MMO:
While reading "The Mother Knot," I felt a stab
of envy when I came to the passage that describes you and Jean Rosenthal
organizing a group for women who were "tired of being somebody’s
mother, or somebody’s wife." When my children were very
young, I was desperate to talk about my real feelings with a group
of like-minded mothers. But it’s difficult to create that
kind of setting; in general, mothers are still reluctant to admit
they resent the mandates of ideal motherhood. What happened to consciousness
raising? Do you have any suggestions about how today’s young
mothers and wives can create forums where women can talk honestly
about their lives?
Jane
Lazarre: The
fear you ask about -- of mothers afraid of admitting their own resentment
of the “motherhood mystique” -- is, I would agree, still
pretty formidable. I, along with many of my friends, are still trying
to understand it as it pertains to being the mother of grownup sons
and daughters. We are still, it seems, except occasionally and only
with the most intimate friends, in whispers and occasional confessions,
ashamed of our ordinary human failures, afraid of our children’s
disapproval, terrified of a mystified sense of our power -- that
we have caused or can cause damage to our children with the slightest
limitation or mistake. We seem as determined as ever to live up
to the impossible and tyrannical idea of the perfectly “good
mother,” an idea that has proven itself to be literally maddening.
In the 19th century, many women who were new mothers suffered breakdowns,
were hospitalized for many years and in large numbers, because of
the inability to live up to this false and destructive ideal in
actual, ordinary life. This tragic history is well documented in
fiction such as The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins
Gilman and in studies such as Elaine Showalter’s The Female
Malady. In Toni Morrison’s great novel, Beloved,
forces of racism and maternal desperation converge to create a searing
exposure of American history -- its collective and personal “deep
story” (Morrison’s phrase) -- from a mother’s
point of view. It saddens and angers me that the literature that
helped my generation of feminists to understand our condition in
both political and deeply intimate ways is now so often untaught,
unread, unknown by young women. Women friends, whether in personal
relationships, informal groups or more formal discussion/reading
groups, do not have to reinvent the wheel. The same goes for women
my own age, mothers of grownups who are struggling to create and
sustain relationships with our children which both respect boundaries
and expect reciprocation. We can begin, as we always did, with our
own stories, but if the stories and narratives that have gone before
are not used, then we are truly sabotaging our own possibilities.
This is not to say the
effort is any easier now than it was a generation ago. There is
nothing more threatening, for me at least, than telling the truth
when it might hurt or anger someone I love, and there is no one
I love more than my sons, or when it might provoke public criticism
and contempt, as honest writing can often do. And we live now in
a time of regression and reaction, so I do not mean to suggest any
of this is, or ever was, easy. I do have faith, though, in the importance
and potential transcendence of personal story telling -- in private
groups of like minded people, in intimate confessions, as an aspect
of political organizing, and in works of art.
mmo : july/august
2005
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