Are Women Enslaved By Modern Parenting?

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Hanna Rosin and I are chatting up the new Elisabeth Badinter book over at Slate this week

 

Are American women slaves to parenting? That’s the question I am addressing over at Slate today, and for the next few days, in a round-robin essay discussion with supersmart writer Hanna Rosin. (Yep, this is the thing I mentioned not getting done the other day other day when Danger Baby was so clearly undermining my status).

So read what I have to say in my first Slate installment on this topic, and then let me know what YOU think in the comments below.

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39 thoughts on “Are Women Enslaved By Modern Parenting?”

  2. OK – I haven't read the book, but I get the gist of it.

    I am pretty tired of all the "you're doing it wrong" stuff that goes on between parents (mothers in particular).

    I read a few years back that what children want most from their parents is to feel that they are delighted to see them when the child enters the room.

    I start from there and base all my parenting on that premise.

    I try to make my children feel loved, wanted, cherished and that I am delighted to see them.

    The rest of it is just details.

  3. Well, the stupidest thing about this (and I know you know this already) is that "attachment parenting" isn't modern. If women are enslaved by anything, perhaps it's by their own unrealistic expectations for themselves, bolstered up by the judgment of other mothers who are trying to make themselves feel better about their choices by putting other women down.

    • This I agree with. Nobody's perfect, even though we'd all like to think we (and our kids) are. I chose not to become a parent, partly because I knew I wouldn't be able to do it all and I felt like I would have to give up the biggest part of me in parenthood and I didn't want to do that. My mother did that and I think she resented it for a very long time.

      If you choose to become a parent then you are making a choice about how you want to live your life. Make an informed choice, as much as you can (some of it's a crapshoot) and make the best of it. You are only enslaved by parenting if you feel that you are – sort of like work isn't work if you really enjoy it. Not saying it's all rainbows and sparkles, but be positive about it.

  4. enslaved? well goodness, no. then again, my husband and I never let our children be the boss or run the home, nor did other people's opinions or parenting experts. maybe that helped me not feel enslaved. there were times with our oldest that i doubted what i was doing, but that was more a case of new mom nerves and inexperience.

    breastfeed or don't. work or stay home. let 'em sleep with you or put them in a crib. feed them organic, or not. rock them to sleep, or don't. enough.

  5. I don't have any comments about the subject matter, mainly because I find the whole subject matter very, very silly (I think we need to lighten up on one another and ourselves, the end…), BUT I wanted to comment on how much I like the back-and-forth, conversational tone and style of the post. I love the call and response, love the breezy but bright arguments that both of you employ. Great writing, good read, thank you!

  6. Having children changes your life and for the first few years, your life does not belong to you. I wish I'd realized that before my girls were born. But it is normal, and that's how it should be (unless you are super wealthy and/or have a live-in nanny, sitter, au pair).

    What some feminist author may call "enslavement" I call "bonding with my children". These are the important things I keep reminding myself of as I drag two clingy whiny almost-3-year-olds around the house attached to my legs:

    - This too shall pass

    - It gets easier as they get older

    - They grow up so quickly

    And I try not to fret over an afternoon/day/week where I didn't get to finish a painting, didn't cook dinner or wasn't able to bleach my kitchen floor.

    I just wish that, right after we had the babies, I wasn't shell shocked/depressed/scared to mess it up and cuddled and held them more than I did. But I was so gun-ho on doing the "right thing" by sleep training, crying-it-out and other crap. I miss the baby stage and feel like I robbed myself of it. :(

    Making up for it now and actually loving it. The tricky part is to maintain the balance between discipline and love, but we are trying.

  7. It's so funny. I consider myself a staunch feminist. I'm 51. I grew up in the 70s. I had a career in a male dominated profession (engineering), got married at 39, and had my child at 41. If that's not a card-carrying feminist, I don't know what is. :-)

    And I'm a staunch believer in attachment parenting. My daughter will be 10 this year and I feel the tenets of attachment parenting are even *more* important as children get older.

    Obviously I'm not talking about the laundry list of attachment parenting do's: breastfeeding, babywearing, cloth diapering (or is it elimination communication?), etc.

    Oh, I had plans to do all of that, but first I had flat nipples and Rachel did not have a good latch. We went to bottle feeding after 3 days. I knew nothing about the "new" cloth diapers and I certainly couldn't afford to start a stash. Finally, Rachel was put on an apnea monitor 24/7 at 6 weeks, so I couldn't wear her.

