I was going to leave this comment on this thread here at feministe (where the totally rawking Plain’s Feminist is guest blogging!)–but I felt like it got too ranty and long and not connected to the actual point of the post, even though it was in a way.
first comment for context:
I was at a conference just a bit ago, and although daycare was provided for the kids, it was clearly marked in the itinerary when children were “allowed” into the big people room–and my kid–who is an older kid, was bullied by one of the conference organizers. I almost left, but other mothers stood by me and we confronted the situation together. But new mothers who are BF aren’t going to go to that space because the “rules” state kids can only be in the space during X times. And this was a feminist space. So if a woman isn’t working for pay and decides to organize instead so that she can get that emotional and intellectual stimulation–what is she supposed to do when she is treated to such unfriendly and hostile spaces like that?
I mean, that feminist space was telling mothers, you’re only wanted here if you make your child and your motherhood as invisible as possible–*we* don’t want anything to do with your motherhood. Which helps to create that “you must be a super mom” mentality, even as feminism is *saying* it’s critiquing it. When a woman isn’t even welcome in feminist spaces what other choice does she have but to sit and stare at her child all day and try not to eat her own tongue from boredom?
second comment that I didn’t post at Feministe:
btw, that feminist space was created by largely white feminists and the feminist who bullied my kid was white. the women who stood by me and said let’s fix this and we’ll walk out if we need to were women of color–some mamis and others not–but all with the analysis that mamihood (rather than mommyhood) is not just left at the door when you walk into a room. That the “real” work of feminist organizing happens when a single mami knows that her child is supported and loved and looked after by everybody in the room, not just her.
Another example: at that conference, the childcare shut down earlier than what I was expecting it to. I didn’t have my phone on, so although the childcare place called me repeatedly, I never got the message. I wasn’t aware ANYTHING was going on until I was walking down the street to go pick up my kids from the childcare and women of color (mamis and non-mamis) were walking towards me with my kids–the women took my kids and were in the process of finding food for everybody.
When I thanked the other women profusely, they all said ‘no big deal, you’d do the same for me.’ and one of the woman without children sort of looked at me like I was crazy and asked “are you kidding me? what would I have done, left them there?” The thought of NOT being responsible to my kids was offensive to her.
Which makes me wonder if that’s why the divide between working and stay at home mamis is just not the same as it is between mainstream largely white moms. When the borders between different spheres in your life aren’t so harshly drawn, it makes less sense for certain women to be isolated from the community.
One of the women in that group is a woman that I call the mother of my children. She has made the choice to take on the role of caretaker and coparent of my children. She has not had biological children, she is partnered to somebody else, but we raise my children together. I have this relationship with two other women of color in my community.
when the core idea of what “woman” is is challenged repeatedly, it makes less sense to say, you had the child, raise it yourself. when the core idea of what “mom” is is challenged repeatedly, it makes less sense to say, you had the child, raise it yourself. when the core idea of what “partnered” is is challenged repeatedly, it makes less sense to say, you had the child, raise it yourself. when “sexuality” and what it is and what it can lead to is constantly challenged, it makes less and less sense to say, you had the child, raise it yourself.
Every mami, every mommy, should be able to feel the feeling that I felt when I saw my kids laughing and joking along in the group of other women/mamis. And I guess the point for me is that books, no matter how good, are not going to teach us all how to build a community where children are being raised collectively–not because of kumbaya dreams that everybody is a parent–but because of practical reality that children are a part of our communities and we owe accountability to them, just as we insist that they are accountable to us.
Learning how to raise children collectively is only going to come through actually doing the work of learning how to trust again–how many people in your life do you know and trust enough to help you raise your children–even if they aren’t the biological parent who is living with you and legally partnered with you?– And by pointing at the *real* problem, which is not so much that AP’ing is stifling and obscene on so many levels (holy jesus, it is)–but that collectively in the U.S., we have no fucking idea what “community” means–but at the same time, we all seem to think that deciding who will stay hidden within the community isn’t one very powerful and violent way of deciding what community really is.
