I’m writing a book about mothers and children and ideology and communities and political development. All these things. I find the writing process torturous and wonderful and boring and fun and everything else you might imagine, but right now I’m feeling really inspired by a book that I’m reading: The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change, edited by Shari MacDonald Strong.
The book is a series of essays, by and large written by fairly well-known women, like Anna Quindlen, Cindy Sheehan, Nancy Pelosi, Benazir Bhutto, etc. My favorite essays are the ones where mothers and children are in dialogue, where the women are negotiating what to say to simple questions with complicated answers. Like the white American woman living in India whose daughter asks her whether she is truly the most beautiful girl in the world. Since so many of the Indian people she meets pinch her cheeks and tell her that.
I think my favorite story so far, and I’m about half-way through the book, is by Nina Gaby, whose name is unfamiliar to me. She writes about going to a Vermont synagogue with her somewhat sullen 13-year old daughter. At the end of the piece, the daughter, now 16, writes an essay for a Rotary Club award, but won’t show her parents and doesn’t allow them to come to the reading of the essays. All she will tell them is that she’s writing about the Four-Way Test, “a famous schema that the Rotarians use to evaluate ethical decision-making.” She comes home and tells her parents that her friend won, and she placed second:
“Her cell phone rings, and she drops her essay notes on the table before running off. My husband grabs the paper.
“Will you look at this?” He holds up her still-childish scrawl.
What if Bush had Used the Four-Point Plan Before Invading Iraq?
It is the title of her essay. Below it are the points of the test:
Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?”
Perhaps this little excerpt lacks enough context for you to feel it, but I get little shivers from that. And that makes me think about how I am so strongly affected by the stories of children becoming political, of children growing into the adults who will shape the future of society and the health of the planet. I am intellectually engaged by the stories, but also deeply moved. And yet, I am someone who has decided not to have my own children, not because of concerns around overpopulation, or because I don’t want to sacrifice my body to child-bearing (there are ways around that), but because I don’t want to sacrifice my freedom to child-rearing.
I’ve lived in communal houses with parents and children, and I have seen the joys and the struggles. My friend T. maintains that I can’t possibly understand the power of love between a parent and child, and she’s right, but I’ve decided that I’m willing to give that up, not experience that particular power in my lifetime. I still get joy from my close relationships with other people’s children, and if it can’t ever be the same, well, I’m OK with that.
Reading stories about children and mothers, though, and feeling the shivers travel down my spine like the slick dart of an eel through murky waters, I do wonder how someone who loves children as I do has become someone who at the same time embraces the sweet pleasures of a child-free adulthood.
There are lots of things, like parenthood, that we can’t possibly understand until we experience them. (war? extreme poverty? being the president?) It doesn’t make our lives somehow lesser. But you are completely right that parenthood has a profound effect on your freedom. You were lucky to see parenting up close. I personally feel the loss of freedom is worth it, especially since it isn’t permanent (assuming all goes well). But that doesn’t mean it’s something to just toss aside! Catch me on the right day, and I’ll bemoan how I feel totally tied to Matthew (in an unpleasant way). And I get caught up in feeling that his high neediness will never abate (or fearing scenarios where it might not – like if he shows signs of autism or something).
Anyway, I think you are being very wise in your self-assessment.