Those damn hormones!
Bookworm on Mar 17 2007 at 11:29 am | Filed under: Feminism
Here’s the lady’s bio, which reads like a nightmare or a free spirit’s life, depending on your world view:
Left to her own devices by parents she thought were preoccupied with their careers, Rebecca Walker experimented with drugs, had sexual encounters with men and women, and had an abortion at 14.
But by the time she was an adult, she was writing about intergenerational feminism (her godmother is Gloria Steinem), and had helped found the Third Wave Foundation, a philanthropic group for women ages 15 to 30, becoming a symbol for young women who may not have considered themselves feminists.
Symbol though she was, Ms. Walker also cultivated a private life, and in her 20s was in a serious relationship with another woman.
Who is the lady? She’s the daughter of African-American novelist and feminist icon Alice Walker and civil rights lawyer Mel Leventhal. What makes Ms. Walker interesting is that she met her biological destiny, in the form of her two year old son, Tenzin:
Today, however, Ms. Walker, 37, has become what she called a new Rebecca, one who has a male partner, a child and some revised theories about the ties that bind, which she explores in a new book, “Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence” (Riverhead), to be released on Thursday. A review appears in The Times Book Review today.
Its inspiration? Her son, Tenzin, 2, who is named after the Dalai Lama. (Ms. Walker’s father voted for Chaim and lost.)
Gone is the sexual experimentation and, especially, gone is the belief that men and women are pretty well interchangeable. Instead, in their place is a woman who has turned in a 1950s kind of gal:
The book explores the usual pregnancy topics like food intake, genetic counseling and the doctor-versus-midwife debate, and reveals that Ms. Walker is now estranged from her famous mother.
But it is also unusual in that it is a pregnancy book with a message for women who are not yet pregnant, amplifying a theme Ms. Walker sounds on the undergraduate lecture circuit.
“I keep telling these women in college, ‘You need to plan having a baby like you plan your career if it’s something that you want,’ ” she said. “Because we haven’t been told that, this generation. And they’re shocked when I say that. I’m supposed to be like this feminist telling them, ‘Go achieve, go achieve.’ And I’m sitting there saying, ‘For me, having a baby has been the most transformational experience of my life.’ ”
And so Ms. Walker has become the latest to lend her voice to the long-running debate of work versus motherhood, a trade-off that to younger women probably no longer seems as stark as it did to Ms. Walker.
How very troubling for a movement when its icons publicly announce that the chosen path is an empty one.
As for me, I haven’t found children to be my personal be-it-and-end-all. I often miss my selfish old pre-child life of living only for myself. Selfishness exists because, until boredom sets in, it’s very pleasant. I don’t, however, regret having my children, tiring though they may be, and that’s not only because I love them.
I believe that, regardless of their biological age, people don’t fully grow up until they begin to take responsibility for others. I don’t responsibility in the form of being a manager who has to handle a payroll or some such thing. I mean finding yourself in a role where other’s lives immediately depend on you. Children are the most common way in which most people find themselves in this role: If you’re not there for the children, both in terms of providing for their physical and emotional needs, they are lost.
Whether you have biological children, or adopt, or foster, or whatever, the responsibility for a child is the one job that most clearly and instantly separates you from your own childhood (the time when you looked for others to take care of you) or from your young adulthood (a time when you cared for yourself), but for nobody else. In that way, I think children are every person’s biological destiny — man or woman — because it is a necessary step in the trajectory of healthy maturity.
That’s my two cents. What are your thoughts on anything I’ve said here? (Feminism’s failure? Whether people need children to grow? Anything else?)
The reason I’m asking these last questions is because so many of my posts don’t elicit a lot of feedback. I can’t figure out if it’s because many of my posts are such comprehensive little universes that there’s nothing to add or if there’s something else going on. After I’ve had my say on a subject, I really do enjoy listening to what everyone else has to add, especially because I usually learn a lot from the breadth of knowledge and insight you all possess.
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19 Responses to “Those damn hormones!”
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The thought that struck me reading this post was not the meaning of growing up but, based on cases both famous and otherwise, the seeming ease that some women have flipping between gay and straight.