    However, I consider myself a rabid attached parent. Rachel did not need a mother stressed out about breastfeeding. I wanted to present with her, not worried about latches and making appointments with LCs. I couldn't afford a wrap because I wanted to make sure I had six months of maternity leave, before I had to go back to work.

    I couldn't wear Rachel, but she never left my side. We co-slept and never CIO.

    Natural parenting enslaves us? Try just parenting. Are any mothers "free"? Even while juggling work issues, daycare issues, and family issues, are any of us without the stress of raising a child?

    When I decided to have a child, I decided to have my heart enslaved forever.

    • Totally agree with your entire post. I've always been a feminist, of the radical kind. My kids are 3 and 5, and I strive (and struggle) to be a parent who embodies this philosophy for them.

      I love your last line. It's so absolutely true I have tears in my eyes.

  8. As a former single father, I have some fairly strong feelings about this topic. During the first three months of my middle daughter's life, I was a single parent. She did not get breast fed, obviously, but I took her everywhere I went, usually in a sling because it was comfortable for her and convenient for me. I could get my work done while she slept with her head propped on my shoulder.

    I became a single parent again many years later, raising six school aged kids.

    With my resume out of the way, I'll put this as succinctly as possible. The time I spent raising my kids could not in anyway undermine my status because I define myself as a father first, then as an employee.

    Work is what I do; a father is what I am.

  9. TOTALLY agree with this Joe Z. guy. The way you parent, by and large, has absolutely effect on how your kids turn out (absent extreme examples–like abuse or early deprivation to human contact). Personalities are inborn and evident from birth.

    It's really no big deal. Pretty well every woman on the planet mothers, and most kids turn out okay, with the length of time they were breastfed (or whatever the current attachment parenting line is) being quite inconsequential.

    There's nothing special about mothering. So why build your whole identity around it?

    Joe Z

    Okay, so let me go back to my original post – I'm a guy, so maybe I don't get it. But …

    It's babies, people. You feed them, they poop. What's so hard about that? My mother grew up in the 30's and 40's, ate processed food, smoked, drank, lived to 85. She popped me out in '51 and I'm healthy and retired at 60.

    Ladies, please, just lighten up. NOTHING you do will have one bit, one iota of effect on your kid. The environment today is cleaner. The food today is healthier (yeah, even the pop tarts). Trust me – just let it go. The kids will be fine.

    Buy a vowel, get a clue, the kids are getting a life. Maybe you should, too. Just saying.

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  10. Jeez, talk about the personal being political. And why is there always an implication that there is one right way to do everything, or anything?

  11. I find this whole thing to be pretty strange. I didn't know about attachment parenting (had never heard the term) until I found Katie's blog when my son was 5 or so. I don't have any sisters, am not close with my mother (and she lived 1,000 miles away) and my closest female friends and I had bonded around graduate school and our careers, not childbearing. When I had my son, I was 39 and my husband and I had just moved across the country for new jobs. My new colleagues were AMAZING in helping us out, but we really made all our decisions ourselves. I read What to Expect When You're Expecting and What to Expect the First Year, and we also used some of the ideas in Super Baby Food (but not a lot of them because they were pretty labor intensive), but that was pretty much it. I planned to breastfeed and cloth diaper because I knew they were less expensive in the long run, and better for the environment as well.

    Since I really hadn't discussed any of this with anyone, I had no idea that breastfeeding was some kind of trauma for some people. At my baby shower, one of my friends advised me "No matter how hard it is, don't give up! Hang in there." That was the first time I had any inkling that there might be a problem. My reaction at the time was "of course I won't give up. Why would I?" Fortunately, it was really, really easy for me and my baby, and I was able to do it until he was two. I had no maternity leave (since changed by that workplace, but not in 2004) but I coped with the help of colleagues who filled in for me the first month, and did a lot via e-mail. We got one of those snugli things to wear our baby because it looked like fun. He ended up sleeping in the bed with us after a while because we all got more sleep that way. I had never heard of "co-sleeping" until much later.

    I had no idea at all that this fell into some kind of "philosophy" of parenting that was somehow controversial. It was just how we coped, cloth diapers and breastfeeding WERE cheaper, and our son is a happy, healthy 8-year-old now. The drama and battles seem completely misplaced and Katie, you seem much more relaxed about it than Hanna Rosin is. She comes off (to me) in this and her Atlantic articles as rather defensive and combative. Maybe that is just selling the articles, but her tone, and this book that you're reviewing just seem really counterproductive. I'm not judging anyone on how they parent, and I hope they are not judging me. I don't know what happened with their child yesterday or an hour ago or 10 minutes ago that caused them to make whatever choice they are making when I see them, so I figure they are coping, just as I do.

