Sunday, Sep 7, 2008
Why do Gen X moms and dads have an insatiable appetite for reading and writing about the experience of raising kids?
Oct 21, 2003 | Back in 1994, before I actually got a chance to see the movie "Reality Bites," I read reviews proclaiming that the film managed to perfectly capture the essence of my generation -- Generation X -- on celluloid.
"Generation X" had been unintentionally christened a few years earlier by 20-ish writer Douglas Coupland, and the label was quickly adopted by cultural pundits and marketing trend spotters. Although there has been some debate since as to what age group actually makes up Gen X, most sociologists now agree that Americans born between 1961 and 1981 qualify, with extra bonus points going to anyone who remembers the names of the human characters on "Land of the Lost" (Sleestaks don't count) and who can rattle off all of Ted McGinley's sitcom credits.
Born in 1967, I definitely fall within X's generational sweet spot, and although I was skeptical (a classic Gen X trait, along with forced irony and overuse of parentheticals) of the hype around "Reality Bites," I was also curious. So by the time the film began its second pass through town at the cheap theater, I decided to check it out.
It was certainly no "Smoky and the Bandit," but I have to admit that I was pretty impressed by the way the filmmakers managed to stuff so many elements of my daily existence into their movie. From the 20-something characters' incessant and random pop culture references to their underemployment to their arch cynicism, I immediately recognized these people -- their jobs, clothes, music, living quarters, and even their made-up words like "clevercleverville."
In one fundamental way, however, I differed from Ethan, Winona and the rest of the "Reality Bites" gang: I was a mother. When I gave birth in 1991 at age 23 to my son Henry (a name we Gen Xers apparently give our male offspring with some regularity), and for a number of years thereafter, parenthood was something not only missing from all the Gen-X profiles, movies, TV shows and unofficial handbooks of the time, but was considered inherently antithetical to the iconic, slacker way of life.
Now, having children is de rigueur. Today most of my same-age friends are parents, and those who aren't are trying to become parents. As for me, I already have three children. And in case you were wondering, of the actors from "Reality Bites," Ethan Hawke is now a father of two, and Ben Stiller has a baby with -- how perfectly Gen X is this -- Christine Taylor, the actress who portrayed Marcia Brady in "The Brady Bunch Movie." (Amazingly, neither of these guys' children are named Henry, although they are named Roan, Maya and Ella. Same difference.)
Yes, Generation X -- a demographic whose cultural stereotype until now was marked by a perceived lack of gravitas and commitment -- has officially crossed the rubicon into adulthood by becoming parents. Not surprisingly, we are distinguishing ourselves from those who have parented before us in the same way we previously pioneered important cultural phenomena such as collecting Pez dispensers and playing "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon."
How are we Gen X parental units different? For starters, we have taken the art of parenting navel-gazing to a whole new level. As it turns out, Gen X mamas and papas really like to write, as well as read, about parenting. Of course, there have always been parenting books, but the great majority of them have been prescriptive in nature, à la Dr. Spock and T. Berry Brazelton.
We, on the other hand, are more interested in reading about the experience of parenthood. As a result, a whole new genre of nonfiction parenting literature -- sometimes called "momoirs" -- has erupted in the past seven or eight years, led by the confessional essays of Gen X writers like Spike Gillespie (whose son is named Henry) and Ariel Gore (whose daughter is named Maia). (Full disclosure: My agent is currently shopping my own momoir around to publishers. But mine is different from all the others, really.)
Although there have certainly been some terrific momoirs written in the recent past by non-Gen X writers -- most notably Mary Kay Blakely, Marion Winik, Anne Lamott, and my personal patron saint, Erma Bombeck -- it has been my generation that has taken this literary ball and run with it.
From gay sex columnist Dan Savage's surprisingly sweet adoption memoir to urban hipster Ayun Halliday's hilarious "The Big Rumpus: A Mother's Tales From the Trenches," the number of first-person parenting books from Gen X writers has exploded so rapidly in the past five years that I feel certain that the next time I walk into Borders, I'll find a new "mama-lit" display set up next to the glaring pink "chick-lit" table blocking the aisle.
