Bohemian Rhapsody and Childbirth

Those of you who saw the Season One Finale of Glee should know what I'm referring to, and those who didn't, you can see it here.  In brief, I loved it!  Of course, the portrayal of childbirth was not very accurate, it happened much too fast and included looks of disgust from men.  But, for some reaons I still haven't been able to pinpoint, the mixing of Queen with labor and birth worked brilliantly.  Part of it, I think, is that the song is so many different things at once.  It has some elements of ballad, some elements of hard rock, some piano, some guitar.  Childbirth, too, is cluttered and heterogeneous.  Relatedly, like childbirth, Bohemian Rhapsody has its phases.  Maybe what I really like about it is that it draws some parallel's between childbirth and performing.  The dancers that make up Vocal Adrenaline are fantastic~watching them makes me physically tired.  As does watching labor and birth.  When in labor, a woman is essentially on her own, in her own body.  And though others can provide support or encouragement, it's really all up to her, just as it is for dancers.  I'm going to keep thinking this one through and see if I can come up with some other reasons it works.  But maybe I should just take the phenomenological approach and go with my first reaction: captivation and satisfaction.  It works.

November 7, 2010

The War on Moms by Sharon Lerner

 Sharon Lerner effectively reframes the Mommy Wars debate in her new book The War on Moms: On Life in a Family - Unfriendly Nation.  Instead of arguing about whether stay-at-home moms or working moms are superior, she sets out to demonstrate that the choice is not always simple--or even available.  There are plenty of women who have to work to support their families, whether they are single mothers or married/partnered women whose families rely on two incomes.  There are other women out there who aren't able to find jobs that accommodate the schedule and chaos of taking care of a child with special needs.

To support this reframing, she uses massive amounts of statistics interwoven with stories she gathered from interviews.  She positions the United States within a global context; for example, the US is the only industrialized nation that does not offer guaranteed paid maternity leave.  She also includes useful historical context, citing, for example,  the US’s failure in 1919 to sign an international agreement  guaranteeing cash benefits in addition to job-protected  maternity leave.  She successfully argues that this country provides minimal support to parents in terms of health benefits, flexible schedules, leave options, and even cultural understanding of the true challenges of parenting in today’s world.  

Lerner’s book has other strengths.  She attempts to redirect the focus from mothers themselves to greater societal forces. She provides strong support for this shift.  I’ll admit, I wasn’t a skeptic when I started reading.  I’ve lived as a mother in this country.   I’ve quit jobs because of lack of leave options.  I’ve struggled to pay daycare costs.  But as a busy mother, I don’t have much time to think about these things in a larger context or even begin to think about how to change them.  Lerner’s book provided me a space to do that.

Lerner has captured this moment in history in her book.  The current economic downturn has been tough on many people, but Lerner is able to outline exactly what it means for mothers and the few support programs that are available to them.  This brings a sense of urgency and immediacy.  It is not about how things were in the past, though it includes context.  It is not about what we should strive for in the future.  Instead, Lerner describes the here and now.

The War on Moms clearly outlines the challenges that exist for parents today in a new way.  It is not driving to soccer that is making families’ lives difficult, but rather the harrowing choice between staying home with a sick child and possibly losing your job.  This nation is not family friendly, but at least the war is no longer a silent one. 

While I think Lerner's book is important on a large scale, though I doubt it will garner much attention, it also affected me personally.  She opens the book with the story of a woman in New York who knows it will be tough for her to conceive and the chances of her having a child that doesn't have some sort of special needs are low.  But she wants to be a mother, so she has a daughter.  As predicted, the daughter has complications, needs special care including expensive surgeries and therapy.  After trying to balance her career and caring for her daughter, her employer refuses to be as flexible as she needs and she leaves her job.  The decision was mostly her employer's.  

When I hit the point in the narration when she was fired, I found myself thinking, "well, she knew the risks going in, she decided to do it anyway, so it's her fault."  And then I caught myself.    Somewhere, even I, had absorbed the "blame the mother" approach which is prevalent, though buried, in our cultural thinking.  And this thinking is tied up with two important attitudes toward parenting in our culture. 1. Being a parent is a choice; a choice akin to deciding what color to paint your house or what size value meal to order at McDonald's.  2.  Caregiving is not valued in any way shape or form in this country. 

I'm not sure if the Reagan Administration's approach of "Blame the Mother" approach to social services was something that it created or something it tapped into; I imagine a bit of both.  But the idea that women have more babies to defraud the government out of money seems to me to be a clear example of this phenomenon.  But it occurs in many other forms.  I read an article on graduate student families health care coverage which included a quote from a grad student that said they choose to have children, I shouldn't have to pay for them.  And obviously, my own thoughts about the mother who opens Lerner's book are another example.  

