“Women aren’t chimpanzees”
August 26, 2010, 2:40 pm
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
Spiegel online today has an interview with French philosopher and feminist Elisabeth Badinter on women and motherhood in France and Germany today. She doesn’t like what is happening. Are there any similarities to what’s happening in the USA?
After several encounters with the maternity ward, I can say with certainty that the guilt trip about breast-feeding happens in the US.
The difficulty about choosing between staying home and developing career certainly happen in the US – for certain social classes. For working-class and poor mothers, by and large there is no choice – they need to work. Maybe France has social structures that give women more freedom in that regard, though(?)
The culture in which I live – American middle-class suburban – definitely believes that the child’s needs supersede the mom’s (and even the dad’s). Her objections would probably strike folks around here as misbegotten and dangerous to the child.
That’s a pretty funny interview.
It brings back a memory of breast-feeding my first child in church during Mass, thus replacing the crying noise by a small sucking sound. I realized that it might be distracting for my nearest neighbors, but thought that it was all a very natural event and that they shouldn’t let it distract them; and that if they were being distracted, it was up to them to adjust, not up to me to leave the church.
(I also breast-fed in conference rooms during seminars and in crowded trains at rush hour.)
This is the other, heretofore little explored, front in the battle between the post-modern anthropolgy vs. the “adequate anthropology” of the Theology of the Body. EITHER the body matters, in which case we have to ask the questions, “Why does God give a woman breastmilk? To whom does it ‘belong’ (or for whom is it held in trust?) and “What does the donative meaning of the body say about God’s plan for parenting?” OR, the body does not matter (as the post-modernist would argue) and lactation is just an unfortunate function (that can be, as the discretion of the mother, either a damned inconvenience, or a quaint practice).
My wife and I argue in Parenting with Grace, that self-donative parenting practices like extended nursing on request, “baby-wearing” and even sleep sharing (and later, loving-guidance approaches to discipline as opposed to more authoritarian models) are not just good for the baby but good for the parents as interpersonal neurobiological studies show that these activities facilitate the increased presence of oxytocin (and other bonding/relaxing hormones) in both the child and the parents. Rather than a case of l’enfant roi, as Badinter suggests, self-donative parenting practices are really a matter of applying the CST principle of seeking the common good to family life; that is, meeting the child’s needs in a manner that is consistent with God’s design of the human body is ultimately what is best for everyone.
Thanks to the development of the Theology of the Body and advances in Interpersonal Neurobiology (the study of how interpersonal relationships directly impact the neurological function of the persons in the relationship), it is possible to articulate, more than ever, both a science and a theology of parenting, instead of just a populist fly-by-the-seat-of my-pants philosophy of parenting.
But in the end, the question of guilt is, to my mind, ridiculous. Either breast is best objectively or it isn’t. And you either choose to do it based on the fact that it is best or you don’t. No one is making anyone breastfeed. But I do think people have to reckon with the facts to make the best decision they can as parents. Inform yourself, make your best choice and, to paraphrase Augustine, parent bravely.
G
Most pregnant women are subjected to nonstop advice about any and all aspects of baby and child care, particularly from proponents and opponents of breastfeeding and attachment parenting.
Most of them don’t care about you, much less even know you. They just happen to be standing behind you in the super market or parking their car next to yours, and figure your pregnancy makes you automatically interested in their rants. (They are somewhat more tolerable than the ones who insist on telling you their obstetrical horror stories.)
One of the few benefits of being an over-40 pregnant mom was that most of these morons assumed I didn’t need advice. Those who insisted I was able to stop with a cold stare or a “How could this possibly be any of your business?”
I think it would be more useful for people to find other ways to support pregnant women and infants than giving strangers lectures. A plethora of information on both sides of these issues is available to any mom who wants to research them.
This thing is too funny – a feminist complaining about modern society “guilting” women into motherhood.
I agree with Jean – on an individual basis its nobody’s damn business. On the other hand, it is hardly putting a “guilt trip” on someone if the objective evidence is that breast feeding is more beneficial. That’s like me complaining that my doctor, the AMA, and the manufacturers of Lean Cuisine have no right to make me feel guilty about eating a cheeseburger.
I know a lot of well-educated mothers who either stop or adjust their careers while their children are young. Those I know have strong religious and social support for thinking of marriage as a lifetime commitment. Badinter suggests that during their marriage, women should be preparing themselves for economic life post-divorce, because she considers the 50% divorce statistic. Somehow I doubt that statistic will be applicable across the board.
