post-revolutionary motherhood

a comment yesterday to my post about ‘the definition of motherhood’ got me thinking about how we define family and love…

Why does motherhood have to be centered when we talk about primary care-taking? I’m an adopted person. I think of the people who raised me as my parents. But why do I have to? Would I love these folks any less, would our relationship be any different, would they love me any less, if we didn’t all play the charade of trying to approximate a biological family? It’s kinda silly really (and not just because I’m black and my a-family is white). I think of my biological mother and father as my parents as well, even though I’ve never met them. They just are. And while I see the good in expanding our definitions of motherhood/parenthood, I also wonder why these are the only terms we get to use when we speak about primary caretakers.

this got me thinking about my resistance to prop 8.  my resistance to the fight for gay marriage, as in marriage that is legally recognized by the state, is that i dont think that any marriage should be acknowledged by the state.  marriage for the most part and by origin is a religious sacrament.  and having the state certify a religious sacrament seems a blending of state and religion that makes me uncomfortable.  why can’t all people simply apply to the state for a civil union (for the legal recognition) and not have ‘marriage’ be under the control of the state?  there are plenty of churches that perform marriages for all types of unions, so every state in the union already has ‘gay marriage’.  so honestly i have never understood the fight.  back when i first came out, it wasnt about marriage, it was about love and sex and attraction and the responsibility we have to be honest about who we are and the responsibility we have to be honest about who we are with.  so rather than fight to make the term ‘marriage’ more inclusive i kinda want to fight to abolish state-sponsored marriage.

i know that the term ‘motherhood’ (like marriage) still brings out some archaic romantic notions that are smell sweet and salty and soft and rugged, bitter and beloved for me.  but when i first got pregnant with aza, i remember thinking: i dont think i am a mother, i will be more like a big sister.  at the age of 27 i still felt weird to be a mother.

but i like the idea of dropping the term ‘mother’.  and rather than expanding our vision of who ‘revolutionary motherhood’ includes, simply embracing ‘revolutionary caretaking’.  perhaps sooner or later we are going to have admit that the institution of motherhood cannot simply be reformed but must be deconstructed and probably discarded.

because caretaking is revolutionary.  actually, i think that caretaking must be apart of our post-revolutionary vision.  as in ok, after the political revolution is over and we have achieved political freedom…then what?  the skills and art of being able to take care of each other, of the earth, of ourselves is primary throughout the process of creating community

it seems to me that de-centering motherhood (especially the ways it centers women’s biological connections or centers the attempts to re-create women’s biological connections to their offspring and partners) is a communal liberation.  honestly, i see that all members of the community need to be able to be and engage in being caretakers.  i see that this is essential to creating community, to care for the members of that community, to be responsible for them, to deconstruct the nuclear family unit…

my mother says that when she was growing up it wasnt just her mother that she was responsible but everyone in the community.  everyone was ‘family’ whether they were genetically connected or not.  she could be praised or punished by any of them.  there were dozens of eyes and ears watching her. which sounds a bit creepy to me (having grown up in suburbia) but also allowed for my grandparents to know their children were safe and loved outside of their purview.

so i am trying to think of more words to describe this vision.  revolutionary caretakers? revolutionary family?   i am not sure yet about the nomenclature.  but lets keep the conversation going…

the definition of motherhood

what does it mean to be a mother?  i am not trying to wax poetic.  i am trying to get a handle on what does ‘mother’ mean as a social category.  i think that we deny the existence of a lot of mothers when we speak and write as if the central determination of who or better yet what is a mother is that she does the primary care for her biological offspring with whom she carried in her womb for 9 months.

i do this too easily.  speak and act as if becoming a mother is about uterus, ovaries, menses, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, etc.  as if these biological processes define motherhood.  they dont.

at the incite! conference in denver there was a workshop called revolutionary motherhood.  and in it were women who were adoptive parents, godmothers, aunts, folks taking the primary care for their parents, and more.  and i felt this internal twinge, this resistance to calling these women…mothers.

and then i remembered at this conference how it had seemed so clear to me that even though ‘woman’ in comparison to ‘man’ was an oppressed social category, if incite! centered the experiences of women of color  in relation to ‘trans of color’ and marginalized the experiences of transfolk then incite! was being transphobic and oppressive as an organization.

and so if i centered the biologically/primary caregiving-identified mothers as the primary experience of motherhood, then i was marginalizing alot of mothers.  saying that their experiences were not ‘complete’ somehow.  they were ‘kinda like mothers’ but not ‘real mothers’.  and since i was considering some mothers to not be ‘complete’ i considered their lives, their experiences, and their knowledge to be incomplete as well and thus not as important for me to pay attention to.

didnt go to the bar this weekend

my daughter is around 15 months. and once i find that cable that goes with my camera, i promise to post pictures. well, once i find that cable, and figure out windows vista…but that is a different story.

the thing about being a mother is that most of my life feels relatively unremarkable. there are amazing things that happen, but honestly, do i really want to record the first time that she wore a cubs shirt and overalls (thanks dan and rose!)? and how cute she looked? do i really want to write about how she peeks in the bedroom when i am taking a cat nap, and then she scampers away…or how she chases fireflies in the backyard?

i mean these are the endearing moments that i love. and that make all of this (as wanda sykes mocks) worth it. but how interesting is that to anyone who is not on our little pirate ship family?