I'll take up the semantics of the word "choice" later and I've already discussed the lack of value parenting has in this culture (though trust me, I have more to say.)  But here and now, I issue this challenge:  Pay attention to the voice in the back of your head that judges women and men who have children and how they attempt to deal with it, essentially, all on their own.  Read Lerner's book or The Price of Motherhood or any of the other books that try to point out the exact ways in which caregiving is undervalued and not supported in our culture.  Then, think about ways you can support mothers and fathers in the world.  Who you vote for matters, who you give money to matters, but you can do more.  Silence or correct those judgmental thoughts that creep into your brain unwanted.  Offer some support to mothers you know~offer to take their kids out for ice cream, offer to buy them a seasons worth of cold medicine or simply provide a space where they can speak about the trials of parenting freely.  And offer some support to mothers you don't know~help them carry their strollers up a flight of stairs, offer to hold their child while they organize all their belongings, maybe even borrow from the frequent serviceman address and say "I appreciate your service to the greater good of humanity in your decision to be a parent."  And lastly, if you are a parent or a caregiver, tell yourself each and everyday that what you are doing is important and valuable.  
November 7, 2010

Semiotics of Pregnancy and Childbirth

I'm going to take a break from economy to talk about semiotics.

Imagine the following:  You are watching your favorite TV show.  One of the young female characters, one who the audience knows has been having (usually risky) sex, is seen alone with her head in a toilet.  And, immediately, the voice in your head says "Uh-oh, she's pregnant."

The first time I noticed this was while watching Grey's Anatomy,  but since then I've noticed this semiosis in many other films and shows.  It was even used in a History Channel show I was watching about primitive humans.  The female early human was shown vomiting into a stream as the narrator told us she was pregnant.

When I started thinking about the semiotic connection between vomiting and pregnancy, at first I got a little angry.  While many women I know have suffered from morning sickness while pregnant, I know just as many who never had any problems with it.  So it seems inaccurate to equate the two.  And when I thought further, I realized there was a bigger problem than that.

Nausea and vomiting are obviously an associative sign of pregnancy, or an index by Charles Peirce's terms.  However, if you asked women who have been pregnant the one thing that they associate most with their pregnancies few would bring up morning sickness. This association between pregnancy and vomiting seems to something from a male mind.

The representation of pregnancy and childbirth on the screen extends beyond this strange associative sign.  Other stereotypical representations include strange food cravings and the aforementioned mood swings, clearly more negative aspects while also being the issues most likely to affect nearby males.   And of course childbirth always happens too fast, while focusing mostly on the transition phase (i.e. the phase where the woman's emotions are the highest and she is most likely to yell at any men present).

A completely different aspect of the representation of pregnancy on the screen is the "actress is pregnant while the character isn't" issue.  In the later episodes of The Nanny actress Lauren Lane is expecting while her character C.C. is not.  At one point, C.C. talks about how silly it was on Seinfeld when Julia Louis-Dreyfus is pregnant, while her character is not, so they have her standing behind furniture or holding a bag.  C.C. ends the scene by commenting that "this fern needs water" picking up a plant, holding it over her own belly, and exiting.  This meta-televisual moment makes fun of this stupid practice.  The audience knows the actress is pregnant and knows they aren't supposed to know.  But we all also know that it's slightly ridiculous, since no one is fooled by delicately placed set pieces.

[The writers of The Nanny excuse Lane's extended absence from the show for the actual birth of her child and postpartum period by having her character literally go insane and be shipped off to a mental hospital.  While this makes some sense in the plot arc of the show, it does, whether intentional or not, relate childbirth to insanity.]

Lucille Ball might very well have set unrealistic standards for every pregnant actress that followed, organizing things so that the episode where her character gave birth was shown the night she actually gave birth by c-section.  Writers and producers have had a much harder time reconciling real life and the screen in almost every following incident.  [Further recent incidents can be seen on Desperate Housewives and How I Met Your Mother among many others]

The pregnant actress is partly a problem of embodiment.  How can a pregnant body embody a non-pregnant one?  But it's also a question of empowerment.  If you consider that most TV shows are created, written and directed by men, they don't quite know what to do with pregnancy.  So, they portray it from their limited knowledge, the things they remember about "nearby" pregnancies.  And their understanding of what childbirth was like for those around them.  Perhaps this is one of the reasons Little Ricky's birth was framed a bit differently, because Ball had some producing power for the show. I was so glad to finally see a somewhat realistic depiction of childbirth in recent remake of The Women.  Again, maybe this is because the film was both written and directed by a woman (Diane English) and the actress playing the woman in labor had recently given birth herself (Debra Messing).

Another possible influence might be remnants of the Hays Production Code which literally forbade depictions of childbirth.  As a result, childbirth is still considered somehow taboo; it takes awhile to bounce back from being included in a category with STDs, though I suppose childbirth and syphilis are both possible undesired consequences from sex. 