- Share
August 6th, 2009 at 9:37 am #
thanks for posting that link cos I never go to feministe on my own. she articulates so well a lot of my feelings about AP, which to be fair, I more or less practice in my own family’s way, without a lot of reliance on the theory but because it works, more or less, for us.
And hell yeah about mamihood. Community is fucking hard to find, trust is hard to build. At least it is for me. But I’m working hard at finding my mami community, I never thought it might be work…
August 6th, 2009 at 9:43 am #
oh my god. bfp. this is fucking brilliant. i am supposed to be working right now and not reading blogs. but i just had to say that i almost cried. this. is what revolutionary motherhood is. this. god fucking damn. ok. got to go b4 habibi realizes i am cheating. and reading blogs again…
August 6th, 2009 at 10:07 am #
we all seem to think that deciding who will stay hidden within the community isn’t one very powerful and violent way of deciding what community really is.
THAT is brilliant. BRILLIANT!!!
It has been my experience that white, middle-class dominated groups and spaces are very hostile to the presence of children, and the women are the quickest to police that. It’s like they don’t want to be contaminated with mami cooties. It’s as if we (mothers) are going to drag them down, rather than the sexist attitudes foisted upon mothers (and others) that is dragging us all down.
And it never ceases to amaze me how these so-called organizers don’t stop to think how much of an already-radicalized base they are de facto alienating with this shitty attitude. Go ahead, do your damnedest to keep from having critical mass, y’know? If your limited idea of “community” doesn’t have room for my daughter, it sure as shit doesn’t have room for me, either. Basta!
August 6th, 2009 at 11:03 am #
omg… see, this is one reason that i’ve never felt comfortable in certain circles. and to be honest, one thing that has always bothered me especially about white-centered feminist stuff (i.e. i don’t know that it doesn’t exist amongst woc but i’ve only once had it be a big issue amongst woc so that it pissed me off, whereas with white women it’s a constant) is that since my only child is a boy he is even less welcome. on many an occassion i have felt like they might as well just up and say that i’m a traitor for not giving birth to a girl.
but really, what kind of example was being set for the children in seeing/experiencing this? how do we expect to raise strong girls who are activists like us if they are kept out of organizing? and the thing is, like you say, with woc it’s different. because woc are less likely to have the privilege of leaving their children with someone else while they go organize! (remember my comments on my anti-feminism manifesto? i said it way back then – white women leave their kids behind and go do their thing, historically they left the kids with woc thereby effectively keeping woc from being able to organize! woc, on the other hand, do not compartamentalize our lives, we bring our kids with us and they walk with us, carry signs/banners with us, chant with us, learn with us, whatever).
August 6th, 2009 at 1:09 pm #
Thanks for posting this. I feel privileged for the wonderful experience I had last summer of going to a professional conference during which my daughter was welcomed and praised for attending. She became part of the conversation. There are so many mixed messages coming from thais organization of which you write. They had childcare but did not accommodate the conference schedule. They included a child program but excluded them from other activities. The WOC perspective, as reflected on this and other blogs, can help to heal their schizophrenic tendency.
August 6th, 2009 at 2:55 pm #
This happened at the Alternative Media Conference in 1980, too… young Native American child banished from one of the workshops her mama was speaking at.
It was up to the child’s mama (an anarchist), me and Yippie Alice Torbush to confront the snotty Democrat-feminist who did this. No one else did, and none of the feminists did.
And this was seen as just another case of hippies/Yippies causing trouble, rather than as a feminist or POC issue. I did not have the words then to say what you have said here–also had no children then and was reduced to sputtering.
