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Thursday, Jul 9, 2009
Weary of saccharine stereotypes, a diverse group of women is demanding that society do more than pay lip service to mothers.
May 21, 2004 | To celebrate Mother's Day this year, the national group Mothers and More held a contest inviting members to submit particularly gag-inducing media images of mothers. Chosen among the worst was a newspaper column by J.D. Mullane in the Bucks County (Pa.) Courier Times, bashing "make-believe moms" with the nerve to plunk their kids in child-care programs while taking time for themselves: "Real moms do the heavy lifting of child care ... and the grunt work of lugging the kids around while running errands and shopping."
Mothers and More was appalled -- not by the concept of these supposedly self-indulgent moms, but by the (ahem, male) columnist granting himself the right to judge their authenticity.
"Apparently this writer believes that a 'real mom' ... must wear her children around her neck 24/7 as some sort of badge of selfless commitment," shot back a Web site commentary.
Meanwhile, Mothers Ought to Have Equal Rights (MOTHERS), founded by well-known feminists and authors Naomi Wolf and Ann Crittenden, was also observing Mom's special day. The Washington-based organization's Web site encouraged mothers to get political for the holiday, suggesting they host workshops on the economic disadvantages -- lost wages and benefits, missed promotions -- of being a child's primary caregiver. The site even includes a downloadable script for the workshop: American mothers, the script warned, are plunged into "a pervasive system of economic dependency and vulnerability."
Hey, whatever happened to mushy cards and breakfast in bed?
Flowery tokens of appreciation for moms have not gone the way of the hand-shaped clay ashtray. But 90 years after Congress granted them an annual day of appreciation, some mothers are beginning to call for more substantial recognition. Some describe it as a "mothers' movement," which might seem like a lofty term to describe the below-the-radar efforts of a scattering of organizations -- including Mothers and More, MOTHERS, Mothers Movement Online, the National Association of Mothers' Centers and Mothers Alliance for Militant Action -- along with miscellaneous writers, academics and individual women. Neither a support group trading helpful household hints, nor a coalition formed around a single issue like the Million Mom March against assault weapons, the movement is not your typical coffeehouse gathering of moms: Its hodgepodge of sympathizers don't share identical agendas, aren't necessarily aware of one another's existence, and, in some cases, probably don't even think of themselves as forming an official movement.
"This is sort of where the women's movement was, circa 1963 -- the pre-rumblings," Susan J. Douglas, coauthor with Meredith W. Michaels of "The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How it Has Undermined Women," a biting cultural critique that could serve as a primer on many mothers' movement ideas.
For now, there's not much direct action -- no picketing or shoving fliers under windshield wipers. The movement consists mainly of old-fashioned consciousness-raising, with advocates writing and talking about ideas that -- depending on your outlook and personal experiences -- are either obvious or incendiary. From a feminist standpoint, they resent what they see as the insipid stereotypes and narrow standards surrounding American motherhood, the trivialization of caregiving work, and the lack of economic and social support. They would prefer that dads equally share the diapering and dentist appointments; in fact, they're careful to insist that those fathers who do fill caregiving roles deserve more support from employers and government, too. But they also pragmatically face the reality that, in most families, the chores are not divided equally, that mothers and fathers deal with different challenges (typical fathers, they acknowledge, may have issues of their own). They share a willingness to break long-standing taboos and confess that, for all its rewards, being the primary caregiver for children isn't always as idyllic as it's cracked up to be.