Life is about serving others. Feminism failed because it was never about others - it was (and is) all about ME. Making a committment in marriage means you give up your 24/7 right to yourself . You serve each other. Having children means that you give up your right to yourself many times an hour, many times a day. You certainly don’t need to be a parent to escape from a self-absorbed life. But damn, it’s great to see someone who looks like the two of you (more or less) making a home run or getting an A or being kind to a dork when he doesn’t know you are looking.
What are your thoughts on anything I’ve said here?
I won’t know those until you tell me, Book.
After I’ve had my say on a subject, I really do enjoy listening to what everyone else has to add, especially because I usually learn a lot from the breadth of knowledge and insight you all possess.
Oh, if you want the insights that come from me that didn’t originally start with you… that’s a different proposition.
The reasoning behind my first crack is that your reasoning is not only very thorough and detailed, Book, but is also a hard act to follow up on. If I don’t have anything original to say or if no other commenter brings up a subject that I believe I have something useful (to me or others) to comment on, then I can’t think of anything to say that hasn’t already been said.
What makes my first sentence here funny to me, is only because most of my replies to your posts were either sourced from things I’ve already thought up or things I just started figuring out as I started writing a reply. So while reading your more complete posts, my thoughts are your thoughts for the duration.
(and yes, that is a also making fun of Greg and Co)
And even now, I’m a blank.
I can’t figure out if it’s because many of my posts are such comprehensive little universes that there’s nothing to add or if there’s something else going on.
The only thing I can say is that don gets a lot of responses, I think, primarily because his format is that of an argument (legal or debate). He presents his side, and then he launches the ball into your corner, as a challenge. If you don’t mind me saying so… you do not really give off the sense of presenting someone an aggressive challenge. I like that of course since it makes reading you not only very easy, but also very relaxing. Which cannot be said for other blogs, most any other blog really.
You’re a person who seems to take on both sides of an argument at the same time. Leaving nothing to talk about.
It is as if eating at a buffet to fullfillment, and now I don’t want to do anything, including move around. (work the subject)
That’s my two cents. What are your thoughts on anything I’ve said here? (Feminism’s failure? Whether people need children to grow? Anything else?)- Bookworm
I believe that feminism is a failure because it is based on a set of falsehoods that many women reject, particularly once they have children.
I don’t, however, think that people need children in order to grow, and am reminded of Oprah Winfrey, who has spend millions of dollars and will spend millions of hours helping other people’s children.
You need to be dedicated to helping others, and be willing to sacrifice your own selfishness for a greater good, though. But procreation is certainly not the only way to go.
Ditto Ymarsaker #3 - BW, your posts are very well thought out and totally absorbing to read. If you are a trial lawyer, maybe you habitually think out your side and the opposition to be prepared and that does cover it. Sometimes when you post about Bookids school issues I withold comment because I’m so negative toward govt. education and what it has wrought - especially among their most captive audience -that it would just be repetitive to keep slamming away.
I don’t generally comment on your writing because I usually don’t have a dog in the hunt. For instance this topic holds no interest for me. I like reading you because the topics are varied and ,I suppose, things I should learn something about. You do present a cogent argument, even on topics where I disagree.
I don’t have children, but I do have a huge extended family. I have watched lots of children grow up and have talked about them with their parents–my cousins, aunts and uncles. I agree with you that having a child does make you grow up and accept responsibilty.
But there is something more. It is a broadening of experience that enables one to stand up to the “experts.” It is the swapping of stories–”My Billy did that too.” “Do you know what your aunt did about that?”
Here in Germany one often hears young women say that it is a waste of their education to sit on a park bench and watch kids. The older I get, the more I am convinced that watching kids grow up is the best way to learn about human nature.
Bookworm -
If people do not leave many comments to your post, it is most certainly because of the way you write your posts. You present your thoughts in a logical manner but also in a style that is somewhat similar to an op-ed piece (a good one, though - not like the ones in the Washington Post or other papers that raise my ire and force me to write a response!).
Also, I probably do not respond to your pieces much because I agree with you on so much. Your work is just nice to sit back, read, and absorb.
As for the content of this piece . . . I would like to say that you are incorrect and that most adults become responsible regardless of whether they have children. Jobs, paying bills, and participating in activities typical of adulthood should be enough. But I don’t think those are what does the trick.
Unfortunately I have not yet found a man with whom I am willing to spend the rest of my life. And I’m not about to go out and have a baby on my own. My “aloneness” certainly separates me from friends and others who are married and have children but there definately is an additional difference beween them and me.
