While she gives lip service to mothers who can’t afford not to work and repeatedly (even obsessively) refers to the “middle class,” her definition of middle class so clearly encompasses only educated, professional women like herself, the ones who inhabit “middle and upper middle class enclaves where there was time and money to spend,” a phrase she neatly tucks away inside parenthetical dashes, as if the obviousness that that is where “we” live hardly need be acknowledged. Sorry, babe, but I’m your age, educated, and professional, and I was never one of those “good daughters of the Reagan Revolution” who “disdained social activism and cultivated our own gardens with a kind of muscle-bound, tightly wound, uber-achieving, all-encompassing, never-failing self control that passed, in the 1980s, for female empowerment.” Neither were my friends and neighbors, in all the true diversity of their class backgrounds. In fact, a lot of us spent the 1980s problematizing precisely the scary pseudo-feminist “we” Warner relies upon so heavily, apparently unaware that the pronoun excludes as fiercely as it includes.
But lots of people have pointed out Warner’s class bias. Time for some original ranting.
The thing that really got me going was a photograph of a
Sorry, but we are post-Foucauldian now, and I believe in agency, at least when it comes to the small stuff. You are a grown-up. There are two kids back there. They can keep each other company. Someone else is driving. From the passenger seat you can reach around and get whatever they need. And they’re asleep. They don’t need you. What the hell are you doing back there? Get in the front seat right now!
I know people who do this, who sit in the back seat with their kids, and (sorry, have to go Dooce on you) I. Just. Do. Not. Get. It. What is achieved by this, besides making your kids believe they are the center of the universe, infantilizing you (and have you noticed that it is always the mom who sits in the back seat?), and creating a barrier between the parents? I’d really love to know why people do this. Children have been fine alone in the back seat since the invention of cars. Why on earth they need their parents there--besides on that first drive home from the hospital, when I must admit that I sat with M, though when we brought E home, M sat with her and I sat in front where I belonged--is beyond me.
And while we’re at it, the other thing I don’t get? Not taking a shower. When I was pregnant with M and I heard new mothers complaining that they never got around to taking a shower, I vowed that would never happen to me. And it didn’t. And it was easy. Put child in carseat (because we were too cheap for one of those little bouncy seats, though that would work too). Put carseat in door of bathroom. Take off clothes. Get in shower. Peek around shower curtain and wave at baby. Soap. Peek around shower curtain and wave at baby. Shampoo. Peek around shower curtain and wave at baby. Rinse. Get out. Give baby a kiss. Dry off. Give baby another kiss. Get dressed. Take baby out of carseat and go on with your life. It took five minutes. The baby was fine. Or she cried. For five minutes. And when I got out, I stuck her on the boob and she was fine. End of story.
I tell you, I just don’t get it.
5 comments:
My two cents on riding in the back of the car. I have a two year old and four year old. On long trips I will still occasionally ride in the back of the car. It's not because my kids are the center of the universe, or to create a barrier between my husband and I, or anything else that psychologically significant. It's because it often makes for a much more pleasant car trip for all of us. Yes, the kids can and do entertain each other, but I get tired of reaching around the seat multiple times to grab the cup/book/toy etc. that they dropped on the floor again. It's easier to do this from the backseat. Also, I work full time, and don't get to spend as much time with my kids as any of us would like. Long car trips can be a good time to pay some extra attention to them, which they would not get in the front seat. As babies, both had reflux and would randomly throw up all over themselves in the carseat. Much easier to handle that from the backseat than the front seat. There can certainly be valid reasons for being in the back. And, as far as my husband is concerned, our cars are not that big. Physically I fit better in the back. Also, he prefers to drive, I don't. No gender dynamics at play. Not (really) trying to rationalize her, just pointing out that, like any choice, things aren't always black and white.
That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Thanks.
What's even worse than Mom riding in the back with the kid is the Mom riding in the back so the kid can ride in the front. I always told my kids I didn't grow up to ride in the back seat. When they got their own cars, they could ride in the front. I belonged to the Put Them in the Back Seat and Let Them Deal With Life and Each Other school of car trips. And they were fine. My theory is that adulthood needs to look better than childhood, or why grow up?
WOW Becca--I am SO with you on BOTH points. I have made them myself to others--using the same examples--on several occasions.
There have been times in my seven and one half years' worth of parenting, sure, that I've ridden in the back for part of a long trip to soothe a bored toddler or lonely infant. And yes, there's been a day here or there that I've skipped a shower--sometimes it's too much work. But "never" getting to take one? Never riding in the front seat? (I understand if it's a choice like Anon said, but the moms I know who are backseat-riders tend to do it with an air of resignation.) Sometimes you just have to take on some authority and say yes, I AM going to get a shower, and yes I AM going to sit in the front, because by golly, I'm a grownup, I pay taxes and buy groceries and this is my payoff!
Hey, my $.02 on riding in the back seat. I did it for a while with Rebecca when she was rear-facing. She HATED riding in the back by herself when she was an infant so if we were all together, I sat back there with her a lot. Eventually that stopped but I would occasionally sit back there if she was sad because I couldn't stand driving around with her crying hysterically. The new baby won't get that since there's no way I'll fit between two car seats in the back of our car.
-Aimee
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