{"id":42623,"date":"2012-05-21T07:51:19","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T07:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/?p=42623"},"modified":"2016-11-14T09:07:46","modified_gmt":"2016-11-14T09:07:46","slug":"conflict-woman-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/conflict-woman-mother\/","title":{"rendered":"The conflict between being a woman and a mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGender equality is linked to the role we give to motherhood,\u201d<\/em> said Elizabeth Badinter after the release of her book \u201cConflict\u201d<\/em> two years ago. It\u2019s recently been translated into English, which is why I\u2019d like to talk about motherhood, in part because it\u2019s causing a lot of debate in the US, and also because we\u2019ve just celebrated Mother\u2019s Day \u2013 or \u201ca celebration of capitalism\u201d<\/em> as my rugby-player son of 18 describes it, conveniently giving him an excuse for having forgotten to buy me a gift, showering me instead with bear hugs and sloppy kisses!<\/p>\n

Badinter goes a bit far when she claims \u201cthat macho men succeed in continuing to dominate women with children by instilling motherhood guilt.\u201d<\/em> She speaks of \u201cvoluntary servitude\u201d,<\/em> where the man\u2019s place at the head of the family has now been replaced by the child\u2019s. It\u2019s true that it\u2019s mainly mothers who are victims of perfection when it comes to motherhood. It starts with pregnancy: no more smoking, drinking, or working too hard, as it might harm the baby; you must go for natural childbirth (especially\u00a0 if you suffer) ; it\u2019s better to breastfeed; prepare home-made organic dishes; feed them on demand; be attentive to their every need (and desires too?), support their intellectual, physical and emotional wellbeing.\u00a0 In short, forget you\u2019re a person, let alone a couple!<\/em>\u00a0 I find these ideas a bit exaggerated, that said, they\u2019re extremely thought-provoking, as it is always the case with Elisabeth Badinter, whose ideas make us question ourselves.<\/p>\n

Is our female identity associated with motherhood?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

You would think so, given the negative response women who don\u2019t want children get, or the compassion towards those who can\u2019t have children, receive! Ever since we\u2019ve had a choice, motherhood is seen as the Holy Grail. The ultimate and essential step for self-development. The masterpiece of a lifetime. But, if we delve deeper, you\u2019ll find that those countries who strongly value the virtues of motherhood are those with the lowest birth rates. Let\u2019s take for example Germany, Italy and Japan, three countries where mothers are put on a pedestal: child support is virtually non-existent (because their societies believes it is a mother\u2019s duty to stay at home) and parental roles are completely imbalanced. It\u2019s no surprise that being a good mother is perceived as a full-time job! In such countries, women first dedicate themselves to their education, then to their careers and, only as late as possible in life, to motherhood, and then only having one child. In such societies, the female rate of activity is rather low because mothers leave the workplaces or greatly reduce their working hours, and the birth rate is extremely low too! It\u2019s as though women are saying, \u201cAs being a mother is so demanding and self-sacrificing, I\u2019m only going to have one child, and only be a mother!\u201d<\/p>\n

Motherhood is a part of our identity only if we choose it to be.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The sacrificial mother, which goes hand in hand with the \u201cking child\u201d, is equally harmful for our own personal fulfillment, \u00a0the happiness of our couple, as well as for the economy and the collective wellbeing. Motherhood is a part of our identity only if we choose to become a mother.<\/em> It\u2019s not the basis for our identity, just as infertility (or not having children) is not the failure of our femininity; you can be one without the other. I would even go as far as to encourage mothers to first develop themselves (emotionally, socially and professionally) so that they can give their best beyond motherhood.<\/p>\n

Solutions?<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, rebalance parental roles<\/em>, and give equal importance to the father and mother: second, stop assuming<\/em> it\u2019s the mother who\u2019s going to take on most of the parenting, and third, stop stereotyping<\/em> and get away from cults who believe in maternal perfection; only then will we empower fathers and liberate mothers.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re good mothers because we aren\u2019t perfect and by accepting we\u2019re not perfect we\u2019re also giving our kids a wonderful gift: accepting them for whom they are!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGender equality is linked to the role we give to motherhood,\u201d said Elizabeth Badinter after the release of her book \u201cConflict\u201d two years ago. It\u2019s recently been translated into English, which is why I\u2019d like to talk about motherhood, in part because it\u2019s causing a lot of debate in the US, and also because we\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42623"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42623"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43960,"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42623\/revisions\/43960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42623"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jump.eu.com\/jup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=42623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}