Greg,
How common is it to apply TOB reasoning to breastfeeding? It seems farfetched to me, and open to strange applications. (For whom is a man’s sperm held in trust? If he fails to marry according to the evangelical counsels, what happens to its donative meaning?) Am I missing something?
Hurrah for Greg! The latter one. Males pontificating on breast feeding would be funny if it were not so ludicrous.
The culture in which I live – American middle-class suburban – definitely believes that the child’s needs supersede the mom’s (and even the dad’s)
Here’s what puzzles me — the attitude that the most important thing in life is “our children.” Our children then grow up, and the most important thing in their lives is their children, who grow up, and the most important thing is their children. Don’t adults matter? I can of course understand how parents raising children would feel it is the most important thing in their lives at the time. The UN talks of children as “our most precious resource.” I don’t get it.
I would have to say that what pains me most is the idea of children suffering, and that is what moves me to make probably most of my charitable donations. But adults are people, too, and their lives and their suffering counts.
It seems to me that putting too much emphasis on children implies that the purpose of life is reproduction. We are not mayflies, after all. To the extent that Badinter made the point that most women live well beyond their childbearing and child-rearing years and should not sacrifice everything for just those years, she made sense to me.
David N: sure, adults matter. Istm that adulthood isn’t all self-denial all the time. After all, the boomers invented, and subsequent generations have retained, a whole new stage of life, the “young-adult” stage, unburdened by parenthood or other mature responsibilities, in which you can remain far beyond the years during which you are actually young (cf “Sex in the City”), and during which navel-gazing and obsession with one’s own needs and desires is all.
Also fwiw – my own experience with parenthood, and I believe it’s a common one, is that the giving of oneself for the sake of the children generates a tremendous and profound sense of satisfaction in the giver. So we’re not always suffering – in fact, we get quite a bit out of it. We’re doing what we’re called to do, and would probably be a lot less happy doing anything else.
I think that giving to children because they’re “our most precious resource” may make some economic sense: they are the ones who will support us when they’re adult and we are old.
The article is full of dismissive statements, sweeping generalizations, and prejudiced thinking, but there is one bit that caught my attention: 28 percent of all female university graduates in western Germany choose not to have children, which is unprecedented in human history. This means that, for the first time in many centuries, we can no longer say that being a woman means being a mother. Given the difficulties of finding child care in Germany and the social expectations placed on mothers, these women opt for a life without children.
I see that phenomenon here in the US in academia. Women wait until tenure (that is, often, until they’re 35 years old or more), or they have at most one child; and you can tell, often, that it happens because of job pressures: ideally they would have liked to have more children. I don’t like it. But I fault, not society’s pressure to be a perfect parent, but work pressure to use up 100% of the professor’s time and energy, as if the workplace owned the woman. In this country, it does not seem acceptable to say, for example: “no, I don’t answer email during the weekend, because I do other things with my time then”. The expectation is that those highly educated people in professional jobs are essentially available all the time, with a few hours of free time reluctantly tolerated here and there, just enough to preserve their sanity. Naturally such a climate is hardly compatible with pregnancy or parenting.
This article read to me as the venting of someone who seems to have realized that her generational clout is waning and she doesn’t like the priorities of those who are now coming of age.
Regarding, when are adults important: David, I think you need to realize that for most people, child rearing really doesn’t take up a very high percentage of their total life expectancy. If you have two or let’s say even three children over the course of four years (two years apart), the most intense part of parenting will last no more than 12-15 years. You have the rest of your life to indulge yourself (well, of course, theoretically). But I actually reject the “everything for the kids approach” anyway. I’m more of the “let’s work the kids into the things we really want to do” type.
Women receive very muddled messages about breastfeeding. It would be nice if someone actually gave out side by side information, like: it’s cheaper, it requires less equipment, makes your child a less picky eater (on average) and you can supplement with bottles as you wish once you get it established. Yes, it promotes bonding. It’s nice, but come on, it’s not essential and an adult woman who doesn’t want to do it should shrug her shoulders and pretend she doesn’t hear the criticism.
I knew a very left-wing fellow in Catholic Worker circles who was constantly proselytizing for breastfeeding. I believe he had discovered that the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War were not pure as the driven snow — and breastfeeding and its La Leche League proponents had taken their place as the last unimpeachable cause.
Having had the good fortune to be in Paris last May, I picked up Professor Badinter’s recent book in a bookstore, paged through it, picked up some of her other books, and decided that she is probably a scholar and thinker worth knowing about in some areas but just another blogger in this one.