But it’s interesting about the whole concept of everyone taking part in childrearing… in retail, I routinely tell kids to be careful, don’t touch that, watch your step, etc… I mean this in a good grandmotherly way. Some parents get extremely offended that I have said a PEEP to their precious perfect children…and others smile warmly and seem very happy and pleased that I have “helped out”; they are tired of policing the kids every single second, it helps coming from another voice…
I guess I don’t have to tell you that it’s the snotty, affluent white ladies who get so offended; most other moms are just fine with me talking to their kids. Sometimes they even back me up: “Did you hear the nice lady? Don’t touch the salt lamps!”
Great post.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:09 pm #
In addition to this being about telling mothers that they’re not welcome unless they can make their motherhood largely invisible, it also seems to be about white feminists believing that they know more about a child than that child’s own mother–that is, believing they, not the child’s mami, are the ultimate authority on whether the child will be disruptive and whether the child might hear something that isn’t appropriate for them.
My mother took me into a lot of adult-oriented spaces from an early age, but because she’s white and presented as middle-class wasn’t challenged.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:42 pm #
Yes communities should be raising children.
One thing though while bullying of anyone inclusive of children is absolutely unacceptable, I think it’s a bit much to say that everybody should be making every child feel welcome in every space, even a feminist one. I love young people/kids in feminist spaces but I think it should also be acceptable for women to just not like children and not go out of their way to be friendly to kids or to look after them. Acknowledgement and respect should be a bare minimum though! But mothers are so bloody important…well to everything, and deserve a break and peace of mind.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:20 pm #
sahara–i wasn’t saying that everybody should make every child welcome in every space–I was saying that children are a part of our communities as well, and you don’t have to like kids to be patient when a breast feeding mother pulls her boob out and starts nursing. Or when a two year old is making gurgling noises (not yelling or screetching, just gurgling). etc. I’m talking about a complete reexamining of our relationships with children. Is “being friendly or looking after them” really our only options when it comes to children? are we always friendly or looking after the full grown women sitting next to us organizing us? There is a practical reality that children don’t WANT to be in those spaces all the time–that if they had the space to do so, they’re going to be out kicking a ball rather than sitting listening to adults yakking. And at the same time, sometimes, practical reality is that kids are going to want to hang with their mothers, and sitting and learning about how to interact with people in more power, learning words to name their experiences, etc–that’s something that ALL people in marginalized communities need to learn–and why should they learn it when they’re 25 and just raped? Or 30 and near suicidal like I was? I’m saying–let’s start thinking of our kids as apprentices rather than human vessels that should passively take everybody’s shit until they grow up. Let’s examine what we *really* mean when we mean women. What age do we all decide that a woman is no longer too irritating and young to be a part of our grown up conversations? Let’s examine why we say, “I want to be accountable to my community” we never acknowledge that children, babies, youth, etc are a part of our communities? you know what I mean? Oh, and less also examine what we mean when we say “mami” or even “mom”–does it really mean “caretaker?” Does it really mean *exclusively* caretaker? Shouldn’t kids have a working professional relationship with their community members? An example, if a woman you didn’t particularly like was left on the side of the rode by her partner, would you just drive by? Or would you be accountable to her and do the bare minimum of getting her to a gas station at least?
Why do we look at our relationship with kids in our communities and imagine that relationship as only existing as “care taking”–but the same exact equivalent would be looked at as being politicized accountability if that relationship was between two adults?
And I think the thing people are scared of is that kids are suddenly going to be considered equals and that they’ll be snotty little stubborn shits running rampant on a meeting and they’re going to throw tantrums until they get a vote too.
but maybe it should be more like: we TRAINING you how to make a good viable decision when you get older–when you go through processes that show you can be trusted with adult decisions—you know? I mean, that’s what happened in the olden days in my community. Kids were allowed to sit and listen to parents talk, they weren’t allowed to interupt or in any way be distruptive, if they were, they had to leave. But they could sit and listen–and in sitting and listening, they learned how to work through problems with other people, what the “world” was really like, what their history is (i mean, how much easier would it have been to have heard my mother or aunts talking about how they handled THEIR rapes or their cancer or their whatever for me? To know that there are historical ways of dealing with problems that don’t go away?)–etc etc etc….
