 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 To become a member of our contributor/reader mailing list fill out the form below:
Visit Wo!'s MySpace:
|
Perspective: Mother superior Everywhere she looks some new mother is trying to coax her into a life of nappies and screaming tots. Sally Holtz wonders when her choice to remain childless became illegitimate. December 2006
One weekend last month, I was reminded of this line. More specifically in regards to motherhood. What irritated my existential sensibilities was a trip to visit a colleague of my partner’s, who had recently given birth. Within the ubiquitous candy-striped walls, we came bearing champagne and offering congratulations before coming to perch on hideous floral armchairs. While all those present nattered about office politics, I did my best to look interested in the wrinkled pup. The fact is, I’m not maternal. At all. When mothers sit next to me in cafes with their squealing brood, I change tables with pursed lips. When friends pause at the windows of Pumpkin Patch to marvel at tiny booties and jumpsuits, my eyes glaze over. This in itself is not remarkable in the least, but what seems to me outrageous is the overriding opinion, amongst women, that as a female, I will eventually fall into a lulling maternal mode which opens my existence to the ‘transcendent world of motherhood’. On noticing my (feigned) curiosity about her new possession, she startled me when, in pleasured condescension, she announced, “don’t worry – it’s all ahead of you”. A good deal of involuntary nostril-flaring on my part ensued, and thanks to the hasty excuse-making of my observant partner, I was relieved of my duty. The following morning, as my mother was giving my partner and I a lift to our second chore of the weekend (my niece’s third birthday), I was telling her about the incident from the previous day. That’s when the second bomb hit. In response to my story, my mother snapped, “well, don’t be too negative about it – you shouldn’t discount motherhood totally”. With some more nostril-flaring we pulled up in a leafy North Shore street amidst baby-seated Mercedes and BMWs. My sister, you see, is a corporate lawyer – or was, before she gave up work to be a ‘stay-at-home’ mum (the real issue was that while she was ‘having to work’, her other mummy friends were able ‘stay home’, which really meant going to tennis and shopping while the children were taken care of by nannies). In the garden, irritable munchkins pushed one another over to gain better space on the hired jumping castle while polo-shirt wearing fathers discussed the latest rugby union match, and their pearl-necked wives interrupted each other about the advantages of ‘Pymble’ over ‘Queenwood’. Already visibly out of place, my partner and I deposited our gift on a table - already piled higher than my shoulders with a spectacle of bows and sparkled paper - and found a quiet corner to guzzle ‘adult cordial’ and pink-frosted cupcakes. The day ticked over slowly, and by the afternoon, the mothers had gathered inside, with their sugar-soaked savages at their feet playing ‘pass the parcel’. Each child, having learnt the art of acquisition well from their parents, clung to the decorative lump for as long as possible, extending their chubby digits to maintain contact in case the music indeed stopped for them. That’s when the third blow came. Standing offstage, I witnessed a vile display of woman-hating from the pearl-trussed yummy mummies toward the only single (read: defective) woman at la petite soirée. After she had remained suitably under the radar, questions about her recent time overseas came up, and suddenly she was snared. The cacophony of comments flooded over her: “Oh, I hope you enjoyed it, because soon enough you’ll be up to your neck in nappies like us!” followed by, “yes, but it’ll be the best thing you ever do!” Murmurs of agreement were followed by the stammering of the toothiest mamma that: “Motherhood makes you so much more attractive to your husband – mine couldn’t believe his luck when my boobs reached D-cup!” Hoots of faux-bashful laughter resulted and they then began sharing embarrassing stories of revitalised sex lives, much to the awkward horror of the single girl who no doubt had a better sex life than all of them put together. There’s only one thing worse than men limiting women, and that’s women limiting women. Talk has been made of women reclaiming domesticity as a legitimate way of ‘being’, but must it come at the cost of hampering difference? There are many of us who choose not to become mothers. We may choose not only a career (which has endless problems in itself in terms of living authentically) but also relationships with others, traveling, learning, connecting with the world and many other things. Why is this considered any less of a life than that of raising other people? I was told at school, some years ago now, that women could and should do anything they want. How has it come to be that so many women have obtained first class degrees and end up perceiving non-motherhood as a lesser life? Perhaps Beauvoir leads us to the answer, “Pregnancy is above all a drama that is acted out within the woman herself,” she wrote. Maybe she highlights the way in which mothers come to feel paradoxical about their own way of being. In any case, it is certainly not the only way of being. |
“Marriage is the destiny traditionally offered to women by society,” or so declared French thinker Simone de Beavoir on the situation of women in the mid 20th century.