    Everyone, just settle down. Do what works for you and your child(ren) and consult your pediatrician on health issues. Don't label people and what they do. Just love your kids.

    • What she said, except we have eight kids and I stay home. You know, when they say "No TV until they're two" or "breast is best" and to minimize the artificial ingredients, and that cloth diapers are best for the environment, and to limit drinking during pregnancy? They're guidelines! You do what you can do and then one day you just stick'em in front of Sesame Street with a bowl of off-brand Froot Loops and take a light nap on the couch in the next room so you can drive unimpaired later on. My kids were breastfed somewhere between 5 and 12 months. It just didn't work for #3 (I think it was stress) so we switched to the bottle early. The most important thing is to get sleep and drink lots of water. If you or dad are heavy sleepers, or if one of you has been drinking, don't sleep with baby. Read Dr Seuss' ABC and Where the Wold Things Are and Guess How Much I Love You. If you have a choice between feeding baby Cheetos and a smashed-up banana or some applesauce, skip the cheetos. Let them eat the Cheerios jammed into the carseat; it's good for their immune system. Really, the first two are on the Dean's List (college) and the second two are on the honor roll (hs and jr high). #5 is flunking geography but I think he has a case of "prepubescent boy" and it's not because I didn't ever put him in cloth diapers. #6 isn't as athletic as the others, #7 is perfect in every way (as only a 7-yr-old girl can be) and #8? I haven't had a chance to mess him up yet; he's only 5.

      • Agreed. This cottage industry around the 'right way' to parent and all this weirdo angst about breastfeeding and attachment parenting is just noise, and all of it written by people who don't know any more about raising kids than anybody else does.

  12. I will take your word for it that the book says nothing new about the new intense parenting. I don't think they can say anything new without touching on why children rule roosts. The uncomfortable truth is it is their own fault.

    A quick sum up: when trying to make women equal, they debased housewifery as Stepford slavery. Housewifery used to encompass three roles: wife, mother, and domestic chief. The debasement was almost total for the domestic role, thorough for the wife role, but incomplete and temporary for the mother role. They couldn't stamp out women's drive to become mothers. As a result, when any of the traditional roles beckoned–a woman felt at all domestic, wifely, or maternal–only the maternal role was still socially acceptable. For instance, if you wanted to quit work, it was only acceptable to do so for the sake of your children. Imagine telling friends you wanted to stay home to make house or be a help meet to your husband's professional success! It just isn't done.

    Normal childrearing, however, doesn't take all your time. If you wanted to stay home, you had to make it take all of your time, you had to make it be stuff that only you could do, and you had to make all of those things of paramount importance. And thus began the super mom race.

    The feminists are right: attachment parenting and its ilk are insane. Actually, as a recently repatriated expat from London, I'm finding that American motherhood in general is insane–and damaging to children and husbands as well as women. But feminists don't want to dig deeper; they don't want to admit that they made the bed that they are horrified to find themselves lying in. (Ditto for modern sex issues, by the way.)

    These issues are a focus of my blog and are the reason I used "housewife" in my blog title. My most popular of these posts are Reverse Culture Shock: Motherhood, part 1, Intense Motherhood, The Internal Mommy Wars, and Giving up your Proper Job.

  13. The whole idea of being "enslaved" by one's child is just utterly absurd. By the same token, we are also enslaved by our jobs, if we have them. We are enslaved by countless other things … IF we choose to be.

    I prefer the word "devoted" … especially when it comes to my children. When I had my first, we were pretty darn poor, relatively speaking. Even though my husband had a fairly decent job, we could have qualified for food stamps and a welfare check each month. But I had it in my heart that I wanted to do my very best for my child (and his younger brother and sister when they came along). I intended to have natural childbirth, but that didn't happen with the first, as I ended up with a c-section. But the other two I did go natural with the third being a home birth. I nursed them until they were ready to stop. We shared a family bed. I used cloth diapers and made my own baby food. I purchased as much natural and healthy foods as our budget would allow.

    I just did what seemed right to me. I did a lot of reading (no internet back then!) and took the advice that worked for me and my kids, and left the rest. I never felt "enslaved" … I was meeting my children's needs. I chose to have them, and that choice entails taking on the responsibility of caring for them. Myself. Not in a daycare center. Not propping a bottle in the swing. Not leaving them in a playpen all day. Not putting them in a crib in another room at night. That might work for some moms, but not for me.

