…opined my 4 1/2-year-old on the way back from school. He thought the concept quite laughable. Whilst I’m flattered, in a way, to be thought of as in a different category to all other women, according to him, it brought me up short.
I’ve been reading unsettling things lately, which has added to my dis-ease (the disease of being a mummy, as opposed to just being a woman). There was that book I picked up about love and marriage. It had a whole chapter on how men are more likely to stray when they are older because the sex gets boring after 20 years with the same person, but mostly because older women are more likely to put up with an affair and not leave because they are less likely to find someone who would want them.
A week later an article did the rounds on Facebook and Twitter by an American woman who, being recently divorced, regretted taking half a career break to be there for her children in the way we are exhorted to do.
Her advice? Don’t do it. Kids cost a million dollars per child and mummy gets screwed in the process – and not in the fun way. We lose our financial security and the ability to make what we were making, and on the path to making, before we took two days off a week to bring expensive, needy, future tax and pension paying, joy into the world.
Is being a mummy and being a woman compatible? A woman can stride through her life, making her own choices, having a room of her own. A mummy is a breeder, someone who is there to serve her children, to be seen to try to fail to mould them into what everyone else thinks they should be like. She literally has to give over her body to her young for at least a year, often two. Her job is to love, feed and clean up.
In the process she becomes financially reliant.
In doing all this she becomes dull. Her body is no longer for sexual subjection (begging a hippo of a question about how we define our womanhood), because it’s given up, handmaid-like, to procreation and protection.
The yummy mummy phenomenon only occurred in the past ten years and purely because celebrities with enormous amounts of money had their children early, by optional cesarean section, so that the final couple of weeks of pregnancy, the ones that see the most weight go on the baby and the mother, were circumnavigated. Then, whilst under anesthetic anyway why not have a quick tummy tuck and maybe a boob job and hey presto, instead of coming out of the maternity ward like a sad sack, expanded and then retracted like a five-day old birthday balloon, they sprang out, gazelle like, Frankenstein stitches hidden under designer garments.
Mostly mummy is not yummy. She’s worn out, socially isolated and fiscally poorer.
Of course she will be a lot poorer if she doesn’t slap on a smile and keep her husband happy.
So why do so many of us do it and others yearn for it?
Love.
As Alice Thompson Elis put it: ” There is no reciprocity. Men love women. Women love children. Children love hamsters.”
Are you serious or confrontational? It is sometimes instructive to pose opposites. What is the future for chummy fathers? I don’t regret the time spent looking after my children. And why the emphasis on sex and not companionship. I have the best children in the world and my wife is my best friend. My heart still leaps when I see her. And if I am to be strictly objective, even thinking about her makes me very happy.
Ah, Charlie! What a lovely response. You and your wife are lucky to have each other and a relationship that you both work on. Your children are lucky to have parents who both value parenting and the time spent doing it.
HK
Thanks Charlie, I was seriously depressed after reading that, your response cheered me up!
me myslef when i had my woman i paid for her for a year she didnt have to work men dont mind paying to keep you i would hope not anyway but i suppose been relient on someone isnt that good i didnt wory about it
Lots of conflicting thoughts.
The financial side is scary. Right now, having kids as a woman does affect you financially. You leave work or go part-time, there may be no road back. You stay full time, you are often still the one who takes days off for sick kids, leaves work early to get to the crèche (and meet disapproval on both points of the journey).
As for the rest, it comes down to what are we *for*? Are women there solely to look good? Do our partners stay with us solely for the sex? This seems like a rather slight existence. To produce offspring? But again, children go, horizons widen, a woman can’t be the whole of a child’s life forever (though she can remain the centre).
Having kids for me was a learning experience, I think I have learnt more about myself in the past few years than in the rest of my life (only working abroad came close). It strips away so many illusions (if your evaluation of yourself doesn’t do it your kids will!) It can cause you to reconsider what is important.
And it doesn’t have to mean you look awful and it doesn’t mean your sex life has to be dismal. But how you approach them may change.
I think others might find this re-evaluation in other ways. I know they do. But when your kid says you can’t be a mummy and a woman, it may be the conception of woman is too narrow, not that of mummy.
The yummy mummy phenomenon only occurred in the past ten years and purely because celebrities with enormous amounts of money had their children early, by optional cesarean section, so that the final couple of weeks of pregnancy, the ones that see the most weight go on the baby and the mother, were circumnavigated
Is there any actual basis to this? I’ve always assumed it was just another misogynist myth to bash female celebrities with (OMG, putting your own attractiveness about the health of your child! YOU WHORE OF BABYLON YOU!) I thought female celebrities’ ability to get their pre-baby bodies back was much more to do with being slim and lovely being their full-time job and that being able to employ a host of personal trainers and nannies to chase them around the gym when the baby is a few months old was an important investment.
