put that baby spell on me

[freckles_and_doubt]

So, a friend is going through the "OMG do I really want to have kids?" thing, and it's making me think about the issues in a state of profound political annoyance. Because the truth is, there is enormous cultural pressure from a large number of sources which is exerted on women to make them think that child-bearing is not only desirable, but inevitable. It's just what women do, because (1) hey wow, human race, continuation, yadda yadda, and (2) besides, it's absolutely the ONLY experience which will ever complete you as a female person, and further besides, (3) it's selfish not to. I wholly and utterly support any friend of mine who feels the need to have children, it's a great thing and I rather enjoy the resulting small thundering herds. I am equally and entirely outraged that any friend of mine, of my generation, born and raised under Western culture, should feel that she has no actual choice in procreating. I also absolutely reject all of the above reasons for doing it.

So, my own personal and philosophical proclivities deal quite neatly with (1). The human race needs fewer babies, not more, we live on a horribly overpopulated planet which is on the brink of ecological disaster, and apart from the need to cut the population, I'm not entirely convinced there's going to be a world worth living in for any offspring of mine. And I really don't buy the traditional response to same, which is "oh, but you're an intelligent educated woman, the world needs more of that kind of person, it's your duty to procreate" - it's a horribly self-congratulatory argument, don't you think? The world at large, particularly the madly-procreating bits of it, needs more education, not more self-righteous Westerners. I do my bit for that every year when I make another cohort of students read Sheri Tepper.

On (2) I'm particularly aware of the whole thing because my dad's just died, and it was one of his hobby-horses. He was an animal scientist and horribly prone to biological essentialism: as far as he was concerned, my body and hormones and what have you would never allow me to be happy without bearing children, and I don't think I convinced him otherwise before he died. We used to get into quite enthusiastic feminist debates about it, in which I'd be all outraged that he was mentally classifying me with his bloody cattle. Because, really, Papa, you don't have a uterus, you know? and here I am telling you that I'm actually perfectly happy without all the childbearing schtick, and am not feeling a lack, and why the hell should your sense of my identity be more correct than mine? Also, men are equally genetically programmed to hunt and fight and all the rest, and they quite happily sublimate it into capitalism, sports and political arguments, so why shouldn't the parallel work for women? Such maternal urges as I have (and I do have them) are apparently contented with a weird combination of teaching, student advising, cats, cooking huge meals for friends, and abstractedly patting on the head any offspring-of-friends who happen to rocket through my ambit.

See, I'm perfectly prepared to accept that motherhood is an amazing experience, a life-changing one, a particular aspect of being human that you can't access any other way. I know a large number of very happy, fulfilled mothers (starting with my own), and I love watching them celebrate that experience. There's a part of me that's a bit wistfully sad that I'll never have that, but I also don't believe it's the only way to be happy, or fulfilled, or to have a meaningful life. So in answer to (3) I have to ask: how many famous women activists, writers, scientists would not have achieved what they did if they were also raising a family? Is their choice somehow selfish or incomplete? Should we by this logic be faintly despising Jane Austen?

But, you know, it hit me yesterday: really the bitch about this whole cultural expectation of parenthood is its gender-exclusivity. "Of course you'll have kids" is ultimately a thing that the male half of creation does to the female, or conditions the female to do to other females: it's another way of controlling and defining female sexuality. There's a far lesser tendency to look pityingly at men who've chosen not to become fathers. And that's a purely Victorian survival, a result of the nineteenth century's ridiculous need to idealise Womanhood as either Virginal or Maternal: a complete refusal, in other words, to think of women in any terms other than those defined by their sexuality. Somewhere deep in the antediluvian slime of that belief system, women who have sex but not children are not Mothers, but Whores. It sucks. We should be more enlightened than that.

