Of babies and bathwater

OK, so this is one example of the kind of annoying voices of feminism out there that I reference in my last post. It seems so petty and so desperately clawing to "save one's identity".

Katie Roiphe writes on the new Double X website from Slate about why women shouldn't use their kid(s)' image as their Facebook avatars. She writes:

What, some future historian may very well ask, do all of these babies on our Facebook pages say about the construction of women’s identity at this particular moment in time?

Sigh.

I know these writers have to come up with new ideas for articles all the time, but this is why I have to STOP reading these things. They are just so ridiculous.

Maybe the women are just proud of their kids. Maybe they are fat and ugly and not comfortable with their own picture. Or maybe they are beautiful and still not comfortable with their own picture. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

One of my Facebook friends actually had a picture of her nieces and nephews instead of herself. So? Maybe she thinks they are cute.

What about people like me who have a picture of me with my kid? Where's my husband? Uhm, he was the man behind the camera.

What about those people who don't bother to upload a picture at all, but keep the Facebook blue and white head silhouette? Do they have no identity?

Who cares!

Like so many of the commenters said, it's just Facebook. Some of my favorite other comments:

To me it sounds like someone is trying to invent ways to be even more superior to her equally-educated female peers....

I don't know who this writer is but I have to say that I take offence at the idea that wearing sneakers every day and forgetting to get your hair cut makes a woman dowdy and invisible. To be honest I would feel at lot more dowdy and invisible having to stick to the ancient "etiqutte" rules that say a woman has to wear neat court shoes, have a neat manageable haircut and a pretty frock to be someone. I thought feminism was all about having freedom to express yourself even in the way you look or don't look. It strikes me that this writer has a very narrow view of what women should and should not do. It's like going back to the 1950s for god's sake...

...my problem isn't with people who do or do not use whatever picture they choose, or how they express their identity. It's that the article reinforces the notion that they 1)pick the kid's picture because they value being a parent above something else and 2) that this is wrong. If (the hypothetical) she had posted a picture of her dissertation would we be having this discussion? No. WHY? That's what you keep jumping away from. The why of how we view certain accomplishments as more valid, specifically because they are traditionally male accomplishments.

But, alongside all her petty annoying bullshit, Roiphe made some interesting points about how parents may have become a little too doting or child-centric:

Our parents, I can’t help thinking, would never have tolerated the squeaky sneakers, or conversations revolving entirely around children. They loved us as much as we love our children, but they had their own lives, as I remember it, and we played around the margins. They did not plan weekend days solely around children’s concerts and art lessons and piano lessons and birthday parties. Why, many of us wonder, don’t our children play on their own? Why do they lack the inner resources that we seem to remember, dimly, from our own childhoods? The answer seems clear: because with all good intentions we have over-devoted ourselves to our children’s education and entertainment and general formation. Because we have chipped away at the idea of independent adult life, of letting children dream up a place for themselves, in their rooms, on the carpets, in our gardens, on their own.

I would argue with her last sentence a bit, though, and wonder if people weren't trying to overcompensate for a day-to-day lack of involvement in their kids' lives. If they choose to, or are forced to, leave them with caregivers all day, or for more hours than they are comfortable with, perhaps they are compelled to "make it up to them" in other ways. (I am not judging whether they should feel this way or not, just making an observation that they might.) As a work-at-home mom who is basically on 24-7, I don't have so much guilt and so much drive to do so much for my toddler. I feel like I deserve the break and the treat. Because I do! From my perspective, kids do need to be allowed—trained even— to play on their own and spend time cultivating independence. Sadly, this more interesting discussion gets lost in Roiphe's petty Facebook/identity blurb.