I just finished reading Caitlin Flanagan's To Hell With All That, prompted by an interest in her after first reading her latest, Girl Land. The tag is "loving and loathing our inner housewife" and that dichotomy is there throughout the book. I'm never really completely sure what she's embracing or eschewing, and it may just be observational social commentary, not really pushing for anything, though it seems she leans toward the stay-at-home mom model, or at least acknowledges its value. She disses social climbers, from her apparently upperclass roost. She makes me glad I dropped out of "the game."
Flanagan tosses me back and forth with agreement and disagreement with her, or maybe more accurately between feeling an affinity then non-affinity. For example, I like how she critiques the middle class tendency toward social climbing ostentation with their fancy princessy weddings, but then later I don't see how someone who isn't even working could justify having a 9-5 nanny, even if she has twins.
She inspired me to purchase the book Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House by Cheryl Mendelson because I like to know how to do things and I like reading. But, on the other hand, I am not going to become superhomemaker. Actually, that’s not what the book is about. I think Flanagan uses it as more of a contrast to the Martha Stewarty world of flair and superficial graciousness when she deconstructs the oppressiveness of real housework in the post-feminist era. To me, the whole housework drudgery bit is so tired. In today's world, we have lots of modern machines and fairly low standards and low level of formality in our lives when it comes to keeping homes so I just don't see it as that difficult to maintain a generally acceptable living space and get home-cooked meals on the table.
Back to the mothering part, Flanagan seems very pleased with herself for staying home with her babies, but again, she had that nanny. What gives? She seems to write from a place of privilege, which is fine, suggesting a return to old-fashioned values re-enacted in a highly stylized 50s cum 80s manner, whereas my model is 1970s lower middle class. She expresses a certain disdain for the highly-engaged stay at home mom that rubs me a little the wrong way—even though sometimes I feel it, I'd never articulate it so plainly.
I liked a lot of Flanagan’s observations about the “executive child” and moms shuffling their charges round and round from one highly enriching activity to the next—a topic by now that has been hashed out ad nauseum but still seems to be “an issue” (To Hell With That was published in the mid-90s). She ties this in nicely with the “experts’” call for unstructured time and regular family dinners—which some experts say must be scheduled, ha ha. Flanagan observes that family dinner “requires a mother who considered putting dinner on the table neither an exalted nor a menial task, and also a collection of family members whose worldly ambitions are low enough that they all happen to be hanging around the house at 630." This is totally me and my household. And I know my kid is only 4, but while I see her participating in an activity or two, I don’t see it overtaking our lives and as I always remind myself—thank goodness I only have one so I can manage these sorts of things. Yet, in our family of 4, with two kids, we still managed this growing up.
Flanagan goes on to say "If children are to have unstructured time, they need a mother at home; no one would advocate a new generation of latchkey children. But she must be a certain kind of mother—one willing to divest her sense of purpose from her children's achievement. She must be a woman willing to forgo the prestige of professional life in order to sit home while her kids dream up new games out in the tree house and wait for her to call them in for a nourishing dinner. She must be willing to endure the humiliation of forgoing a career and of raising tots bound for state college."
I know she must be being facetious, or is she? Luckily for me, our state has some really, really fabulous colleges. Maybe the fact that I am hoping for the top state college just puts me in a different (lower?) league than those of whom Flanagan speaks (and herself?) but I don’t care. Epiphany: I am beginning to really see the glories of being a middle-class bohemian, being reasonably comfortable but not rich or caught up in social climbing—and not giving a fuck about the Joneses. This is me.
Flanagan also analyzes the "mommy wars" a bit, invoking Dr. Spock, citing "one of the most compelling appeals for full-time motherhood I've ever read" (her talking there):
"The important thing for a mother to realize is that the younger a child, the more important it is for him to have a steady, loving person taking care of him. In most cases the mother is the best one to give him this feeling of "belonging," safely and surely. She doesn't quit on the job, she doesn't turn against him, she isn't indifferent to him...If a mother realizes clearly how vital this kind of care is to a small child, it may make it easier for her to decide that the extra money she might earn, or the satisfaction she might receive from an outside job is not so important after all."
This was in regard not to those mothers who had to work to actually make ends meet or even those with special professional training who felt they must work because they wouldn't be happy otherwise, but to a third group who would just "prefer to, either to supplement the family income, or because they think they will be more satisfied themselves and therefore get along better at home..."
Flanagan, predictably, because she is one of those "professional" women, noted:
"Obviously he's right about a mother being uniquely suited for the full-time care of her children. What more persuasive argument could there be than his simple and moving description of the maternal bond? What he could not have predicted was that such a huge number of women would fall into his second category. Mothers with professional training are thick on the ground these days, and their desire to work is at once more complex and more profound than the great man imagined. To be a woman with an education and a desire to take part in the business of the world—to have a public life only one-thousandth as vital and exciting as Dr. Spock's—yet to have one's days suddenly dwindle to the simple routines of child care can handily diminish what is best and more hard-fought in a person. It isn't simply a matter of ‘extra money’ or ‘satisfaction.’ For many women the decision to abandon—to some extent—either their children or their work will always be the stuff of grinding anxiety and uncertainty, of indecision and regret."
To that, I was at first humbled, or softened, because I though, OK, maybe I was just never a professional or ambitious enough woman and that is why I could so easily opt to stay home with my kid for her 0-5 years. Also, it helped that I was able to work part time from home. Still, it wasn't a big deal. I like the work I do, but it's for money, it's a minor part of my identity that could be filled with something else if need be. Maybe that's why I don't get the issue for people who "don't need the money." Still, it's their choice—whatever.
But then, I sit here and think, how self-aggrandizing of them, of many of them, anyway. They're not all cancer-curing or even baby-delivering doctors, or even teachers, many are financiers just making money to make money and they love what they do, so vulgar. Some are producing crappy TV. I mean, these are the things you'd leave an infant in daycare for? And because they identify as “professionals” this is part of their identity they can’t let go of? It seems more just like an issue of different personality types to me, more than anything else. I know I must try to nurture my softened, humbled thoughts on this and set aside the critical ones because the negativity doesn’t do me any good personally. I guess it is helpful that I can identify my personality and to allow my focus to be on nurturing the positive in that, and if I have some underlying desire to be evangelical about it, highlight the ways it works for me instead of trashing other personalities.
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