But the sad truth is that we're not, that those attitudes are embedded firmly in our technically post-feminist culture; a woman choosing to have kids, or not, is bombarded on all sides, from family, friends, the media, literature, with a horrible and heavy weight of expectation which says she ought to. This means that if she's like me and doesn't have the maternal urge to any imperative extent, she's faced with the choice of having children and vaguely resenting it, or not having children and being vaguely resented. This is why, I've realised, I have a minor and sneaking sympathy with even the particularly ugly and frothing extremism of some of the online childfree movements: they're extreme because they have to be, because you need some pretty serious momentum to break free of all the weight of expectation. If your society is a bit insane in this area, there's a reasonable chance you'll become a nut in sheer self-defense.

A lot of my own personal ability to basically pull a sign at societal expectation and defiantly be happy in the teeth of it is purely circumstantial: I'm not in a relationship, I don't have a broody would-be-father looking expectantly at me, and my biological clock is apparently digital. Even if all of the above weren't true, my slightly despairing sense of our horribly crowded world would probably still weigh in quite significantly. I'm lucky to be reasonably clear-cut. I truly and deeply sympathise with anyone who isn't, and is trying to negotiate a space for themselves while being tugged in all directions.

Comments

[vesta-aurelia.livejournal.com]

And I really don't buy the traditional response to same, which is "oh, but you're an intelligent educated woman, the world needs more of that kind of person, it's your duty to procreate" - it's a horribly self-congratulatory argument, don't you think? The world at large, particularly the madly-procreating bits of it, needs more education, not more self-righteous Westerners. I do my bit for that every year when I make another cohort of students read Sheri Tepper.

bwuahahahahah! Sing it, oh fellow non-procreator!
May I metaquote?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Please do. The world needs more exhortations to read Sheri Tepper ;>.

[vesta-aurelia.livejournal.com]

done!

[(Anonymous)]

It upsets me that 1) nobody asserts that all men need to [do some thing that is stereotypically and allegedly biologically male] on the same scale as this, and 2) that some women take such smug and condescending delight in telling other women that deep down inside we all want the same thing, which is babies, and if we claim not to we are [selfish sociopaths who want to spend our money and time on frivolous luxuries / lying / in denial / going to change our minds when we're thirty / going to change our minds when we're old and alone and it's too late].

It takes a special kind of obliviousness to believe that everyone else in the world is exactly like you.

This shouldn't be an issue. It should be a personal choice for individual people and their partners, and other people should mind their own damn business. But it's become a loaded and ugly public debate. :/

[confluence.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Sorry, that was me -- login fail!
-- confluence

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I am deeply, deeply grateful that none of the mad procreators in my immediate social circle are the kind of mother who feels the need to condescend to non-mothers - as you say, it's poisonous. I also darkly suspect that in a reasonable number of cases it's defensive, denoting a need to justify their own decision in order to come to terms with its inherent difficulties.

I also have to say: we're all Wimmin and biologically the same? so second-wave ...

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

It takes a special kind of obliviousness to believe that everyone else in the world is exactly like you.

But it's so very common.

Babies

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

Hmm, this has been an internal debate of mine for some time (especially since getting married). I started off loving babies and being desperately broody, then went through a phase of "no thanks, not for me, but yours are very nice" (possibly due to all that babysitting of small vomiting terrors) and now I'm leaning back towards broody. But it changes literally every 5 minutes. Usually if I'm doing something that I couldn't do if there were small people around. I listen to friends say how they wish they could do XYZ but can't because of the children and I think "whew, thank FSM I'm not in that position, I have the freedom to do whatever I want". What I really worry about is that I don't have a lot of time left, what if I make the wrong choice and regret it? P and I say that we'll start thinking seriously about it in 3 years' time. What if we decide to breed and then I resent my offspring for taking away valuable knitting/spinning/reading time? I come from a very broken family, what if I find that I don't know how to make a happy one for a small person?

I admit that deep inside I have Victorian views in that I see older childless couples and immediately pity them and wonder what the problem was that they couldn't have children. I then stomp on these thoughts and feel bad for having them :(. I hate it when I say that I don't want kids and ppl say "oh, you'll change your mind" as if I have no choice in the matter, as if I'm just a slave to my meat. It makes me want to slap their smirking faces.