    My third baby was a high-need child who needed to be in physical contact with me 24/7 until she was about 6 months old, and still she needed to have me within sight for a long time after that. Parking her in a baby seat would have never worked for her – or me. She was a child for whom attachment parenting was a must. She now happily nurses her own baby girl on demand, co-sleeps with her and carries her in a sling around the house and when they go out. And that is one happy, fat, cheerful little babe. (Wanna see pictures? Huh huh huh? *proud grin*)

    Sure, we could have had more and better food, or a nicer house, or newer cars … but so what if we did? I could have begun my career path 8 or 9 years sooner … but so what if I did? What price is worth sacrificing those years with my children? Years that can never be replaced with a paycheck … or a career.

    Once they were in school, I went back to school myself. They are now all grown up, living on their own, making their own lives. Me, I have a wonderful job, a career in an industry I love and I have the ability to devote myself to it without taking anything away from my children. I am having it all … just not all at once.

    I now watch my daughters (bio, step, and -in-law-to-be) with their little ones as they forge their own paths in motherhood. I see their joy, as well as frustrations, doing all the things I used to do with their kids, in their own way.

    That is freedom.

  14. I don't feel enslaved to my kids, but I do feel enslaved to all the "stuff" of the modern world, including all the "stuff" of modern parenting. Material things I'm talking about. Not the kids themselves, and not the time I spend with them or the things I do with or for them.

  15. I was told I was "unfulfilled" during the precious few years I was home with young children in the late '60's and early 70's. None of those who used that word had a clue how fulfilled I was, but it made me question what I chose to do. The whole irritating movement to dictate what women in particular should do relating to parenting started then and it continues today. It's not constructive.

    • i think you really hit the nail on the head here. all this talk and judgement about what others should or shouldn't do can make people question and doubt themselves. and that's really icky. it is not constructive or supportive or uplifting. maybe someday moms (and dads too, so good to hear from some men here!) can truly embrace the notion that for them, this is the way to go, and be okay with the fact that for someone else, it isn't. we concretize our choices, beliefs, thoughts into this is the only way to think, believe, etc. ugh.

    • My mother was unfulfilled. She was miserable staying home. But not because she found child-rearing boring. She was just too bright and too antsy to stay home. She LIKED working. Homemaking she could do in her sleep, and she had easy, reliable kids who didn't need help with homework or behavior. Bringing in wages and getting out in the world were just what she needed. I think the idea at the time was that there were husbands and cultures that frowned on the idea of working mothers, and to get rid of that we had to swing the other way. That's how cultural trends go. My mother didn't bother herself with the politics of it, she just went and did what she needed to do. Of course, on both sides of my family women work and were out the house earning money, so we weren't one of those families that held that a woman's place was in the home.

      • Both my grandmother and mother were highly educated career women who–rightfully–took pride in their work, abilities and status they enjoyed as leaders and experts in their fields. This at a time when that was a very rare thing for a woman to achieve (particularly in my grandmother's time).

        I spent the occasional day at their offices in my youth, playing on the floor until 5:00, and what I remember was the sense of pride I got listening to them speaking on the phone or with colleagues with such authority.

        While they both had great relationships with me and enjoyed being mothers, their life's work was their identity and legacy.

        Most of my friends in school had moms who were 'just moms', and I am endlessly proud of my mother and grandmother for demonstrating to me that a woman should aspire to be much more than an appendage to her family.

        No woman should sacrifice her gifts and talents to make being a mother the centerpiece of her life. I find that sad–sublimating one's unique identity and cribbing off the identity of your children instead. But that's what I feel this whole attachment parent movement does–tethers a woman to antiquated expectations.

  16. I am a Dad of 3 young boys (and 2 Labs) and I am enslaved!

    Best damn occupation on the planet (beats my job by a long-shot).

    Yes, I get the enslavement angle. I recently backed off from several big job offers and I can run circles around my boss. BUT, to me, this is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better, that it finally overcame my desire to win, progress, advance in (fill in the blank).

    I have a lot to learn about being a great Dad (still…always) but I aim to exhaust this particular mine before exploring elsewhere.

    Good luck to you all. My point? Well, if I had to have one…this isn't really a women's issue at all. Not close. I won't argue my case but perhaps some might consider that Dad's lay-out too (also in all sorts of ways rarely credited). It does take a team in the end because what matters to A doesn't to B but A does it (and B likewise), creating a very big wonderful environment for the youngsters.