August 6th, 2009 at 5:43 pm #
“Is “being friendly or looking after them” really our only options when it comes to children?”
No of course not, but I responded to the original post when you said this:
“That the “real” work of feminist organizing happens when a single mami knows that her child is supported and loved and looked after by everybody in the room, not just her.”
This just sounds completely idealistic. I mean seriously every woman should like every kid in the room? BUT one of the first things that should be made clear within a feminist or any other space is that women who are parents/mothers/moms/mamis should feel welcome and so are their kids.
I think most kids are pretty whip-smart and have opinions that should be heard. From what I hear, community raising of children tends to bring that out earlier than in strictly nuclear, don’t tell MY kids what to do-type families. So yeah everything else I agree with, but I did not read a lot of kids are equal to adults and can learn from (and I think TEACH) other adults in your first post. I read a lot about caretaking and I responded to that.
August 6th, 2009 at 5:57 pm #
i think tho, sahara, that what our difference is here, is that I am looking at the definition of words like “loved and looked after and supported” in a different way than you are. when I say “supported and loved and looked after” I mean it in the same way that I mean it when I am talking about any adult. I mean, I’ve spent a lot of time really even thinking about “what is radical love”–because I DON’T believe in the idealized kumbaya sort of bullshit that a lot of the hippies in my area like to spew. For example–in the case of you picking the woman up of the side of the road and getting her to a gas station–that is love to me, even if you can’t stand her. because I think love is something more practical and necessary than like or dislike. does that make sense? So, I think of care taking like that–what is “care taking” as defined by people like Attachment parenting? What is “care taking” as defined by a group of mamis who know that Louisa is beating her kids again?
I know this story about this girl I knew whose breasts were fully developed–and her mother never got her a bra. This girl went to school every day and was made fun of and laughed at and humiliated–and when I was telling this story to a woman who has chosen not to have her own children–she asked the important question–not: where was that child’s mother–but: where were the grown ups in that child’s community? did teachers not see that the girl was being made fun of? Did church leaders not see that the child was being mad fun of? Did none of the other grown ups in that child’s community see that she was fully developed and an adult who *could* buy her a bra wasn’t doing it?
I would consider it “supporting and loving and looked after” if a neighbor who didn’t like kids in general brought her a bra and left it in a mailbox so that the neighbor didn’t have to interact with her. you know? I would consider it “care taking”–but in AP culture–in dominant culture in general–that would be considered stepping over boundaries. it would be considered more appropriate to either ignore the situation or to inform the state about the situation so that the state could pressure the mother to be a better caretaker. And in that situation “caretaker’ would mean something completely different. it would mean what it means now–mothers shall be super human incredible gods who are inherently biologically more able to buy their daughters bras than a next door neighbor is.
Does that make sense?
August 6th, 2009 at 6:01 pm #
so, in other words, sahara, i’m being totally blase about my use of words–not defining them or pointing to the absolute necessity to challenge and/or redefine meanings–i pointed to *some* of the important words–but you are rightly pointing out that there are even MORE words that need to be challenged and redefined.
August 6th, 2009 at 6:27 pm #
It’s really good when two people can see how each other are thinking about an issue when the difference is mainly language.
Yes I totally agree.
When I was a teen and when other adults intervened, it was mainly out of ‘your daughter is naughty’ to my mother and that probably brought a sense of shame to my mother who was quite uncommunicative. I also don’t associate with members of my cultural community. And I am sick of paternalism so while I believe in community I am a little bit resistant to a full blown out embrace of it. I do know that community does not have to be that way though, I just have not found something that would suit me and that is somewhat akin to what you have yet.
I also know you’re not kumbaya – your posts speak to how grounded you are!