So, yeh, confused me is confused. There are loads of pros and cons either way but in the end I don't think logic will play a large part in it at all. I've heard ppl say that sometimes it's best just to have an accident, that if you wait for the "right time" it never comes. Fuck that shit.

If your friend discovers the answer I hope she'll share :).

Re: Babies

[vesta-aurelia.livejournal.com]

ppl say "oh, you'll change your mind" as if I have no choice in the matter, as if I'm just a slave to my meat. It makes me want to slap their smirking faces.

I've found a way to reply!
I tell them I'm waiting for 40 -- because then my doctor will let me get spayed.
I don't get flak after that. Nothing quite like pointing out that they're viewing me like someone at a puppy mill.

Re: Babies

[robling-t.livejournal.com]

I hate it when I say that I don't want kids and ppl say "oh, you'll change your mind" as if I have no choice in the matter

I'm always tempted to turn it around and say that to the ones having kids... and then point out that by then it's far too late. >;)

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

Should we by this logic be faintly despising Jane Austen?

Way ahead of you there.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Hey! there will be no dissing of the Jane on my blog. Pshaw.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

I understand why it's a difficult decision. Whether you have kids or not has a massive impact on your life and parenting has a massive impact on the child's life. And there's a time limit. So there are pressures and people may struggle with that - though hopefully they get beyond the stresses and let the decision form itself freely.

What I don't understand is:
(a) Why anyone thinks it's ok to apply their own conclusions about such a personal decision to others.
(b) Why anyone accepts having others' conclusions applied to them.
(c) Why anyone thinks there's any element of "ought", "must" or "should" to this decision.

These are hopelessly outdated ways of thinking that weren't particularly healthy even when there was some societal justification for them. Now they're just toxic. Why do we cling to them? I blame the parents.

[grumpyolddog.livejournal.com]

The answers to a), b) and c) are all "herd animals".

I say this without judgement (and I'm a confirmed misanthrope so that's rare) but in the main, humanity is a social species, much like lions in many ways.

In exactly such a way, old males prefer to slope off on their own and snarl.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Western culture, at least, has developed enough cognitive tools that anyone who wants to is free to choose how they will be a social animal (or not). We can construct our own social values and behaviours. We can make our own herds, or slope off on our own. It puzzles me when people with such freedom accept hand-me-downs which make them miserable.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I think you badly underestimate the extent to which cultural assumptions become inbuilt and internalised so that rooting them out is not the trivial act of insight or will you make it out to be. I also think you underestimate the extent to which these assumptions are particularly powerfully inculcated in women, who are trained from birth by culture to assume a subject position where effectively men tell them what to do or think. The problem is not that other people disapprove of you not having children, the problem is fighting your own belief that you somehow ought to.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Worthwhile acts of insight and will are never trivial.

Yes, the problem is one's own beliefs. That is why I like to propagate the belief that we're responsible for our beliefs, and able to discover, challenge and evolve them.

You're doing exactly that with this post, and prompting more of it in the comments. You are pretty much the antithesis of what I was complaining about.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I wasn't assuming you were applying the complaint to me, which is possibly a tad narcissistic... I was getting minorly het up on the implied dismissal of my conflicted sistren as somehow weak-willed or unthinking. It's all reminding me inexorably of the enormous argument I once had with Confluence and Hodgestar about battered women and whether or not you can condemn them for not simply leaving their abusive husbands. It's very easy to say "of course it's obvious you shouldn't think that" if you're not actually the one in the situation and, as a result of a long series of cultural and contextual influences, thinking it.

We are responsible for our beliefs, but some beliefs are more savagely imposed on us than others, and are more difficult to change. And I think my point is more fundamentally the nasty catch-22 one which says that women under this kind of pressure are equally damned if they do or don't go the childbearing route, because odds are they'll resent it if they do and feel guilty if they don't. Culture's a bitch.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

It helps make the culture less bad if you spread the idea that mental prisons are invalid and indeed optional.