  17. I think it would be interesting to comment on your changes in your relationship to attachment parenting. There were good reasons G was not breastfed – what was it like for you to not breastfeed – and have people push milk banking? Also, working full-time you probably did less baby wearing of 4 and 5 than 1, 2 & 3. I think you have an interesting perspective here that does not come through on slate. Though I TOTALLY take your point that the political issues are more important than the social ones.

  18. Well-writtten, Katie. I have no strong opinions on the subject of "who should tell whom how to parent and why we let them" because the circumstances of my becoming a mother were atypical and that apparently freed me up to do my own thing. Plus I've always been kind of a "let's be sensible" person who cherry-picks what works for me and ignores the rest. And generally speaking I am not a follower or fond of doing what the group says/thinks. Or groups.

    My son is 19 and maybe there weren't so many books around back then about this or that theory of parenting. I remember I had a few parenting handbooks which I mostly consulted regarding health concerns (how to suction mucus out of a baby's nose, eg).

    We had issues with sleep and behavior at times and we muddled through. I once took a community parenting education class with a child development specialist on how to manage challenging behaviors.

    At my son's prom parent photo shoot I recognized a family that was in that class with me 15 years earlier. The had a preschooler who was colossally stubborn and wouldn't wear any clothes the mom bought her. This girl had sewn her own AMAZING prom dress! It was far and away my favorite out of the hundreds that I saw that day. She's at art college now (like my son, and I think there is a connection there).

    My point is: using common sense and a sense of humor and a bit of flexibility, it mostly works out. And if it doesn't it surely has nothing to do with cloth vs disposable or even breast vs bottle.

  19. Having just returned to North America after 4 1/2 years abroad, I see it from a different perspective. Europeans really do parent very differently from North Americans; in Europe, mothers are not judged as harshly as here, and are encouraged to have more time and space for themselves than they are here. Overall, Europeans are far more relaxed and laid back than American and Canadian parents. The expectations placed on mothers here hit me in the face when we returned from overseas; the difference is that dramatic.

    There really has been a huge change in the past 10 or so years in North America. With all due respect to those with grown children, or older teenagers, it's not the same situation anymore. The criticism and the push to conform to parenting methods that will give your child the best possible advantage in life is huge now, and doesn't begin compare to what it was like to parent in the '80s or '90s.

    I can't say whether this book goes over well-worn territory or not, but I do take your point Katie that the real issues are maternity leave and childcare. That said, the shaming of women who don't breast feed isn't limited to LaLeche League meetings; these days, mothers who bottle feed are publicly criticized by strangers; mothers who use a stroller instead of "babywear" are attacked for their choice. Now it is moving into mode of birth — mothers are told that epidurals can harm their baby, and are made to feel selfish for wanting one, and the gold standard to cement one's motherhood is a home birth. Even if the book is not original, it does not mean that the trend it tries to describe does not exist, and it does not mean that we should not be trying to put an end to it.

    The author of the book "Bringing Up Bébé" postulates an interesting theory behind this competitive form of parenting in the U.S., basically, that there is the sense that we are parenting in a competitive and dangerous world, and must be ever vigilant, always trying to give our kids the greatest possible advantage so that they can become part of the new élite.

    I'm not sure that her thesis is sufficiently developed in the book, but the existence of this phenomenon was driven home to me when I read the rather condescending review of the book in the New York Times. The reviewer clearly comes from a position that breast feeding is superior to bottle, and must always be encouraged, and that a general policy of giving epidurals during childbirth is "rigid". The author of the review clearly ascribes to the very parenting beliefs the book attempts to question.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/books/review/pa…

    For what it is worth, I never witnessed a lack of compassion on the part of adults or caregivers toward children during our years in France; but I definitely did see a more relaxed way of parenting, and of living.

    • Where are you now? I did London for 5 years then back to Houston and have found American motherhood almost cherishing in its intensity. I figure that Houston is minor league compared to New York, though. I don't think I would have coped with that. I would have sped back to London.

  20. Another american in Europe parenting mama who doesn't really get this at all. I am a self identifying feminist who didn't want to give up my career for being a mom. But thanks to generous parental leave and flexible labor laws, I could do both. I never had to pump and could BF my child until over 1 year because I had a long paid maternity leave. When LO become a year, DH stayed home for a few months. Now I work 75% so we don't have to have LO at daycare for ages. DH will do so in the fall.

    We parent within our societal constructs, and lets be honest, the US makes very little room for parents within the workforce. It goes against the idea of everyone 'pulling their own weight.'

    Whatever. I love being able to 'have it all' and it really makes me a lot more relaxed both at home and in the workplace. And really, that is a perk for everyone – family and employer.

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