entitlement. It was your choice to get pregnant. Deal with it. You do not get a pat on the back or a seat from me because you decided to reproduce."

So first of all, I hope you'll read Lynn's piece and post a supportive comment to show that we are out there in the public dialogue, too.

The "choice" narrative has really been stuck in my craw lately. It's a version of "rugged American individualism" run rampant, and it shows up in so many places. Unfortunately, as "choice" has become our guiding metaphor, the concept has become weakened by the ubiquity of consumer choice. It's been devalued to the point of "What's your choice? Chocolate or vanilla ice cream?" I am not going to go to bat for a choice as trivial as that one, and I worry that motherhood has been trivialized in that manner.

It may be a choice on some level for individual women to have children, but it's not a choice for children to have mothers. And it's not a choice for society to bring new citizens on board! The way we treat families in this country shows that we do not truly value our children, which is truly a tragedy. Just go into any school that is lacking basic supplies and see how valued those children feel by society.

And devaluing parents devalues children and interferes with caregiving. As I have written before, in the United States we don't have basic job protection for parents, health care, which we are working on now, and other social benefits that are standard in every other wealthy country. At international conferences, women from Canada to New Zealand to India have come up to tell me that the mothers in the United States are putting up with a terrible deal, and we barely even know how bad we have it. That's a real downside to American exceptionalism--we just assume that the way we do it here is the best way, perhaps the only way to do things, and we are unwilling to learn from the rest of the world.

We need to come to grips with the fact that caregiving is NOT optional. Every powerful man was once a screaming baby with a woman feeding him, wiping his butt, and tucking him in at night. Perhaps it was his mother, perhaps a nanny who was a woman of another race. A few years back I heard Professor Jane Brown talk about why people are so squeamish about seeing mothers breastfeeding, and she said it is because it reminds us of our "creaturliness," which ultimately reminds us of our mortality. I think the same might be said about caregiving in general. Powerful, wealthy men can cling to the illusion of "choice" to eventually move beyond the world of caregiving, leaving that to the women and minorities to take care of. When Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona recently said during the health care debate, "I don't need maternity care, so requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive," I was so thankful that Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan was there to retort, "I think your mom probably did."

Jon Kyl may want to live with the illusion that he never needed care, and will never need it again, but the fact is that ALL OF US needed intense caregiving in our early years, and many of us will need it again in our elder years.

This is why even the most rugged, healthy young individualists need to worry about caregiving. People can "choose" to be selfish bastards if they wish, but what happens when their parents get old and need care? What happens when they can't manage to juggle their job and their Mom and Dad's care, or can't afford to pay for professional elder care? Then they'll find out what it means not to have a "choice." And I can tell them, it will happen sooner than they think, perhaps as they themselves are hitting their early forties and their own careers are starting to reach the stratosphere.

I've gotten a preview of this myself, especially since my parents are divorced and therefore they don't have each other to lean on. I love each of them dearly and I know that I am privileged to have personal savings and a flexible work schedule that allows me to be with them when necessary. I literally do not know how I would be able to juggle a strict 8 to 5 job like the one I used to have, with the family caregiving needs I am responsible for on both ends of the generational spectrum.

As a country, we need to get a handle on this, now. We are in serious denial about what the aging of the Baby Boomers is going to mean to our country. Especially now, with many seniors' retirement accounts diminished by the financial meltdown, and adult children under financial stress as well, we need to find ways to value caregiving in all its forms, and create support systems that allow families to provide care and remain economically sound.

In my optimistic moments I hope that if we're willing to move beyond denial, caregiving can become an issue that brings many people together. When Gloria Steinem spoke in Raleigh a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised but pleased to see that the first issue she talked about was valuing the economic contribution of family caregiving.

This issue is eternal but for too long it has been invisible and marginalized: at best, sentimentalized, at worst, scorned. Our the modern generational twist makes this truly a lifelong issue. As challenging and intense as parenting is, we need to face the fact that we may be caring for aging parents for more years than we raise our children. Did I mention that my 93 and 91 year old grandparents are still alive, one on each side of the family? So even as I worry about my parents, they are each concerned about one of theirs, as well.

We need to value all of our citizens and family members, from young to old. So don't tell me to deal with the fact that I am choosing to care for my child any more than you are choosing to have parents.

Correction: post updated to reflect the fact that Lynn Harris' piece is a feature on Salon.com, not a post to Salon's Broadsheet blog.

Illegal school strip searches in Iowa

This is the first week of school for millions of students across the country. I wish I had a happy Back to School blog post, but something timely, important and disturbing has just come up. Lynn Harris' Broadsheet post alerted me to an illegal strip search by school officials at Atlantic High School in Iowa. This blatantly illegal search was done on five high school girls in an effort to find $100 that went missing during gym class. You can read more about the case in The Des Moines Register's reporting (link via Pandagon before it got to Broadsheet).