It also helps if you understand why people are there, and focus on helping them find their way out rather than blaming them (which can add another wall to the prison).

I default to the former and could probably learn a thing or two from you about the latter.

Alternatively...

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

... I may be too harsh on your conflicted sistren.

But you may be too soft on them.

We should join forces and either confuse the hell out of people or liberate the masses. Probably both.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

p.s. oh gods, you mentioned the elephants!

You must have herd wrong

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

La la-la... No we didn't...

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that an intelligent, educated, woman can create more of "that kind of person" by teaching than by giving birth.

[nimnod.livejournal.com]

(1) hey wow, human race, continuation, yadda yadda, and (2) besides, it's absolutely the ONLY experience which will ever complete you as a female person, and further besides, (3) it's selfish not to.

1) Yes, cos there aren't enough of us
2) OMFG I HATE THAT ATTITUDE. Do you know how much of that you get *while* pregnant? It implies that one is somehow so deficient beforehand that I find it tremendously insulting. And women (always women who do this) who are so pathetically without an identity that they buy into this crap, assume that because you are having children, you must think like them, and try to sort of buddy up to you. I AM NOT LIKE YOU, YOU CRAZY MUMMY-ZOMBIES. *eee*
3) Yes, whereas not selfish at all to have them and then be a useless parent cos you never really wanted them

[wint3rhart.livejournal.com]

Here via metaquotes; just wanting to say "Excellent post!"

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Always glad to spark interest and agreement from random strangers :>.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Here from metaquotes. This is rather well-put and written. Thank you.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed it. I'm enjoying all the new people, maybe I should rant more often :>.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

I'm always on the lookout for new interesting people to read, mind if I put you on my reading list? You'd be on my "people I met on LJ and follow as though following blogs" filter, so no inappropriate stalkerish behavior intended :-).

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Friend away! Warning: I am frequently frivolous.

[(Anonymous)]

Ooh, just back from hols and now see your dad died. So very sorry.

On the baby thing - yeah, what she said. Weirdly I still identify more with the childfree by choice brigade than not. And feel Very Very Strongly about the crapness of the "only this will fulfill you" idea. Wow. So no. I mean, turns out I love being a mommy (much to my own surprise), but I'm not sure "fulfilment" is the word. Also, cannot for the life of me understand why sprogging is supposed to be the unselfish choice. People is weird. And sexist. And weird.

scroob

[novemberhour.livejournal.com]

Here from metaquotes. Thank you for this.

[dreamking.livejournal.com]

Non-uterus bearer here. I have always thought that whether or not a woman wants to grow a person inside her should be her own business.
And that's really the only stance have heard that I respect. Especially when it is coming from non-uterus bearers. I have never personally experienced the societal pressure to procreate, but I know of these things about which you write. I think the only analog in the male perspective is the pressure to marry. Which I did. Unwillingly. It was bad. I would definitely hate for someone to coerce me into growing a human in my body.
Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents. *pling pling*

[veratiny.livejournal.com]

I started feeling broody again... and then I registered for a law degree instead :-)

I wonder if the old-time attitudes to do with breeding was a subliminal "while if she dies in child bed I can get another" attitude at play? Stemming from people binding themselves in the not strictly speaking biologically convenient institute of marriage (don't get me wrong I admire those that marry and make it work... because the majority don't)...

Me, I am a proudly single mother and do find FOC (Father of Child ) to be something of a inconvenient nuisance. Most likely if there was a baby number 2, I would go all Erica Jong and find myself a "zipless fuck"!

I love my boyfriend dearly, but I have no desire to raise children with him. Love/relationship and babies (in my case) not being something that works for me... the idea of incorporating somebody else opinions into the rearing of my child/children terrifies--again I admire those that do!

[schedule5.livejournal.com]

I feel vaguely guilty for having 2 children. I am also deeply, deeply subject to some rather fierce urges that whisper "You have 2, it's such a small step to 3. Oooh, they're cute when they're little."