August 7th, 2009 at 4:11 am #
“what is radical love”–because I DON’T believe in the idealized kumbaya sort of bullshit
Exactly—the concept of love-as-a-verb, action, as opposed to a fuzzy feeling that a given person may have, yet not demonstrate.
August 7th, 2009 at 9:23 am #
This reminds me a study a Maori researcher (Russell Bishop) was involved in. A lot of indigenous Maori kids get screwed over in their school systems and do poorly. When asked what the major influence on the kids’ educational success or failure was, the kids said it was their relationship with the teacher, the principal said it was their relationship with the teacher, and the parents said it was their relationship with the teacher.
The teachers (mostly white) said it lay with the parents.
The research team piloted a program training teachers to cultivate strong relationships with their students – the kind of relationships the teachers previously handed off to the parents. And lo and behold the kids started succeeding. The big change was in teacher’s minds of what was or was not their responsibility.
When my aunt had her first baby, it was really fussy and colicky and she was severely under-rested and even though I’m not crazy about kids, when it looked like she was going to snap and potentially hurt the kid the first thing that came to mind wasn’t “maybe children’s services should get involved” — it was, well, I should take this baby out of her arms and tell her to get some damn rest. I feel like a lot of people would do that for family or friends, but like me, would hesitate to reach out like that to a stranger. But why? If state intervention isn’t right for my aunt why is it right for someone’s else’s aunt just by virtue of them being *someone else’s*? That’s rather arbitrary isn’t it?
And honestly, how would I have survived as a kid without teachers and charitable strangers stepping in, taking care of me when my parent couldn’t (emotionally or financially)?
At some point we have to stop thinking of ourselves and each other as strangers and instead start thinking of ourselves – including kids – as community members. And figuring out what our relationships are to community members in different spaces – from a neighbourhood to a conference room to the planet as a whole. Isn’t the shit we do to animals and the environment really just another failure to integrate them into our community (or ourselves into theirs)?
It reminds me of the taxes I pay as a Canadian that go towards free healthcare for all (documented) Canadians. Do I have to like all Canadians to pay taxes? No. Will I even *meet* a fraction of the people my taxes help? Never. But they are paying their taxes so that I can afford the doctor and I am paying my taxes so that *they* can afford the doctor, and that feels like an act of love to me.
August 7th, 2009 at 9:47 am #
i really don’t know how “liking kids” gets conflated to treating them with respect and allowing them to be present. i don’t like kids. for real, i’m a mami, and i often don’t even “like” my own kid (i do love him)! i certainly don’t tend to like other people’s kids. but even i will tell you that a lot of what i don’t like about them is that their parents don’t even try to teach them a lick of respect for others and that my experience is that other people have to literally defend themselves from being walked all over by kids whose parents are right there and don’t care. that said, the masjid is a perfect example of the fact that i consider community involvement & love more important than me liking the kids. there are some (a lot) of kids in the masjid that are just holy terrors. their parents have so obviously never bothered to try to teach them how to behave. but i don’t have to “like” a child to bring them back into the building when i see them wander out to the parking lot. i don’t have to like them to tell them that it’s time to pray and they can come stand by me because it’s rude for them to be jumping & running during prayer. i can tell a child to share the toys with another, tell them to leave alone another sister’s purse that i know isn’t their mother’s. i have held & soothed crying babies when i didn’t even know who their mother was, i have held babies while praying rather than letting them continue knocking into other women, i have helped kids get their food or refill their drink during potlucks, and i have played hand games with kids on my lap to keep them quiet during sermons when their mother’s just couldn’t deal with it anymore. i also compliment the little girls who stand and pray next to their mothers, who behave well, and let them know they are welcome with us. nope, i do not like children much at all, it’s true, but i know about loving them, keeping them safe, and communally caring for them. and i know that doing those things helps them to learn to be less disruptive, helps them to learn how to behave appropriately when needed, and i doubt they have the slightest clue that i don’t “like” them much.
