Monthly Archives: May 2012

I’m ‘Mom Enough’ to Call Bullshit When I See It

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We’ve all seen the now-infamous Time cover of the model-pretty mom breastfeeding her 3-year-old son, looking at the camera as if to say, “what of it, bitch?” Her conviction is actually kind of awesome (my philosophy on mothering is similar to the one I hold for feminism: There is no such thing as “the right way” and every woman reserves the right to make her own decisions for her relationships, career, body and family.) I take no offense to the image of a woman breastfeeding, even if her child is standing on a chair. And the article, its sidebars and even the supporting online content Time produced on the subject, attachment parenting, are great reads. They offer a well-balanced look at this social phenomenon that is certainly worth an expose in the nation’s leading newsweekly. It’s the words next to her that are offensive: “Are You Mom Enough?” the cover screams, presumably, at any woman who’s had a baby or is contemplating having one.

It’s provocative, it got everyone talking and sales and downloads of the issue broke records. Magazines are in the business of selling issues, so, job: done. I get it, I’ve often been tasked with writing headlines to do just that very thing. But this one teeters on an ethical tightrope. Tabloids and tabloid-y news media often prey on women’s insecurities to sell their content. But when the offending hook comes from a source that identifies as a serious, journalistic enterprise, there’s real harm being done.

Let’s look back at just a few of Time‘s recent scare-tactic headlines:

Nov. 29, 2010: “Who Needs Marriage?”

Nov. 30, 2009: ”The Case Against Over-Parenting”

Oct. 26, 2009: “Special Report: The State of the American Woman”

May 16, 2005: “A Female Midlife Crisis?”

In each case, if the headline doesn’t make it clear, the subheads and/or accompanying photo reiterate that the story is about something women have done wrong or need to fix. And oftentimes that’s not even the story angle once you get inside, to that real, investigative journalistic content that does, thankfully, still exist. Time can and should do better than this. It’s bad enough we have people out there conducting studies to tell us that women are unhappy and that women who have a career before children are too old to be having babies. The media needs to stop treating women, their lives, bodies and choices as a “problem” that needs a solution or even careful analysis. We grow, birth and nurture the world’s population, work in every industry, innovate businesses and work for tangible solutions to disease, poverty and war. We’re fucking awesome, so stop it with the looming question marks on your headlines already.

Postpartum Truths

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Postpartum depression is a silent killer. In the worst cases, quite literally, but in most, it kills a new mother’s spirit, which is almost as bad. This excellent essay by Elizabeth Isadora Gold in The New York Times this week makes me think about all the mothers, much like myself, whose daily struggles, frustrations and regrets teeter on the edge of something more.

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t worry that my worry might be an early sign of anxiety, that could turn into panic and spiral out of control. Becoming depressed as a direct result of having a baby—the greatest joy of my life to date—chemical or not is perhaps my greatest fear since becoming a parent. I credit that fear to the culture of keeping mental illness talk at a hush-hush level, especially when it comes to parents. Gold agrees. “I’ve come to believe that our obsession with birth acts as a scrim for our lack of attention to what happens after.”

We are all obsessed with the JOY of new parenthood that we brush under the rug anything that doesn’t reflect that bright-and-shiny ideal. When you consider that up to 40 percent of mothers experience some form of depression symptoms—and I’m talking from the mild indifference many new moms feel toward the squirmy new baby they’ve not yet bonded with  to suicidal thoughts—you’d think we would talk more about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather talk about successful breastfeeding, that delicious smell found only at the nape of a baby’s neck and the momentous accomplishment of sitting upright. We love to share these joyous moments with each other—and we should go ahead and keep on doing that. But we also have to talk about the less-joyous moments. So many women have concerns, fears and questions that might be quelled if we, as a mommy community, did more to make them feel less alone.

There is, of course, a great presence of forums online. Here are a few worth checking out:

PPD Support Group

Mothering

The Secret Society of Women

And let us also talk to our fellow moms, sisters, cousins, friends, in a way that lets them know that mistakes and doubt are as  much a part of parenthood as our instincts to nurture and need to protect.

Feminism vs. Motherhood

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It probably goes without saying that I believe feminism and motherhood are not mutually exclusive. But feminism continues to be targeted as the cause of parenting woes rather than the solution to them.

I am impressed, however, by the balance and sound arguments in the New York Times‘s latest Room for Debate round table, “Feminism vs. Motherhood.” There’s an attachment parenting advocate who defends being feminist while breastfeeding and co-sleeping; an unapologetic workaholic mom who believes being the best that she can be is the best thing she can do for her children; a grandma who reminds us we need stop judging each other—a mom of a special-needs child echoes that sentiment; that lady who thinks French moms are the creme de la creme; and a mothering traditionalist (think: 1950s housewifery) who blames feminism for pretty much everything wrong with society and its children.

The latter argument is a given in this debate, and though hers is not alone in attacking feminism for causing women to devalue marriage and family, in this debate it’s hardly the loudest. Mostly because for perhaps the first time I’ve clicked on an article with a headline like “femimism vs. motherhood,” (and there seems to be a new one every day), I see  a wealth of perspectives. Though each essay was written and published independently, the series reads like a conversation. It gives me hope that we can have civil, educated, open-minded debates with other women on this topic. Because the one thing we all have in common—whether we sling our babies with us everywhere or formula-feed while working 60 hours a week—is that we all struggle with balancing the demands and importance of raising our children while maintaining our identities as individuals.

Doing both is perhaps the hardest thing about parenting and I believe the most important.