Yet I am deeply, deeply against rabid breeders filling up my children's world with extra resource-hungry oxygen-thieves. Hence, no number 3. I think some people have the biological urge to procreate more strongly than others (or we're just more culturally conditioned :) ). I think I'm one of those people. BUT, I don't assume everyone else has the same needs / deep biological imperatives that I do.

When something is so powerful and so primitive and feels so right, it's hard to step back and say "This is my body talking, not my mind. This is cave-man stuff." It's hard to believe that others may feel differently. Really hard, but not impossible.

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

I wasn't at first planning to respond to this thread, me being one of those evil population multipliers most of the internet abhors, but here goes.

Of course the subtle influences of society and one's surrounding culture cannot be denied, but at the same time: is it so terrible to simply say "I want a baby. I am emotionally, physically and financially ready - the time is right". Perhaps in a different culture, time or socio-economic class your anonymous friend might respond differently but her response is still her own. One doesn't have to have quantifiable reasons and justification written out in triplicate. It is not wrong to simply want a baby.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

If her attitude were that simple, there wouldn't be an issue and I wouldn't have posted. She's not trying to justify her desire to have a baby, she's trying to work out if her tangled and not very imperative leaning towards have a baby is about her own desire, or a sense of cultural obligation. I completely agree, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the simple desire to have a baby, as I've said several times above. If only it were that simple.

[veratiny.livejournal.com]

It would be nice if it were simple... if they came in lucky packets with comprehensive instructions and a guilt free return policy :-)

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Sure, but I'm saying it doesn't matter. Societal wossnames encourage you to want a baby, so you have a baby that you want. I suppose you're suggesting that perhaps societal wossnames encourage you to think you want a baby then you have a baby that you don't want. If you have a baby that you really do want, I say it doesn't matter what role society, culture, etcetera play in it. Back into my hole now.

Agree (100)

[first-fallen.livejournal.com]

I also worry about if what I think I want is what I actually want or just what society makes me think I want. In the end I think as long as you want it (for whatever reasons, societal or internal) then it's all the same.

I thought about this when P and I decided to get married. Were we doing it because society expected us to or were we doing it because we wanted to?

I don't think there are any independent wants, everybody wants something because of some outside force (except maybe food, people generally want that because their tummy says so). Pressure to do better at a job and get more money, pressure to be successful in career, pressure to have kids/get married. People may think that they want it entirely of their own accord but I think at the root there's probably some societal pressure there too. There are no new ideas (for those who've read Anathem :P).

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

No need for holes, your point is valid - if you want a baby, what society wants doesn't matter, and you're a lucky person. But not the person I'm talking about in the above Blogrant O'Doom.

[(Anonymous)]

Awesome post, thank you! Made me think quite a bit. As a result of which I'd like to chip in a comment or three :)

Firstly, your father is correct. All organisms are cunningly evolved machines to replicate the genetic material they carry.

Secondly, the high risk but eventually highly successful hominid evolutionary strategy of growing a huge brain has had an unfortunate downside: we've become conscious and self-aware to a dangerous degree. And our intelligence has allowed us to develop a highly complex culture which throws up subversive diversions such as suicide bombing and worrying that kids will eat into our time for painting Warhammer miniatures and watching Dollhouse.

But as clever as we've become, we've not yet mastered our bodies entirely, so there's this ongoing war between "us" and our gonads. For most people, some degree of occasional unhappiness and misery result. I'm miserable because I'm 40, I would like to hear the pitter patter (you're right, it's more likely to be thundering!) of little Tanya feet, my parents would like grandkids, time is running out and T isn't keen to spawn and isn't sure when she will be. TMI? Well, it illustrates my point :)

