When do you know when you are ready to
have a baby? That question is fundamental to today's women. We have so
many choices that it is overwhelming. A few years ago
Sylvia Ann
Hewlett tried to scare us all into getting pregnant by stating that if we're
not pregnant by 27, our best eggs are gone! In her memoir,
Baby Love,
Rebecca Walker posits that
women should stop agonizing over the decision and as Nike says, "Just
do it." She closes the book by saying:
After
all those years of wanting, denying, and being afraid, I stopped
searching and embraced what was right in front of me. It's hard, this
making a family, probably the hardest work I've ever done. But every
day, when I look at my son, I thank the part of me that had the
wherewithal, despite all the doubt and fear, to go ahead and embrace
motherhood, to get on the ride and let it take me away.
I have no regrets.
Don't
worry, I didn't just ruin the book for you. Walker details for us her
journey though her ambivalence towards motherhood, her very tough
pregnancy (both physically and emotionally), and the first few weeks of
her sons life. We know she becomes a mother, but it is the journey that
is so intriguing. Wasn't our journey just as fascinating? Her questions
are ones that should resonate with many of us. Why do we fight the urge
to become mothers? Is it economics? Is it our careers? Is it our fear
of growing up? Maybe we just can't find that perfect partner.
In
her joy of motherhood, Walker does take some awesome leaps of faith and
asks us to do the same. She claims that we will never be at the right
place, have enough money, AND have the perfect partner, but as long as
we have at least one of them, we'll do ok . Walker also states that we
are daughters until we become mothers. This theory has been one of the
most questioned parts of her book in interviews. The last interview I
read, she claims that it means that yes, we do need to have this
journey to become full women, separate from our mothers. BUT...that for
other women, it could be a different journey, for her, it needed to be
motherhood.
What really interested me in this book was the
idea of a daughter of a feminist icon, who is a feminist icon in her
own right, becoming a mother. During my own pregnancy I challenged
almost every feminist ideal I had. My partner & I decided not to
find out if we were having a girl or a boy. We wanted to be surprised.
Yet, I think I drove him crazy with my panic attacks about mothering a
boy. Being the eldest of three girls, what did *I* know about raising a
boy? A friend who did have a boy a few years after me said while
pregnant, "How did *my* body, full of estrogen power, produce a boy?"
We laughed and came to the conclusion that yes, this was the world's
way of telling us that "Gosh darn it, who else is going to raise
feminist men?" Walker discusses the abortion she had as a teenager and
comes out even more pro-choice than before her pregnancy. I would
concur as well. Walker picks apart of the pregnancy industry (Do we
really need designer diaper bags?) as well as what should we call
maternity leave? Parental leave? And the grandmother of all questions:
Can we have it all? Walker says yes; it is just a matter of figuring
out what "it all" means to us personally.
Walker also documents her estrangement from her mother, Alice
Walker. It didn't begin during Rebecca's pregnancy, but their
relationship does end during it. That aspect hit me particularly hard
since I lost my mother to complications of diabetes during my
pregnancy. I know the emotional pain and can't imagine how much harder
it must had been to know that your mother IS alive, but has cut you out
of her life - Just when you need her the most.
"Baby Love" is
a peek into the life of a feminist rockstar child all grown up and
challenging her world view.
Some have tsked at her change of views.
Particularly her honest statement that she loves her biological child
more than her adopted/step-child from a previous relationship. Others
have embraced the fact that she is evolving in a very public way. I
tend to agree. Her willingness to admit that some of the statements she
based her career on just 5 years ago no longer hold water is
refreshing. She's not saying she was wrong, but perhaps that she didn't
have enough life experience. And for us aging young feminists, we know
that all too well.
================================
BABY LOVE: CHOOSING MOTHERHOOD AFTER A LIFETIME OF AMBIVALENCE
by Rebecca Walker
2007: Riverhead Books
$24.95