The next time you are watching a movie or a TV show that depicts a pregnant woman think about how you "know" or are "shown" that she is pregnant.  Are the associations positive or negative?  And, if you really want to challenge yourself, think about how all of these images and associations have colored your ideas of childbirth and pregnancy throughout your life.

November 7, 2010

Thoughts on THE RED TENT

I'm re-re-re-re-reading Anita's Diamant's The Red Tent.  I've always enjoyed the book; it's well written and gripping, as well as imaginative.  But the book appeals on a greater level than that.

I recently read Linda's Holmes' thoughts on the phrase "Chick Lit."  And as much as I resist forcing gender differentiation onto novels, I think there are some differences.  My favorite women authors tend to write about characters who are defined by their relationships.  Jennifer Weiner, who Holmes focuses on, writes about women who are mothers, and wives, and sisters, and friends.  My favorite men authors tend to write about characters who are defined by their experiences.

The Red Tent definitely fits into the relationship category.  The point of the women's lives in this novel is their relationships.  They are mothers and sisters and wives.  But more importantly, they are women and that ties them to every other women they encounter.  Every month, the women get to spend a week together in the red tent while they menstruate.  And this week is a time of celebration, not a time of complaining about bloating and cramps and taking Midol.  A girl's menarche is a huge celebration when she officially enters the collective womanhood.  Similarly, childbirth, even though a scary thing in these pre-medicinal times, is a time of collective womanhood. 

This I think is why the novel was so popular and remains an embracing read.  It speaks to that part of our culture that we've lost.  As childbirth and menarche and menstruation have become medicinized (more on this later) we've lost that sense of women's collective.  What rituals do women have left?  How often do we get together to deal with our lives as a group?

I can think of only a few--bridal showers and baby showers being the most obvious.  And honestly, these events are usually dull.  They do not celebrate the power of the woman involved, but usually domesticate her.  She is reduced to the new role she is assuming--"wife" or "mother." She is showered with gifts that are not for her, but for the other--husband or baby. 

Through the centuries, women have lost power, both in the public sphere, as well as in their own lives.  I encourage us as women (and also as men since I think they've lost their ritual base as well) to rebuild this ritual element.  Let us celebrate our power and our community.  Let us create a new red tent and fill in that gap that we search for in Diamant's novel. 

September 11, 2010

Mommy Capital? Even more questions.

So, if we can assume that motherhood does not operate in the realm of economic capital, is there a capital relevant to parenthood? Can we, drawing from Pierre Bourdieu's ideas of cultural capital, theorize a mommy capital? Is this what the playground verbal competition between parents is? The smarter or more advanced our children are, the better parents we are? Or perhaps, the fact that one's eight month old is already potty trained signifies that the child is "advanced" and will be a more productive member of society? Are the mommy wars simply a misplacement of economic judgment?

Goodnight Nobody: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner is just one of the many novels that plays with this question. [See also I Don't Know How She Does It or for something a bit different, Baby Boom] While the novel deals with many complicate issues, let's focus on the "playground economy."  For the protagonist, Kate, the other mommies of the wealthy Connecticut suburb are better than her, have more capital, because they have the right clothes and the right snacks for their kids.  They are never late picking up their kids from the $6,000 a semester preschool in town.  But most importantly, they all seem to buy into this economy.  Their conversations center on what schools are best, what foods are best, not on how incredibly boring their suburban lives are.  It is through Kate's questioning, and misery, that we question this economic system, in which cubes of tofu arranged in Cyrillic letters are worth more than than a prepackaged handful of goldfish crackers.

But who has created this economy, and more importantly, who perpetuates it?  Some who have written about the mommy wars say that mothers, women who used to be power brookers and lawyers, but who then quit working and funnel all of their cut throat ways into parenting.  Perhaps, I think.  But this is also simplistic and puts the onus on the mothers themselves, not greater forces.  Yes, women want to be wonderful mothers, yes these women are powerful, smart and even vicious at times.  But who decides what makes a good mother?  Who has decided that micromanaging your child's every second and every bite is what makes a good mother?

"The first time you see him smile; that makes it all worth it." Part II: Some Answers?

In The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued, Ann Crittenden argues that motherhood has an enormous economic impact; that if you think about parenting as the creation of workers, workers that are the basis of our economy, then mothers are one of the largest contributors to the GDP. This view is obviously an offspring of Marxism, which seems appropriate because whether or not we wish to admit it, Marxism has permeated our thought processes and cultural values. Which is why, I argue, we have to say something makes motherhood "worth it."

