So this is kind of what I was getting at, when I was wondering about the need for secrecy in planning to have and having babies.
Upper-middle-class white people make SUCH A BIG DEAL about pregnancy and babies. They have to read a million books about how to get pregnant, and then they have to make so many decisions about how to have the baby, and what food they should eat, and then after the baby comes they have to buy organic, and they have to plan out care options, and they have to make sure that the child is being stimulated intellectually, and they need to hover around it on the playground to make sure it doesn’t fall down or to point out interesting things that it should look at and learn the word for. It’s easy to forget that in other cultures people just have babies because that’s what happens when you have sex. And they just give birth because it turns out our bodies were made to just give birth already. And then they just raise the baby. And everyone around them helps them raise the baby, because it is just one more member of the community. And how amazing would it be to have a gigantic extended family where everyone just pitched in and took care of each other and made fun of each other and asked too-initmate questions and that’s just the way it was?
It’s also partly what I was thinking when I said (among a whole heap of other incoherent tripe):
I really feel sad thinking about how my own (much more financial resource-rich in comparison) situation will be. That extended network of family & friends, where a baby can be safely passed from one loving carer to the other, freeing up the mother to get on with what she needs to do, and not be bored, sitting at home feeling she has some duty to martyr herself to her child? I won’t have that.
in a comment to this post.
And, strangely enough, despite this entire blog being, in essence, a pretty upper-middle-class, obsessively self-centred bit of navel-gazing about (for now) the possibility of motherhood, that relaxed attitude of just getting on with things with a baby on my hip, and of feeling free to share my experience with friends and family in a completely honest and unembarrassed way, is exactly what I’m aiming for here.
Thank goodness there are these other smart, articulate women out there, who can say it so much better.
Where to start?! This is both incredibly exciting and refreshing. I *love* that you are so willing to share this time and all these thoughts. Although not there yet I’m a sharer and some things just *need* to be talked about, plus I’m pretty sure this will be one hell of a resource when I do get there. So my hugest best wishes on your journey, I’m looking forward to hopefully being here on the way! Xx
Yay! You published it!
I found my cojones
I just love this, and feel this, and yes! Abosultely. Thank you for quoting and sharing and oversharing, time and time again.
it just took me a while to find out how to comment on this thing, ha. and i’ve already emailed you what i needed to say, but i’ll say it again: you’re brave and decidedly not bonkers.
While I’m on a totally different life page, I am excited for you and think it’s only natural you’d want a place to think on this Big Thing.
Thanks guys! You all are superstars for putting up with my witterings, you are.
read this post yesterday, then last night was reading to kill a mockingbird. written in satire, mrs merriwweather (condisending, racist) said in criticism and pity that the Mrunas’ “had so little sense of family that the whole tribe was one big family. A child had as many fathers as there were men in the community. As many mothers as there were women.”
thought of this post.
that’s all.
Mrs Merriweather may have said it condescendingly, but it’s the kind of system I long for. Because then the onus doesn’t fall on me to be the perfect mother, as my child can see better examples of those areas in which I am particularly faulty in the others.
And I’d love to re-read that. I must dig my copy out of a box when we’ve moved.
oops i meant that to this reply not to p’s
You say it pretty well. That’s what we’re going for too. Without the tribe, because we sadly don’t have one. but maybe I’ll just hand them over to complete strangers for a while occasionally.
oh oh oh. i know. *she* said it condescendingly, but harper lee wrote the whole thing in satire. (i think) so, my point (and harper lee’s point) is, yeah, *exactly* in agreement with you.
I guess the thing about strangers is that they only start off being that way. I’m thinking that whatever our childcare choices end up being, I’m going to have to think of them as being part of our village, too.
are you reading the commitment? (maybe you already have) wonderful discussion in the fourth chapter about living among a huge family. making me sad…. sigh. (also for porches. and hot summers, but that is another thing.)
Ooh, no I haven’t started it yet, but I’m doubly looking forward to it now!
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