The article "Thinking about the Baby: Gender and Divisions of Infant Care" by Susan Walzer shines a light on a category of life most of us overlook. This article articulates the problem that resides in thousands of homes across the globe about caregiving and gender roles. This article reminded me of the article we read before break about the myth of the maternal instinct. There is no specific gene, characteristic, or quality within women that would allow them to know how to perform as a mother. And it is just that: a performance. This article proves how mothers are under much more intense amounts of pressure to perform as the best mother. Fathers are under much less pressure to worry about their children or worry about how good of a father they are. The article also illustrates an interesting point about fathers' lack of pressure to pay attention and worry abut their children because they have far more pressure to be the primary economic provider. However, this pressure can also translate to a worry in many ways. The father feels he must support the entire family with his career and this could mean a decreased focus on personal happiness and an increased focus on economic growth, which is a reason I think helps perpetuate unjust gender roles in the business sphere. Men gain a notion that they must be the best, earn the most, and be the manliest, but that definition blurrs over time when manhood becomes an animalistic path to something non human. The same way women try to reach an unattainable level of beauty, men try to grasp an outrageously gross amount of money that should actually not be reachable because it only generates close mindedness in a search for the almighty green paper.
In addition to the already over stressed gender roles that exist in the home, there is another worry that persists for women and their babies. The article quotes a mother named Eileen who worries about her "special relationship" with her son Jimmy. Eileen has probably already called a sitter, worried extensively about her son during her occasional dinner out, and worried about coming home to see if Jimmy doesn't want the sitter to leave. Eileen said this was devastating to her as a mother because she felt Jimmy rejected the special relationship they have as mother and son. "If she was not the most special person to him, she was inadequate as a mother." The mothers emotions are driven by insecurities while the father's is driven by fun! The relationship between children and parents gains tension at the earliest of ages and ceases to change as the child grows.
The worries seem to be endless for both mothers and fathers, but for very different reasons. All we can know for sure is that there is no right way to be a parent, but everyone always thinks they are failing at something that is supposed to be instinctual but is actually purely and nonsensically socially constructed.
Molly makes an important point that motherhood is ultimately a gendered performance. I agree that most of the pressure and the anxiety associated with motherhood is a result of the expectation that mothers have this “maternal instinct”. This idea that women are biologically destined to be mothers, but as Molly points out there is no gene or quality that allows for women to preform as a mothers. I also agree with the argument that fathers’ worries and pressure are overlooked. Fathers like mothers are expected to preform a certain way, they are supposed to be the breadwinner. Their success is directly connected to their sense of manliness similar to the way a female’s mothering skills are a direct reflection of being a women. I also think that the only way for such gendered anxiety to cease is if socially constructed roles are eliminated.
ReplyDeleteIt bothers me how much these mothers worry about their kids, especially Jimmy's mother Eileen. It is interesting to see how much these mother worry about their kids, either brought on by societal expectations, or due to sheer worry of being a "bad parent". Quite honestly, I don't see how going out once in a while and leaving your baby with a sitter is the equivalent to being a bad parent; I don't think it would be healthy for a mother to spend every waking moment with her baby. These women are feeling extreme stress and anxiety about parenting, and going out may alleviate some of the stress they feel on a day to day basis. Caring for a baby is an enormous task, and since these fathers are not stepping up to the plate mentally and emotionally, these women are coping with all of the emotions that parents should experience together. Men are not equal parents to the kids; women are the caregivers, and these roles are continually reproduced in today's society.
ReplyDeleteMolly makes a great point in highlighting the social constructions of parenthood and their consequences and discrepancies. I was interested in your suggestion that "mothers emotions are driven by insecurities while the father's is driven by fun!" This idea brought me back to my own childhood, where the classic (and clicheed) 'good cop/bad cop' routine was alive and well in my household. In retrospect, my mother did all the cooking, cleaning, organizing, and homemaking while my dad was the 'fun' one who would take my sister and me out to dinner and movies, buy us ice cream, coach our soccer teams, let us stay up late, etc. I understand that this idea is common in many families; what I understand, now, however, is that my dad was celebrated and rewarded for his actions, while my mother, who was far more involved in our lives, was overlooked. This 'labor of love' that society has created as housework seems like a cop-out to me. As we see time and time again, culture and social standards are in the favor of men.
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