How many mothers do you have?
Last night, I was thinking about the most recent surrogate mother to swoop into my life just when I needed one. (By “surrogate mother” I mean a woman who does one or more of the things a biological mother would do with and for me.) I considered just how many of them I have and have had, and as their names whooshed through my mind, I was floored. There are so many.
Do they mind functioning, at least part of the time, as a mother figure for me?, I wondered. So I was particularly taken with this passage from Sandra Tsing Loh’s excellent essay for The Atlantic, On Being a Bad Mother. (I know Sandra, not well enough to judge her mothering skills, but enough to recall that every time I have been around her, she has talked lovingly of her daughters. I also remember her apologizing that she hadn’t baked the chocolate chip cookies she brought to dinner, but had instead asked her children’s babysitter to do it. I distinctly recall thinking, “Sandra’s too smart to be apologizing for such stupid stuff.”) Anyway, check this:
My sister is not my mother, but more than anyone else, she fills that role for me now—like it or not. And indeed all women I know play that role for somebody—like it or not. They herd and feed and remind and buck up and do their best to stuff the nightstand with treats against life’s inevitable horrors and generally expend a great deal of time and energy tending to many different people in many different contexts. The idea of Mother is like an epic, flaming Venus of Willendorf figure, an image of nurturing made up of many parts. Many women accept this role unconsciously or even unwillingly, but it seems someone’s got to do it. To be a mother—even simply to be a woman—in today’s world is to be made exhausted and resentful by a role or set of roles that we don’t recall deliberately choosing.
Link via one of the women who has so often been a maternal influence when I needed one, Nancy “Mommelmann” Rommelmann (whose chocolate chip cookie recipe is the one Sandra was sorry for having her babysitter make).
Filed under: Life
Jackie: Good post. I am increasingly on the view that there is no such thing as a “maternal” instinct*. That is an unfair appropriation of a “human” instinct which one either has or has not. The human instinct morphs based on the needs of a relationship. I have provided care, warmth, attention, advice and tough love to perhaps as many friends as have done the same for me**. Mending of broken hearts, swapping of recipes, buying of indulgent presents and sometimes just essential furniture as well as cooking and freezing food for busy friends are some of the things moms may or may not do for grown children. Some modern friendships, with all their multidimensionality, defy any simple labelling or classification which maps to our existing names for “roles” people play in our lives.
*That is why some people who choose not have children demonstrate far greater skill and patience and encouragement with children than those who have manifestly demonstrated their “maternal” instinct by having a child or eight.
** I have benefited from many mothers and on an appropriate significant death anniversary of my mother, I wrote a essay/ tribute to all those great and loving women and sent it to them. Your post reminded me of how surprised they all were.
Shefaly, those are interesting ideas. Also fascinated by what each of us considers motherly behavior. I usually show it by cooking for people, feeding them, waiting on them so they can relax, helping them pick out nice clothes, listening. I am not great at physical affection (hugs and kisses) with most people, though God bless all my friends who have sort of ignored this and touched me anyway - not in a boundary-violating way, I hasten to add. (And equal thanks to those who haven’t forced me into tactile relations. Both approaches matter.)
The singular most maternal thing - parental, really - anyone can do for *me* is simply to bear me in mind. I’m talking object constancy here. My best friend, texting me this week to ask how I was getting on at my new office and telling me she loves me and was thinking of me, really showed me how much I need that kind of holding in the mind of another. (When they were alive, my paternal grandparents provided this in
spades.)
But I keep coming back to this paragraph of Sandra’s, and wondering if what she expresses is really all that unique to modern women. I suspect this has always been so:
Jackie: Which is why I call it the “human” instinct. It is our basic decency that makes us think about others’ welfare and comfort, often without a desire for or expectation of any kind of return. That lack of expectation of return is probably what people call “maternal” which in my view reduces the efforts of the many who do it for people other than their children.
Agree on different behavioural expectations too. My tribute caught my many mothers by surprise because they had not realised what lessons they imparted just by being. “Object constancy” is a nice word that I like for this phenomenon :-)
Sandra’s line is powerful but it sounded to me as if it comes from someone who is sad and exhausted when she says it. I merely state my conclusion as: “Some modern friendships, with all their multidimensionality, defy any simple labelling or classification which maps to our existing names for “roles” people play in our lives.”.
I agree with Shefaly. In our family, Josh provides a lot of the things associated with mothers - i.e., the chores (ha!) and I do a lot of the playing and comforting and so on - mostly because throughout our relationship I have been the breadwinner and so it’s naturally evolved that way (Josh’s job - he works from home and can do some of the things I can’t because of commuting and what not).
I’d like to think that in 30 years my kids will realize that I worked hard at being a good mom to them (by role modeling a good work ethic and determination, for example) even if I didn’t make them cookies (I buy them - Bakesale Betty’s makes them better than I could ever dream to!). :)
As far as instincts, being a mother is all too often about putting your instincts on one side, and doing the right thing when you’d rather be taking a break! I think being civilised is mostly a learned thing, and that the job of parenting is a demanding, learned job :-)
Is life worse for mothers now than before? I think there’s a unique mismatch between what women my age grew up expecting, and reality. Perhaps this makes life worse for the middle classes who might have had servants and lots of free time for individual pursuits, a couple of generations ago. For others, no doubt things are better.
This mismatch still needs working on, but I think the next generation is already learning somewhat from our mistakes, with women keener on doing what they want when they want, rather than matching up to the Superwoman ideal. Quality of life and flexibility are up, and Mega-success is down, in women’s goals. We shall see… :-)
Shefaly: I really like where you’ve taken this. Just to clarify: When I talk of “object constancy,” I mean in the psychological sense. Some people are simply incapable of holding another in their mind when that person is not in front of them. Sadly, such people do become parents quite often.
Casey: I think the best thing parents can do to put their kids first is to put their relationship first. It seems to me like you and Josh are giving Matthew and Lindsay an amazing example of what a loving, committed, trusting, mature, load-sharing romantic relationship is all about. How well prepared they will be to have their own someday!
Alice: I think you are totally right about women now being more interested in doing what they want when they want, rather than trying to live up to the superwoman ideal. At least that’s true in my world. I love it when I ask a friend about something like, say, preparing all their children’s meals from scratch and they give me this look as if to say, “Yeah, and I’m going to make all their toys, too.” As Chris Yeh is fond of saying, good parenting has a lot to do with lowering of one’s expectations. (Chris likes to say something along the lines that being a parent means accepting that your house is going to be littered with toys and juice boxes for years to come.) I think expectation management is one of the biggest factors in anyone’s happiness, whether they have children or not.