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Book-Geeking Time!
Jan. 11th, 2005 09:48 pmFrom the "I read a new book!" files...
The book I've just finished is one by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels, called The Mommy Myth. (Yes, it has a shitty title. It's still good.) It's about how the media has portrayed motherhood since women's lib around the sixties as some glorious and noble undertaking, about how working mothers and stay-at-home mothers are depicted in pop culture, welfare mothers and their social standing, motherhood and racism, post-partum depression, Andrea Yates, Dr. Laura, modern attitudes towards childcare versus older ones, consumerism, marketing, "yummy mummies"... It's a fascinating read, and articulated a lot of stuff that I never could (like, for example, how we give women with children extravagant lip service on Mother's Day when companies need to sell things but refuse to provide universal government-funded day care or after-school programs in all the year's remaining days). Best of all, it's not soppy. I'm used to people who write books about motherhood going on and on about it being so fulfilling and marvelous and how you've never know true joy until you've had a child and blah blah blah. This doesn't do that- in fact, it admits upfront that being a parent is exhausting, thankless, messy work. I love that. It's also pretty damn eye-opening, especially the part where they're talking about the childcare systems set up in the forties during the war, when women entered en masse into the work force. You could not only drop off your children, but leave your mending there to be done and a list of groceries to be picked up for you. If your kid was sick, no problem- there was an infirmary there, where children could be cared for and receive their shots. You could even pick up a ready-made dinner at the takeaway counter there if you were too tired to cook. That just amazes me- when you look at the childcare programs we have now they absolutely pale in comparison. (Interestingly, they were all disbanded after the war, and after that day-care centers were vilified as tantamount to communism. There are still people who think that, by the way.)
This book is full of quotable bits, and I kept on dog-earing the pages.
"Women without children, wherever they look, are besieged by ridiculously romantic images that insist that having children is the most joyous, fulfilling experience in the galaxy, and if they don't have a small drooling creature who likes to stick forks in electrical outlets, they are leading bankrupt, empty lives." (p. 8) [I want to put that on stickers to slap onto the foreheads of everyone who tells me that I'll "change my mind in a few years." Sure, maybe I'll decide to pop out a few kidlets sometime. And maybe you'll decide to exist solely on broiled human flesh and the warm, salty blood of adorable baby kittens. Hey, it could happen. You might change your mind in a few years.]
"According to postfeminism, women now have a choice between feminism and antifeminism and they just naturally and happily choose the latter. And the most powerful way that postfeminism worked to try to redomesticate women was through the new momism. Here's the progression. Feminism won; you can have it all; of course you want children; mothers are better at raising children than fathers; of course your children come first; of course you come last; today's children need constant attention, cultivation, and adoration, or they'll become failures and hate you forever; you don't want to fail at that; it's easier for mothers to abandon their work and their dreams than for fathers; you don't want it all anymore (which is good because you can't have it all); who cares about equality, you're too tired; and whoops- here we are in 1954." (p. 25)
"One mother wrote [to parenting guru Lee Salk] that her three-year-old son cried whenever she tried to leave him with a sitter. It is our observation that every child ever left with a sitter or at a day-care center cries at some point when the parent leaves- bawls his or her eyes out hysterically, actually- and within two minutes of the parent's departure is happily sticking peas up the nose of some hapless guinea pig." (p. 68)
"Bush even proposed cuts for his own cynically titled 'No Child Left Behind' program, which should be renamed 'Piss On The Little Bastards.'" (p. 265)
"Similarly, the FTC had in 1971 forbade toy companies from using camera techniques such as slow-motion, freeze-frames, or stroboscopic lights to make their toys look way cooler than they really were. (Some consumer activists thoughts it might be deceptive to show Johnny Lightning cars capable of drag-strip speed in the ads, only to get the cars home and watch them move with the velocity of a slug.)" (p. 279)
"Parents choose this educational route for all kinds of reasons, such as horrible public schools, a desire to tailor-make their child's learning, or an insistence that their kids never encounter the words evolution, birth control, or Oscar Wilde." (p. 306)
So yes, that was a good book. Far better, anyway, than Same-Sex Unions In Premodern Europe (alternate title: Admire My Extensive Footnotes, Which Form The Bulk Of This Book!) or The Rise And Fall Of Gay Culture (alternate title: Gay Culture Sucks, Because I Say So- alternate alternate title: We Don't Get To Have Orgies At Judy Garland Concerts Anymore And Queer Teenagers Listen To Nirvana Just Like Those Straight Bastards, And I'm Bitter).