Finally, as much as I enjoy reading Sheri Tepper, the "all men are women- and planet-raping bastards" schtick does wear thin after a while. Framing this as a gender equality issue, "a thing that the male half of creation does to the female, or conditions the female to do to other females" is, imho, unfair to men and unhelpful to both sexes. It varies between cultures, but many men are expected to do their bit to produce another generation, carry on the family name, provide an heir/grandkids blah blah blah, and suffer stigma if they are found to be "shooting blanks". I'm constantly asked by friends "so when are you having kids". You'll have to trust me on this, but it's not unusual in an all-male gathering made of married men with kids and "others" for a lot of pro-family propaganda to be heard. Often it's good natured and well-intentioned, but it sure as hell doesn't help when you're already worrying that you're missing out on something important.
Sven

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Sciency points relevant and interesting illuminations to my argument, thank you! But I have to take minor issue with your last paragraph.

For a start, in this discussion I'm not really referencing the Tepper planet-raping bastards schtick (which I don't see as such, but I'm not going there now) - I'm referencing her ongoing concerns over overpopulation and the basic stupidity of the human race with regard to same. P-R B or not, everyone should read the overpopulation message, IMNSHO.

Also, please note that I did say "a far lesser tendency to look pityingly at men who've chosen not to become fathers" - of course there's a cultural imperative there, I'm arguing that it's just not as strong as it is towards women. In the kind of male gathering you describe I'd imagine there's a whole raft of pressures, and it's probably just as bad from family. Have you ever, though, had the experience of being looked up and down by a chance acquaintance who's catching up on your life, and have them say, "Unmarried and no kids? Shame, what happened?" Friends and family may feel they have a stake in your reproductive function, but I sometimes think the whole bloody world feels they have a stake in mine just by virtue of my sex.

Finally, it's the most difficult thing in the world to be a feminist and try to talk about gender discrimination and cultural bias to an enlightened, intelligent, thinking man. Because you do think about these things, and are completely not the problem, and I think it makes it somehow more difficult to persuade you that (a) yes, other men can really be as unthinking and biased and problematical, and (b) there are ways in which your empathy for women may not be complete because you do not experience the subject position in the way that women experience it, and therefore may find it difficult to believe it exists. Men have been in power in our culture for a hell of a long time. No matter how many strides we've made towards equality we are still not equal, and our attitudes are conditioned by that inequality whether we like it or not. I don't think it's unfair or unhelpful to point that out. I think it's essential. Also, I still rather like men :>.

[dicedcaret.livejournal.com]

Thanks for taking the time to write such an eloquent and thoughtful reply.

To your question, have I been pitied by a chance acquaintance, I'd have to say No, not in a direct, verbal way. I've sensed at times it's been thought but not verbalised, out of polite consideration for my feelings, but that's maybe me being paranoid.

The over-population debate, as expressed by no-child movements and guilt-wracked spawners of a sprog or 3, is something I'm a little suspicious of. I'm wary of just reducing it to an arithmetic problem. Is the human population as a whole living unsustainably? Yes. Is this purely as a result of too many people? I don't think so. The Hebrides had much larger populations than they do now, with a vibrant culture. For anyone really agonising over this, the people of Jura would love to have you boost their population!

Agreed, my last paragraph was poorly thought out and unnecessary. I shall try to express myself more clearly next time we're juggling G&Ts.

PS. Finally got my login working!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

hah! login! You Have Been Assimilated. Welcome to the Borg Collective.

Chance acquaintances are unlikely to pity you directly because it's not culturally OK to do that to a guy. It is, in my experience, completely culturally OK to do that to a woman. There's a cleaning lady I used to work with in the English dept. who does it to me every time we meet, as her second question - how are you? no babies yet? I'm seriously considering a collapsible axe.

Your last paragraph wasn't poorly thought out or unnecessary, I just disagree with you :>. As, in fact, I do on the overpopulation thing. Yes, we're living unsustainably, but there are also too many of us, and as a result we're losing things - species, environments, values, quality of life - that I think impoverish us radically as a race, and ultimately threaten at least our civilisation and possibly our survival. I commend you for hopefulness, but I can't share it.