August 7th, 2009 at 10:45 am #
Aaminah, me too, I know exactly what you mean!
I have a habit of distracting toddlers in the midst of noisy tantrums in my store… I now do it everywhere, it works so well. (I initially started doing this because the racket was giving me a splitting headache, particularly after the 20th kid has decided to show out for the day.)
I stand before them, open my eyes cartoon-wide, say OMIGOOOOODNESS! And sometimes, I talk about their clothes or shoes or toy or whatever they have with them: “That’s a nice doll! What’s her name?” etc. If there is music playing on the overhead PA and I know it, I sing it. (Last time it happened, the song was “Stayin Alive”–which is perfect for childlike goofiness.)
And about 75% of the time, they stop crying immediately, distracted and just gape at me.
I have stopped the tantrum.
About 50% of the kids who stop and gape, stop crying and fussing totally and forget they were having a tantrum. Many will break out a spontaneous smile. The others might continue making whimpering noises, but I took the wind out of their sails, they have lost their juice; they forgot what they were upset about.
The parents beam at me, happy and grateful. Some quietly say “Oh THANK YOU!” (And one of them actually brought me a Christmas present one year.)
And then there are the 15% or so whose parents SHIELD them from the crazy lady.
My first thought: “Well, okay, if you want your kid to continue howling in your face and deafening you, I guess it’s your call!”
But I have wondered: do they even know what I am doing? Do they want the child to stop crying or NOT?
Is it more important to have TOTAL CONTROL over their own children and everything they see and find amusing, than it is to make sure their children are happy? (Not to mention the happiness of other customers who do not want to be deafened that day!)
In these cases, I believe so. If their kid cries, THEY will handle it, thankyouverymuch. Their kid has THE RIGHT to cry. And yes, that attitude has everything to do with race and class as currently constructed in America. Since they take the same attitude with everyone else’s kid: handle it yourself.
Apologies for too much talking. A subject that interests me, as you can see.
August 7th, 2009 at 5:14 pm #
“i really don’t know how “liking kids” gets conflated to treating them with respect and allowing them to be present”
Good point Aaminah. I said that women do not have to like kids and that EVERYBODY – meaning every person in the room – does not have to look after them when kids are present. BUT acknowledgment and treating them with respect is the minimum.
August 8th, 2009 at 6:18 am #
but see, Sahara, i think we might disagree on just what “looking after them” means, and i think there are many ways to look after them that allow everyone a way to do so without it being a burden. for example, i will NOT take the kids into the classroom and “babysit”. i won’t do it. and some people think that everyone who is a mother should do that. others feel that the women/young women who don’t have children (or at least not young children) should do it to give the mothers a break. i disagree and don’t think that any woman should feel compelled to entertain, correct, keep happy, anyone else’s children. i really don’t. but i do feel that every woman should be kind to the children, and should be willing, should they see a child in trouble of any kind to help out. is it so hard to give them a smile, a finger on the lips to let them know now is the time to be quiet, or even to offer to take them to the hall and let them run a little because you know the mom hasn’t been able to concentrate all day and you can hear the presentation just fine from the doorway? in much the same way that BFP uses the example of the women on the side of the road. Or in the same way that i would get a dog out of the street before it got hit by a car even tho i personally detest all but the tiniest of dogs.
But what seems to happen at conferences, and what i understand the issues being raised being, is that either women are told they can’t bring their kids, which for most of us means we just can’t go. sometimes perhaps it’s just a classist lack of clue that for many of us it isn’t possible to find someone to take care of our kids for us to attend. but more often, i think it is an unspoken sigh of relief by organizers who do want to exclude “those kind” of women. and the thing is, when a conference actually SAYS mamis and children are welcome, well, yeah, we expect them to make us welcome. we expect that they have taken into account some basic realities, like that people who have flown into this city they don’t know aren’t going to have transportation, can’t afford to take the kids out to eat for every meal anyway, that the kids need something to do for the WHOLE time parents are going to be in the conference, and that yeah, kids need to not be kept apart from their parents that whole time either.