While the how-to parenting books still lead the pack, it's clear from the runaway success of Vicki Iovine's first-person "Girlfriend's Guide" series, as well as Lamott's "Operating Instructions: A Diary of My Son's First Year," that the tastes of the average buyer of parenting books are evolving as Gen X hits its peak childbearing stride. A quick Amazon search for "parenting memoir" reveals more than 40 such books released in the past 36 months, and periodic perusal of Publisher's Weekly reveals dozens more in the works.
Additionally, two critically acclaimed small magazines (and their Web counterparts) -- Brain, Child,launched in 1999 by two Virginia mothers in their 30s, and Hip Mama, launched by Ariel Gore in 1993 -- are wildly popular with Gen X parents.
"As a generation, I think we want to hear that becoming a mother is not all soft-focus pink-and-blue scenes," explains Ingrid Emerick, a 33-year-old mother of two and associate publisher of Seattle's Seal Press, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group known for its growing list of Gen X parenting memoirs. "Within the last four to five years we have seen the publication of a number of these momoirs, all looking in a fresh and honest way at the experience of motherhood. The standard belief in the publishing world is that how-to still dominates the market, but this new crop of books is finding its place and, I think, ultimately changing the tenor of the dialogue about motherhood. These real-life accounts reflect the fact that feelings about motherhood are complex and ambiguous and worthy of much discussion."
According to Andrea Buchanan, a 32-year-old mother of two from Philadelphia, editor of Phillymama.com, and author of "Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It," these books are so popular with Gen X parents because -- unlike our own Baby Boomer mothers and fathers, and their parents -- our demographic simply doesn't have much interest in being instructed by experts in the "right" way to raise our children. Instead, notes Buchanan, we want to read about the myriad ways in which our peers are doing it and then choose from those approaches, buffet-style.
Bee Lavender, a 32-year-old mother of two from Portland, Ore., and co-editor with Ariel Gore of the 2001 Gen X literary anthology "Breeder: Stories From the New Generation of Mothers," agrees with Buchanan's assessment. She points out that Gen X parents' comfort with the "different strokes for different folks" approach to parenting reflected in these books stems from the fact that as a postfeminist, post-Roe vs. Wade, gay-and-single-parent-friendly group of grown-ups, we Gen X parents do not believe that "good" mothers and fathers must look, behave or configure their families in any particular way.
"These Gen-X writers were all raised after the second wave of feminism changed the basic dialogue of how to talk about families," notes Lavender. "We know that we have choices, and we are choosing to raise children. This is substantially different from what our own mothers faced, both in their daily lives and on a cultural level."
And while Lavender accurately observes that Gen X parenting has been influenced by our women's libber mothers' feminist critique of family life, it's only fitting that our infamous obsession with pop culture may have had equal, if not greater, impact. In fact it's likely that many Gen X parents' views on child rearing have been shaped by TV, movies and music. After all, the feminist consciousness-raising experience Gen Xers are most likely to remember from their own childhoods isn't their mothers' volunteer work on behalf of the ERA, but rather Marlo Thomas' "Free to Be You and Me" records and books.
As I watch my peers begin their parenting journeys, our pop culture touchpoints seem to have extended into our family lives. Is it possible that we Gen Xers owe our easier acceptance of all types of families -- at least in part -- to our generational worship at the altar of "The Brady Bunch"? Can we trace our more tolerant attitude toward divorce and single motherhood to television shows like "Alice" and "One Day at a Time"?
However our own views on family life evolved, some cultural pundits are observing that this Gen X tolerance for diversity in parenting styles is now being reflected back into current pop culture at large.
"Forty years ago, they couldn't show Lucille Ball in bed with her real-life husband. Ten years ago, Murphy Brown caught hell for depicting unwed motherhood in a positive light. Today, Rachel on 'Friends' has a baby and no husband and nobody bats an eye," notes Jennifer Weiner, a 33-year-old Philadelphia mother, author of the bestselling chick-lit novel "Good in Bed," and formerly the Gen X beat columnist for the Knight-Ridder news service. "I know Gen X women who have babies without husbands, or gay couples who have donor-sperm babies, and none of that seems very controversial anymore -- on television or in real life."
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