Ach, I think there’s a lot of truth in it, in many ways. There shouldn’t be, but there is. I don’t hold with the American insistance on corporate, work til you drop and make lots of money values – I read a piece about how Dutch women work the least, tend not to go back into full time employment, do lunch with thier lady friends, have time for their kids and hobbies and have a happy life, and are considered most content. It was written by an American woman living there and contrasting values, and would have held up wuite well as a rebuttal to the theory this post is based on.
But – well, I find only working part time while child raising to be stressful and unsatisfactory. I don’t have money to pamper myself or go out much, I don’t have the babysitting to go out either, so I’m fairly stuck at home and stressed. It would be nice if my husband was wealthy, but we never managed to attain that, so debt abounds, not comforts.
And yeah, it’s hard to prioritise appearance-maintanence and excercise time. Easier to sit at the computer where no one really sees me…
I think motherhood involved huge sacrifice of the self, and I take my hat off to the women who manage to hold onto themselves – and their relationships! at the same time.
I don’t agree with men love women and women love children though – the balance may tip that way, but men love their children too. There are more and more dads being primary care givers these days, and doing it well.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Blackhall Publishing, The Anti Room. The Anti Room said: "Mostly mummy is not yummy. She’s worn out, socially isolated and fiscally poorer." Parenthood Vs womanhood by @abdelevan http://j.mp/fEGaWc [...]
“So why do so many of us do it and others yearn for it?”
Genetics? From an evolutionary perspective, we exist only to pass on our (selfish) genes. Hence so much of our desire is built around things that increase the likelihood of successful offspring:
- sex
- material wealth (used to protect the offspring from starvation and natural dangers)
- status (used to attract more desirable mates)
I guess the rise of reliable contraceptives separated our desires from consequences, so that we can seek wealth, sex, stimulation and status WITHOUT being stuck with children. However there must be some desire for children themselves, too, not just for things that incidentally result in healthy kids as unintended side-effects. But that desire for children isn’t strong enough to keep most people having huge families in developed countries.
Some conservatives argue that the fall in fertility by less religious, more liberal people will essentially destroy their worldview as they fail to pass their beliefs on to a new generation. They argue that religious conservatives – still popping out babies like there’s no tomorrow! – will outbreed the secular liberals and so will inherit the earth.
“A mummy is a breeder, someone who is there to serve her children, to be seen to try to fail to mould them into what everyone else thinks they should be like. She literally has to give over her body to her young for at least a year, often two. Her job is to love, feed and clean up.”
So many false divisions woman/mother, sexy/unsexy in this post – why such limited binaries? That old whore /virgin thing…or is this a joke? But what nasty stereotyping -
Mothers don’t have to serve or mould their children… or become dull or unsexy – or spend time keeping anyones husband happy… (ps… they also earn cash and climax!)
where the hell do you live -stepford?
Thank you for all your comments. It’s interesting to see what bits resonate with different people.
@Niamh Other, than the part about marraige and infidelity, I wasn’t particualrly refering to sex.
I never said mothers had to do anything.
I was writing about the pressures on them.
I also didn’t say they didn’t earn cash or climax. In answer to your question, I live in Tunbridge Wells. It’s not the most swinging place but, I like to think, reasonably civilised.
@Niamh it seems you missed some of the ambivalence in the post (perhaps you have moved to Stepford?!) This is not about the madonna/whore debate – we all know thats a reductionist argument that undermines us as individuals. The post is wisely questioning how as women, we can examine how externally imposed limitations may reduce our capacity for happiness and more importantly, what can we, as educated women, do to improve things. Also i am interested in how we may define ourselves as women post children. I believe I am more woman now that I am mummy as it has challenged and shaped my self concept in so many ways and because childrearing ideally involves many people, it has really made me question, challenge and value my close personal relationships. Because i have so little time for myself I have had to really work at what gives me pleasure and what doesnt and learn to value myself more. But I am also struck by how hard it is to return to even part time work, how there is a dearth of any social policy re new mothers and how dangerously isolated and ignored mothers can become.. is it any wonder many marriages suffer amidst the conflicting unrealistic demands many mothers find themselves facing? Its as if we have to unlearn everything we were taught as women and try to put our most important needs first
Fabulous post! It is mostly depressingly true!! Especially the part about the hamsters.