Like BFP i grew up in a family where the kids sat with the grown ups and we were expected to behave or go outside. We were not made to feel like we couldn’t or shouldn’t be there, and we learned a lot from listening in, for better or for worse. we were also little activists right alongside our parents, and there’s a lot i learned about activism, about history, about radical thought, because of that, even if some of what i learned was that i radically disagreed with my parents (for example, we participated in anti-abortion pickets… i don’t regret walking with my parents on that even if i dislike it because i learned so many things from it, including how much i disliked the people around us).
i’m just saying i think there is a difference between looking after kids and entertaining them. there are so many ways to look after them, to allow them into community, without it being a huge burden on anyone or anyone having to feel like they’re being asked to do something they don’t want to do.
August 8th, 2009 at 7:06 am #
Like BFP i grew up in a family where the kids sat with the grown ups and we were expected to behave or go outside.
Cosign to everything Aaminah said, but that in particular stood out to me. It was a real revelation to me as an adult that not everyone grew up that way. Even now, I have a hard time imagining the logistics of how someone could grow up in a way other than that—being quietly (or relatively quietly, definitely respectfully) present with the grown-ups. Me and my cousins had a tradition of what we called “spying on the grown-ups”, where we would engage in hilariously elaborate ways of sneaking a listen to what we weren’t “supposed” to be hearing (gotta remember, that was back in the days of all the superspy programs and/or re-runs on tv! we weren’t eavesdropping, we were spying, lol!!)…..and in reality, all our adult relatives knew we were present, at all times. It’s like a ritual of introducing growing children into the world of adult thoughts, conversations, and intimate experiences. But most of the time, there wasn’t even that pretense—it was a frank acknowledgement and place at the table, for kids who were old enough to prove (by our behavior/response) that we were ready.
By “logistics”, I mean—how can children be that sheltered, even if that was a parent’s desire? (which, it wasn’t mine—sheltering just means the former child doesn’t have the mental/emotional resources for adulthood when he or she becomes an adult—-it was my (extended) family’s practice to require a level of responsibility and independence that it seemed the outside world frowned upon).
I like what bfp said about “apprenticeship”, because that seems to me the natural progression of parenting. Why throw blockades in our way?
August 8th, 2009 at 8:23 am #
Great post, and I love the discussion of difference between mamihood and mommyhood.
August 8th, 2009 at 4:57 pm #
Can I just add that I often feel the most loved, looked after and supported by the children in my life (and I’m not a mami)!
They (truly) listen when I speak, if I ask them to repeat what I said, they can repeat it almost verbatim. What I say is important to them. They’re fully engaged and enjoy our quality time. They respect me, because I respect them and it’s become less about what I’m “adding” to their lives or teaching them and more about the gifts they give me (what has opened up for me): a geniune concern for “my” well-being and love that’s accepts me for EXACTLY who I am. How often can we say that about how “adult” relationships?
If I didn’t welcome those relationship(s) into my life, I may never have fully realized the potential of my (own) life.
Gracias,
A
August 8th, 2009 at 5:26 pm #
Adele, thank you for those beautiful words. I also get a lot out of relating to kids–and out of such discussions–despite not having kids myself either…maybe there’s a tiahood tambien, eh? ;^)
(One of my “maiden” aunts is visiting from out of town next week, I’m looking forward to it…)
But seriously, this seems like part of the distinction being drawn: that mamis and kids and papis and abuelitas and non-kid-bearing members of the community (including the queers, the trans sisters & brothers, etc.) are just that: members of the community.
This historical blip that has been mostly middle class white folks living separated from their extended families in nuclear units in the suburbs – I wonder how something that is such a fiction got so much traction? (Some perfect storm of postwar trauma combined with racism combined with cheap automobiles and capital’s drive to alienate people from each other?)