For once I agree with parents bringing in lawyers. Even if someone had stolen $100, that is no reason to strip search one, much less five students. And the Supreme Court has already ruled against unreasonable school strip searches in a case earlier this year (see analyis on SCOTUS blog), so the school is truly beyond the pale. Even I knew that from reading the news, and I currently do not work for a school? How stupid and uninformed can a school be?

I am preparing my daughter for many contingencies in life, but I absolutely hate to think that it's necessary to teach her how to resist an unlawful strip search by school officials. I don't think that would happen at our school but it's absolutely unacceptable for it to happen anywhere.

The quote that disturbed me most: "The older sister of one of the girls said the teen took off her bra and underwear after specifically asking if she had to do so. She complied because she did not want to cause a scene, the sister said."

Schools have such inherent authority authority over students that when they misuse their power, it's very hard for students to resist complying with an unreasonable request. I really hate to think that we need to train our kids to say, "I'm not doing anything until my parent are here and I've spoken to a laywer," but in these cases it's necessary, in order to get schools in line with the laws and precedents that are already on the books.

I have been planning to write about Kidpower, the personal safety organization I am affiliated with, and I really need to fast-track that post. This case shows that we need to teach young people individual personal safety skills, but also to get all of society on the same page--a safe page--when it comes to these issues.

Salon.com fans the flames of the Mommy Wars

Argh. The "Mommy Wars" framework lives on. I usually look forward to reading Rebecca Traister on Salon.com, but last night she put up a talking head video that referred back to her interview with Meg Wolitzer about Meg's novel The Ten-Year Nap.

In the video, Traister adds no new insight, but claims that "The Mommy Wars Rage On":

"a book like this clearly puts Meg Wolitzer smack in the middle of what are commonly referred to as the 'Mommy Wars,' the disagreements between those who have chosen to stay home and raise their children, and those who have decided to stay in the workforce...."

The Ten-Year Nap is a literary novel about women who have been out of the workforce for a decade. It does came across to me as a Rorschach test capturing reflections of readers' personal projections, but it is far from a polemic. It will elicit judgments from readers but for the most part avoids judging the characters.

I hate even writing the term "Mommy Wars" any more, because even saying "the Mommy Wars are bogus" subtly reinforces the concept. (Remember when Nixon said "I am not a crook"? "Crook" came through much more loudly than "not.")

But, now that we're discussing it, here are my distilled thoughts on this issue:

Motherhood is not about choice. Women don't often get to choose whether they work or choose whether they stay home. What if two women seek jobs, and one finds affordable childcare and the other one doesn't? Why on Earth do we try to pit those two women, or any two women for that matter, against each other? When it comes right down to it we are all facing similar challenges. Economic privilege and good luck may give some of us more options, but it's not really about choice.

I have a paper coming out this spring arguing that "choice" as a faulty framework for a wide variety of women's issues, from breastfeeding to employment to reproductive rights. We are being co-opted by a consumer mentality that conflates our major life challenges with mere "choices," as though many of our basic needs and rights are as trivial as choosing a chocolate versus vanilla ice cream cone.

We need to stop judging women for leaving the paid workforce to care for their children. Feminists most of all should understand that without providing an infrastructure that supports working parents, there will be a wide range of circumstances that lead women to leave paid employment: being pushed out by employers, pulled home by kids and family, and sometimes just plain deciding it's what they want to do for now.

I think that the biggest mistake we've all made over the past 40 years of discussing women's changing roles is to underestimate the VAST amount of work that it takes to raise a family and run a household. When kids get sick, grandparents get sick or frail, someone needs to be there to care for them. If the workplace and society can't provide the support to help us do all of this and still remain profitably employed, then please don't tell any mother that she is making a poor decision by leaving a career track or staying home.

If men took half the caregiving load, if work was based on performance rather than hours, if men were culturally "allowed" to take paternity leave or work fewer hours, if we had good, affordable childcare, paid maternity leave and sick days, and welcoming institutional "on-ramps" back into the workforce, then we'd be having a very different conversation.

Two practical antidotes to this situation:

Read Pamela Stone's book, Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home. Stone's book is the only one that has done in-depth sociological research on this issue. It is truly The Feminine Mystique of the twenty-first century. Stone writes with respect and compassion for her subjects--compassionate academic writing, what a breath of fresh air.

If you haven't joined me over at MomsRising.org yet, what are you waiting for....?

Glad to see a favorite writer back at work!

Yesterday I stopped by Broadsheet, Salon.com's "cheeky" women's blog, and I was so glad to see that Lynn Harris is back as a contributor after taking maternity leave last fall. I met Lynn last summer when she interviewed me for her Glamour magazine piece, Infertile in a Baby-Crazed World. Through that connection I discovered her work on Broadsheet and made the blog one of my regular daily bookmarks. I missed Lynn's eye for good stories and ear for snappy wordplay while she was away.

How could you pass up her new Broadsheet post called "My Vagina's School District"?

Welcome back, Lynn, and I am wishing you the best as a new Mojo Mom!