What I liked best about the interview was the question, “Aren’t you exaggerating a bit?” Without exaggerating, French intellectuals would dissolve like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. I exaggerate, of course.
I was thinking about the hippies/secular ecology types recently. I was surprised to discover that not a few of them use natural family planning. They are also big on breastfeeding and staying home with the kids, and having more than 2 kids.
It seems to me that they are evidence that the natural law can, in fact, be discerned through reason, as the church claims. Of course, they are only a minority…
Thoughts from a spinster of this parish;
It seems to me that Mme. Badinter’s whole premise about women’s careers being the answer to women’s boredom at staying home is flawed. My question is: which women’s careers? She assumes that somebody else will take care of her children. And just who are these unnamed persons? More women, no doubt. And who will take care of their children as their career as child-caretakers unfold? The fact is that somebody has to take care of them, and it will likely always be women. Which might be fair, but then why would it be fair for men to have to take care of other people’s children as a career?
Having worked as both a professional librarian and college professor I can attest that many women (especially those of my own generation) have a glorified notion of the rewards of professional life, even though, yes, it certainly has its compensations though careers (not to speak of mere jobs — I know about those too) are often boring and/or stressful. Think of a hundred sophomore term papers plus exams to be finished before term’s end and Christmas! Sure, a few people have entrancing careers, but we can’t all be Madame Curie. And I recently saw that a huge proportion of Americans hate their jobs.
What I find so sad is that the poor woman doesn’t seem to realize how fascinating and enchanting children can sometimes be. She doesn’t seem to have much if any conception of the satisfactions of being parents. No, I never was a parent, but it is my impression that most of them are glad they did it, and even when their children are grown they remain quite attached to them and their children to them. True, single motherhood must be terribly difficult, but is that problem the children or the failed marriage?
I think that one of the big problems goes back to the 60′s feminists mantra “We aren’t baby=making machines!!!!!” True But, being animals (among other things) women’s bodies are baby[making organisms, and include hormone-making capacities that incline them towards motherhood. It’s a sort of secular angelism. I think many super-feminists refuse to see that, so women like Mme. B., who are the exception in not really wanting children, just don’t get it.
Complexity, complexity.
It seems to me that they are evidence that the natural law can, in fact, be discerned through reason, as the church claims.
JC,
Without at any way criticizing hippies or secular ecology types, I do wonder why you would say that they arrive at their lifestyle by reason. I would say it’s more emotion or gut feeling, which is fine by me. I don’t think one becomes a “tree hugger” by logical deduction.
Oops — should be “which might NOT be fair”. And: “Their attitiude towards their own bodies is a sort of secular angelism”.
Ann, unless I am misreading your sentence, Badinter has three children.
Barbara –
Yes, she does. But she seems to have been ambivalent about them. She says she had them without really thinking about what she was doing, as if they weren’t very important to her at the time, but then she seems rueful that she wasn’t a better mother to them. So she certainly doesn’t seem indifferent to them, just torn in two directions. But she also doesn’t seem to have had any joy in them either, which isn’t typical of most parents I’ve known. Sad I agree with you that one of her problems seems that she sees that the guard is changing, and that means her.
All in all, I don’t think the 60′s generation of women had an easy time of it. Some of the leaders, e.g., Betty Freidan, were wise and admirable women, but some of the conspicuous ones struck me as pretty shallow, unthinking people. They’re the ones who glorified “careers” which for most women were really just boring, still unfairly-paid jobs.
All this reminds me of something my 35-year-old nephew once said to his dearly beloved wife == “You think I wouldn’t like to stay home during the day sometimes with the girls?” I think there is a HUGE problem in the West with people’s relationships to their jobs/professions and the problem of the lack of leisure. And it affects the culture’s views of gender, marriage and family.
At least the 20-somethings don’t have such high expectations from employment. Good thing, since there is such limited opportunity for them. Sigh.
I think the great thing about feminism is that it supports the idea that women should do what they want to, whether that’s to have children or not. Not everyone is cut out to be a decent parent and not everyone wants to be one even if they are.
It seems (from a sort of “outsider’s”, i.e. male’s) point of view, that feminist orthodoxy sees children and career as either/or trade-offs, and there is a lot of obvious evidence that it is true.
Is this why Sarah Palin sets so many women’s teeth on edge – that she seems, superficially at least, to have come up with a career plan that allows her to ‘have it all’, have an adundance of children and be hyper-successful?