our friends came by this weekend and spent a couple of hours before they headed to the bar. it was funny. part of me felt jealous that they were going to a bar and i can remember how much fun it is to go to a bar with them. but part of me felt sad for them, because alcohol is so expensive at a bar (ah well, they can afford it) and we could have invited their friends and my friends to a house or apartment and had a great party (for much less money and much more conversation) and i thought how silly that they planned their evening around a place where we couldnt go with a babe (thats american culture for you…no babies allowed) because aza is so much fun at a party.

weekend before last we went to a bar three nights in a row without aza and i felt guilty (she loves a good time) but it was great to go out with my partner without the babe. we got to dance to bad music and hang out and throw darts and not worry about the third person in our little triangle (her grandma was taking care of her and there is almost no one i would trust more) we got to have adult conversation that did not include talk about diapers or teething and we got to miss her. and missing her reminds me how lucky i am to have such a great babe.

the past few days she has been cranky teething and anything that alleviates the crankiness for a few minutes doesnt seem to work the next day. hopefully she is working through it and past it and will return to her happy self soon (knock on wood).

the sad part about our friends as well is that they both spoke of having a child as a huge responsibilty. and it is a huge responsibility. but i got the feeling when they said: yeah we need to be stable before we think about starting a family that they had these white middle class ideals of familyhood dancing in their heads. and i tried to dispel the myths. but i didnt know how to do so without insulting them.

what i wanted to say was: it is a huge responsibility. but unlike most responsibilities it pays you back much more than you can ever give. alot of people concentrate on what they lose. sleep. (ah beautiful sleep), the free open time to fritter away doing nothing, that feeling of autonomy, etc. and these are the things that i miss the most. i miss killing a book in a day just because i have the day off. and i miss the feeling that if i am ‘okay’ well that is all i have to think about. a certain carefreeness toward life.

but look what i didnt lose and look at what i gained. i can act like a complete fool. and i have gained the confidence at saying: fuck the world. i can feel good about myself even though i havent had a pedicure or manicure in months.

i can know that something as abstract as politics matters not because it is my arcane interest but because politics is about who has the power to achieve what they want in the world, and i want aza to achieve everything her heart desires. so what happens in georgia or russia or china or the middle east matters in a way that didnt before.

i have the motivation to become who i want to be in the world because if i dont then she will grow up thinking that she cannot become who she wants to be in the world. i can no longer afford regrets. all of a sudden my audience has changed. rather than what some potential lover or friend or parent or professor thinks of what i do, it is much more important what will she think of what i do. i no longer have a choice about whether or not i express my anger or disagreement or set my boundaries, i have to, or else she will not learn how to. and in a strange way this frees me.

yes i resent american culture. especially american urban culture that thinks that because i am a mom 930 pm is past my bedtime. or my babe’s. (frankly i wish that 930pm was past her bedtime some nights, but she is a night owl like me. and like her grandfather-my father- whom she may never meet) but i will not live in the us forever. and she doesnt care how many people are hanging out, she still insists on dance party time at night.
but honestly i think that people put alot of expectations on themselves to be these perfect lil liberal parents so that they can give their kids the perfect lil childhood. everywoman i have met who doesnt have kids (and a few who do…oh those super-attachement parenting moms!) imagines how difficult it would be to have a kid, a babe, a lil one in their lives. and imagines themselves going to bed at 930 pm everynight. but i think that says alot more about the potential parents than it does the baby.

our kid is adaptable. most kids i know are adaptable. she thrives around people. most kids i know thrive around people. she hasnt had the stable white middle class ideal family life. she has hitchhiked in mexico. she has lived in a van. she has slept in more different beds and rooms than i care to count. she has partied till the early morn. she has gotten bitten by fleas. at two months old she broke her leg and was in a cast for 4 weeks. she has eaten dog shit (ok that part i was not happy about…and my partner and i promptly washed us all up) she has seen a homeopath and a midwife more times than doctor. she thinks an empty beer can is an everyday toy. she has eaten whateva we eat and recently that include sausage, eggs, burritos, seafood, blueberries (man she loved those blueberries) rose petals and hopefully nothing poisonous.

and she has been loved. incredible undeniable love. love that pours out of every crevice of this mama’s body. the kind of love that every mama knows. the kind of love that says: im not the perfect mama, but you are still alive so i cant be doing too bad.

i remember my mother saying something like that. how the fact that i was still alive atested to her love for me. and i remember thinking. crazy selfish lady…keeping me alive is the least of your obligations to me.

i used to think really snotty things. (ok i still think really snotty things, but if you cant be snotty towards your mother what will do you with that necessary attitude?)

now i get what she was saying. she was saying that everyday she lived for me. that she could have been vacationing in the bahamas on her vacations but instead she took me to montreal because she believed in my genius and my desire to learn french. she was saying that she worked at a racist sexist government agency that didnt promote her for nearly a decade so that i could go to the private school that i wanted and i could buy all the books i wanted and i could take the dance classes that i wanted and i could hold my head up high.

but of course learning to hold my head up high…i learned that from her.

and it is what i hope my daughter learns from me.

sometimes i feel guilty that i have it so easy. that i am not a working single mother like my mother. but then i remember that she did all that backbreaking sitting in an office bored out of her mind she is so much more intelligent than her superiors but she has kowtow a little, so that i dont have to kowtow at all.

and i owe her. she could have been a different woman. but she decided to be the kinda woman that took care of her kids.

so yeah…aza…huge responsibility. but its not like you think. its not because i am trying to make sure she gets into the right day care. its because i have to be the person that models (not even teaches…teaching is easy…but i have to live all the visions i want her to consider embracing) the person i am. so that she has freedom to become the person she is.

that is what my mom did for me. showed me how to mix strength and honesty and love. it is a potent mixture. more so than any mixed drink i could get at a bar.