"In our mothers' day there were good mothers, neglectful mothers, and, occasionally, great mothers. Today we have only Bad Mothers."
"The Good Mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses and inadequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer; she remembers to make playdates, her children's clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games. And she is never too tired for sex."
In other words, there is this unattainable goal of being the "perfect" mother, which is impossible to achieve, and when I inevitably fail (I swear I'm not going to yell in anger at Samuel ever again) I am not just a good but imperfect mother, but a Bad Mother, one who is probably scarring her children for life.
Waldman likes to blame women and their competitive natures for it. I, on the other hand, think we are set up for this by the way our still male dominated culture and society views women and mothers. It is another factor in the inequity between men and women. A good father is a guy who shows up and changes the occasional diaper. A good mother, on the other hand, must not only take care of her children's every need, but revel in subsuming her needs and desires to them, and never express any negative emotion.
Each time I make a mistake with my kids, yell at them, get frustrated, not want to play with them every second of the day, not want to be touched, pulled, prodded, sucked on for one more instant, I feel like I am the worst mother on the planet, rather than just a person who needs a break and some space. Why is it that I feel like I am not allowed to ever feel like a separate human being with wants/desires/needs?
Why is it that some of the other moms I spend time with uphold one particular mom on a pedestal, feeling like the rest of us never measure up, based on the fact that we have never heard her yell, or get angry, and she only records the side of their life where she is constantly playing games with her kids, creating projects, doing activities?
I resent that in the implied comparison I am a less good mother because I don't have a theme of the week and a science project to match it.
I found Waldman's memoir annoying, but I appreciate the truth that she spoke regarding The Good Mother vs. The Bad Mother. I think I'm a Good Mom. I'm doing the best I can. I love my kids. I keep them as safe from harm as I can, while allowing them to explore their world. I feed them healthy food. I am trying to teach them to care for other human beings. The next time I begin to be filled with self loathing and frustration over not being the Perfect Mom, I will remind myself of this.
1 comment:
Thanks for the review, and the reminder. This has been on my mind a lot lately and I've not been able to articulate it well. I have this sense of "expectations" from some nebulous "other" (when asked where I think these expectations are coming from, I can only wave vaguely about "out there") to which I'm not living up. I look like a stay at home mom in that I don't go to an office during the day, so if I'm not constantly in my child's presence and delighted to be there, I'm a failure as a mom. But because I do work, I'm also expected to live up to the Career Woman ideal, and I'm a definite failure there: no high heels or sharp suits in my closet. And while I stubbornly persist in charting my own course both in work and in parenthood, I'm not very good at resisting the free-floating notion that I'm doing it all wrong and that it's all doomed to fall apart on me.
I did enjoy Perfect Madness a few years ago. The author spent some time pointing out how the general expectation that women can be mothers (active, involved, engaged mothers) and successful career women is ludicrous without a support structure in place. I think she was in favor of family leave and state subsidized child care a la France, and while those would certainly help, I think there's a cultural shift that needs to happen to increase the perceived economic value of non-professional caregivers. It's ok for someone to have a job taking care of people but if the people you are caring for are related to you in any way, that's not a job but an economic hardship. I don't know how to make this happen since there are probably lots of reasons why actual subsidies for caregivers wouldn't work. But it's hard to believe the lawmakers who say that children are "our future" or "our most precious" whatever or that their goal is to "protect our most vulnerable citizens" and then watch those same lawmakers strip education funding or reject support structures that would make it possible for all parents to care (with real food, not Happy Meals, and more than a "have a nice day at school") for their children.
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