For a much more in-depth (and somewhat sympathetic) look at the ‘young-adult’ stage of development, see this NY Time Magazine article. Very good stuff for anyone who has to parent, minister to, work with or be a person at this stage of life.
What Is It About Twenty-Somethings?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me
This article, and a lot of this conversation, display what I can only call a warped view of children and parenthood. Children are variously seen as economic, social, and ecological burdens and potted orchids or carefully bred show dogs.
It is all very simple (but not at all easy) – children are people, and parents have a special relationship with and responsibility for them.
So, do the kids come first? Absolutely. But that doesn’t mean that Daddy has to eat chicken nuggets every night and Mommy has to breastfeed a four-year old when he has his cookies. In my house, Dad watches Monday Night Football, unless there’s an open house at school or a swim meet. What I don’t do is watch Hannah Montanta to keep the kid happy.
I found that after meeting their basic physical needs and helping them learn to love God and others, the single most important and difficult task of being a parent is getting your children to realize that they are not the center of the universe (this is a lesson, ISTM that Prof Badinter didn’t learn well). I can’t stand helicopter parents, not because of some political point, but because they are harming their children by not performing this essential task.
So, the alternative to Prof Badinter’s feminist Nirvana is not an organic version of the Stepford Wives. That’s the nonsense that she and her ilk have been promoting (and very effectively using guilt) with young women for years and it is very unfortunate. In my own experience I have worked with or had work for me dozens of young women who deal with this, and trragically many who find out too late that they can’t “have it all.”
What I have never understood is why feminists have never tried to change the real paradigm instead of getting women to fit into the existing one as if they were men.
David,
I am glad you feel that way – can we apply it to the unborn?
I think the rhetoric reflects two things
1. Children are defenseless
2. They represent the future
Frankly, there are societies in which children are not as important as adults. In fact, I bet it is most societies. The couple I have seen that are like that are ones I wouldn’t want to live in.
Ann Olivier, thank you for your comments. I agree, and I was going to say something about who it is that will take care of working women’s children. Women with less opportunities for the most part. I also add: why do women have to be alone all day with their child? It’s because community has broken down, and none of our friends are home with their children. It doesn’t have to be that way. I would submit that women being alone all day with just their children is a 50s suburban problem, not the normal way.
David Nickol,
You might be thinking of people who chain themselves to trees. I’m thinking of environmentalists more generally. Like some secular friends of mine who cloth diaper, buy local and organic, bake their own bread, and go to La Leche league meetings. I’m sure they have a lot of reasons for doing these things, but they told me that one of the reasons is because they are worried about the earth.
Barbara pointed out that Badinter had three children, and Ann noted that “she seemed ambivalent about them.”
Jean laughs somewhat nervously and wonders what parent DOESN’T feel ambivalent about the kids at some point.
Sean draws the line: “What I don’t do is watch Hannah Montanta to keep the kid happy.”
Jean keeps the mutual admiration society going for this short exchange by agreeing that she has happily given up face, figure, and finances to The Boy, but she is by golly NOT going to take him to see anymore Transformers movies–or anything else that involves revving motors, crashing metal, high-octane explosions, or men in tights, not even if they’re all involved in the Quest for Good, Justice, and Homes for Puppies.
JC –
I suspect you’re right about the loneliness of mothers starting in the 50′s. After WWII women just continued working outside the home. It was quite different when I was a child. There were 6 non-working women on our block (not counting the ones around the block). Only two spinsters worked. We had a real community. Sadly that is all destroyed now. Many people don’t even know who their neighbors are.
What’s the solution? I suspect that its a shorter work week plus improved quality of things we buy. If the quality of products improved, people would not have to work so many hours to buy what they need and want, and they would have more time to devote not only to their children, but to everyone else, themselves included. Americans now work too many hours, especially those with two or even three jobs and professionals who often work 60 hour weeks regularly. Not to mention the typical mother with young kids who generally works and does a lot more housework than her husband does, if she has one. They are just so tired, so very, very tired.
A shorter work-week with better quality products would reduce the number of things people can afford, but there is no reason why the quality of things could not improve so that replacements would not be needed as often. Telephones used to last 20 years. Cars 10 if you took care of them. Clothes could be washed many times without losing color, and we didn’t think we needed whole new sets of clothes every season, etc., etc., etc. The whole economic system would have to abandon its pursuit of constantly growing profits, of course.
How can this be brought about? I haven’t the foggiest.