The book I've just finished is one by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels, called The Mommy Myth. (Yes, it has a shitty title. It's still good.) It's about how the media has portrayed motherhood since women's lib around the sixties as some glorious and noble undertaking, about how working mothers and stay-at-home mothers are depicted in pop culture, welfare mothers and their social standing, motherhood and racism, post-partum depression, Andrea Yates, Dr. Laura, modern attitudes towards childcare versus older ones, consumerism, marketing, "yummy mummies"... It's a fascinating read, and articulated a lot of stuff that I never could (like, for example, how we give women with children extravagant lip service on Mother's Day when companies need to sell things but refuse to provide universal government-funded day care or after-school programs in all the year's remaining days). Best of all, it's not soppy. I'm used to people who write books about motherhood going on and on about it being so fulfilling and marvelous and how you've never know true joy until you've had a child and blah blah blah. This doesn't do that- in fact, it admits upfront that being a parent is exhausting, thankless, messy work. I love that. It's also pretty damn eye-opening, especially the part where they're talking about the childcare systems set up in the forties during the war, when women entered en masse into the work force. You could not only drop off your children, but leave your mending there to be done and a list of groceries to be picked up for you. If your kid was sick, no problem- there was an infirmary there, where children could be cared for and receive their shots. You could even pick up a ready-made dinner at the takeaway counter there if you were too tired to cook. That just amazes me- when you look at the childcare programs we have now they absolutely pale in comparison. (Interestingly, they were all disbanded after the war, and after that day-care centers were vilified as tantamount to communism. There are still people who think that, by the way.)
This book is full of quotable bits, and I kept on dog-earing the pages.
"Women without children, wherever they look, are besieged by ridiculously romantic images that insist that having children is the most joyous, fulfilling experience in the galaxy, and if they don't have a small drooling creature who likes to stick forks in electrical outlets, they are leading bankrupt, empty lives." (p. 8) [I want to put that on stickers to slap onto the foreheads of everyone who tells me that I'll "change my mind in a few years." Sure, maybe I'll decide to pop out a few kidlets sometime. And maybe you'll decide to exist solely on broiled human flesh and the warm, salty blood of adorable baby kittens. Hey, it could happen. You might change your mind in a few years.]
"According to postfeminism, women now have a choice between feminism and antifeminism and they just naturally and happily choose the latter. And the most powerful way that postfeminism worked to try to redomesticate women was through the new momism. Here's the progression. Feminism won; you can have it all; of course you want children; mothers are better at raising children than fathers; of course your children come first; of course you come last; today's children need constant attention, cultivation, and adoration, or they'll become failures and hate you forever; you don't want to fail at that; it's easier for mothers to abandon their work and their dreams than for fathers; you don't want it all anymore (which is good because you can't have it all); who cares about equality, you're too tired; and whoops- here we are in 1954." (p. 25)
"One mother wrote [to parenting guru Lee Salk] that her three-year-old son cried whenever she tried to leave him with a sitter. It is our observation that every child ever left with a sitter or at a day-care center cries at some point when the parent leaves- bawls his or her eyes out hysterically, actually- and within two minutes of the parent's departure is happily sticking peas up the nose of some hapless guinea pig." (p. 68)
"Bush even proposed cuts for his own cynically titled 'No Child Left Behind' program, which should be renamed 'Piss On The Little Bastards.'" (p. 265)
"Similarly, the FTC had in 1971 forbade toy companies from using camera techniques such as slow-motion, freeze-frames, or stroboscopic lights to make their toys look way cooler than they really were. (Some consumer activists thoughts it might be deceptive to show Johnny Lightning cars capable of drag-strip speed in the ads, only to get the cars home and watch them move with the velocity of a slug.)" (p. 279)
"Parents choose this educational route for all kinds of reasons, such as horrible public schools, a desire to tailor-make their child's learning, or an insistence that their kids never encounter the words evolution, birth control, or Oscar Wilde." (p. 306)
So yes, that was a good book. Far better, anyway, than Same-Sex Unions In Premodern Europe (alternate title: Admire My Extensive Footnotes, Which Form The Bulk Of This Book!) or The Rise And Fall Of Gay Culture (alternate title: Gay Culture Sucks, Because I Say So- alternate alternate title: We Don't Get To Have Orgies At Judy Garland Concerts Anymore And Queer Teenagers Listen To Nirvana Just Like Those Straight Bastards, And I'm Bitter).