And most definitely, motherhood has no economic value for the mother herself. In fact, most women suffer serious financial consequences when having children (and when they get married. See Gilbert's Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage for more on that). Not only does raising children cost money, lots of money, there is the lost earning potential. Time taken for pregnancy and child birth, for children's doctor's appointments and illnesses, even for school recitals all has a negative impact on a woman's earning potential. [See Motherhood Rising for more].

But not everything can be measured in terms of economic output, the arts for example have an economic value but have worth beyond that. Motherhood's relation to the economy is unique. It is essential to the continuation of the economy and the species. Everyone has a mother and to become a productive part of society, children need someone to oversee their development. Sadly, even though motherhood is a vital part of the economy, that same economy does not value motherhood. Nor, necessarily, should it.

I do not wish to say that mothers don't have value, because they do. My point here is that motherhood does not fit in the predominately Marxist view of value and worth. A system which was originally structured by men.

While I haven't done any research, it seems to make sense that the comment of being a parent is "worth it" was not uttered until the onset of birth control. If one asked a working class Victorian mother of four, who was glad just to have survived childbirth, if being a mother was "worth it" I think she would either slap you, laugh, or stare uncomprehendingly. Perhaps I will ask my grandmother, because I think even her generation would not quite comprehend the question.

And perhaps that's why this saying has entered our vernacular in this regard. Now that women have a "choice" as to whether or not to have children, why would any sane, rational woman make that choice. Why would she give up a proportion of her economic worth to suffer through sleepless nights?

There is the age old argument that what is traditionally woman's work is devalued; nurses, teachers, etc all have low wages. Parenting, of course, has no wage associated with it. While I am more than willing to concede that keeping wages for jobs that traditionally belonged to women low was a form of oppression, [why, if women actually earned a livable wage, they won't need us men!] I think there is more at work here.

Cultural historians who departed from the Marxist who came before them were willing to admit that economic forces shaped history, but they insisted that cultural forces had an impact too. It seems that part of the reason that care giving historically has a low to non-existent wage is that it is not based in economies, at least not traditional economies. It is something that went on long before the first barter between human beings occurred. It is something that all animals participate in on some level. Perhaps, motherhood cannot be contained within economic thinking, it deserves a completely different approach and set of parameters. And I'm sure I'm not alone in trying to figure out what those parameters might be.

"The first time you see him smile; that makes it all worth it." Part I: The Set Up

This post is inspired by three things.

First, this video which circulated around Mother's Day. Second, this item on the radio show Marketplace. I should say here that I didn't hear the segment, but the promo stuck with me. Third, a personal experience.

Let's start with the personal experience because that is what made the other two coalesce into this post. The short version of the story is I took my almost four year old to urgent care where we waited for two hours to be told that nothing was really wrong with him. There I pulled out every trick in my hat to keep him occupied and calmed him before his x-ray, assuring him that there wasn't going to be "lectricity." By the time we left, it was 8:30 pm, neither of us had had dinner and I was not in the best of moods. We stopped at Target to get some medicine and groceries, returned home where I promptly set two things on fire while trying to make us a very late dinner. Then, out of nowhere, he looked at me and said, "Mommy, you look beautiful."

Of course, I smiled and said thank you. But it quickly occurred to me that if my life were a sit-com, and this was the episode where we had adventures at urgent care and mommy set the kitchen on fire, the episode would have ended there, with me replying, "Oh honey, that makes the entire day worth it." Cue cheesy music.

But it's not "worth it."

Before I elaborate further, let's return to the other two pieces of inspiration. The Mother's Day video is from a church that I, admittedly, know nothing about. I just watched the video because I was bored on my lunch break. But by the time it ended, I felt rather badly about my position as a mother. The clip, a mother's version of Bohemian Rhapsody, seems like a great idea. However, the last verse was what left me feeling unsettled:
"In the end it's worth it
Wouldn't change a thing
In the end it's worth it
In the end it's worth it to me
Gotta wash the kid's clothes.
[There is also the fact that this piece does nothing but list all of the domestic chores of a mother and completely fails to address that women, and mothers, are something beyond laundry and kids, but that's for another post.]

Lastly, is the piece from Marketplace, or more accurately the trailer for the piece. I can't find it archived, but the part that stuck with me was "if you had to do it all over again, would you still have kids?" Or, reworded, "Was it worth it?"

Well, is it? What makes having kids "worth it?" What is the value of being a parent?

Allow me to digress for a moment and admit something. I'm a semanticist. What words we use and what they mean in comparison to other words is very important to me. So, before we discuss why it nearly impossible to answer these questions, we should define our terms.

According to Oxford English Dictionary, "worth" as an adjective is:
1. Of the value of a specified amount or sum; equivalent to (something) in material value.
2. Of (such-and-such) value to a person.
3. Of material value; capable of being estimated in terms of money or some other material standard; valuable as a possession or property.

So, for example, my trip to urgent care. What would have made it "worth" it? What is the material value of being a parent?