I would like to say that the difference is not due to any immaturity or irresponsibility on my part. I truly don’t think it’s that. It’s more an issue of perspective. Folks who have been married and have children always seem more “settled,” more at peace with their situation. They always seem more able to take things in stride and don’t get as rattled when there is upheaval in their lives. Perhaps it is because they know their most important job is raising that child so everything else sort of takes care of itself.
Meanwhile I tend to get anxious and worry over everything. And I suspect that is because, other than my job and things to do at the house, I am not responsible for anyone else (other than my adorable little dog!).
Yes, I do adult activities all the time. I work, pay my bills, spend less than I earn, drive carefully, vote, and clean up after myself. It’s just that I know that having lots and lots of uninterrupted “me” time probably makes me selfish in certain ways and less likely to focus on the long term. And those are characteristics that are more consistent with childhood.
Deana
I don’t think Book’s point is that you have to have a child to be a responsible adult, but that this path is what most people take as they progress. Certainly she includes the US military, young and old, when she says that people become responsible when they are responsible for protecting another life.
There are always serious folks around, who have always had a personal streak concerning duty and responsibility, from early on. And that may be genetic, fate, or otherwise, but regardless that also does not fit into the template of “must have children”.
Book: although I agree with you on the broader implications of being a parent - the most important and creative thing that I have ever done - I would also argue that, for the sake of the children - there are many people that should never become parents. By this, I mean people that are not emotionally configured to be parents AND people whose professional demands make them absentee parents.
My spouse and I made significant professional sacrifices so that we would be able to spend time with our kids. But, SOMEBODY has to do those jobs that we opted out of.
All this has quite serious ramifications - Japanese worklife is not conducive to having two working parents, for example, and their demographic profile is a disaster. Ditto for Eurabia. So, what’s the solution? Personally, I don’t know the answer.
Solution will probably come through robotics, advanced AI, or increased longevity. Which means, longer youth, not just “longer at staving off death”. If anti-gerone treatments could be produced, ala sci-fi, then we will truly be elves. With lifespans numbering in the centuries, and with the ability to procreate, extended by decades, if not centuries.
Robotics because it will create more free time by compressing what needs to be done by humans into a small segment of the time slot. Advanced and either semi-conscious dumb AIs or fully conscious intelligent/wise AIs, is the direct counter-part to robotics in the field of mental work, as robotics is to physical work.
By making people more productive, efficiency is achieved, and through efficiency, many more options are open. Of course with advances in bio-technology, nano and robotic technology, as well as software programing, eventually these 3 fields should all meld together to form the man-machine datalink, which allows human beings to directly communicate with the machines that work with us.
But all this will not make someone desire to have children. It will just make it more feasible. Economic feasibility is part of desire, but I don’t tend to think that having a good economy or career (Europe) automatically makes people desire to have children. Perhaps it is the high tax, the notion that no individual is free to plan his future or invest his wealth… Freedom, there is little of it, and when there is little of it… people don’t tend to take risks like the Oregon Trail. And children are definitely are a risk.
Thanks for the kind words all. I’m going to address Deana’s post, because there’s so much in there that I agree with. I was one of those typical modern women who delayed for a long time having children. Like Deana, I wasn’t going to jump on the first man I saw to make baby, nor was I going to go it alone. I held very responsible jobs, was completely reliable, did fewer stupid things than many of my peers, and was definitely a grown-up. I was a good member of society.
Nevertheless, I was also still a little girl in my own mind because I always felt as if I was just pretending to do all these grown-up things. I always felt that, when I got into an elevator full of lawyers - and this is after I’d been lawyering myself for several years — that they’d all turn and yell “Aha! We know you’re just pretending.” My feeling looking back was part of this sense that my life as an adult was a giant charade was because I knew that I could always just step off the stage, and become a slacker. I had no desire to do so, but the possibility was always there.
Children changed that. There’s no going back. Although my children are finally getting old enough to know it’s not so, for many years I was an omnipotent being to them. I constantly felt like Spiderman (”with great power comes great responsibility”). There was no getting off this stage. My children had affixed me permanently to the grown-up pedestal. The only way I’m going to leave it is when I’m old enough to enter my second childhood.
So Deana, I think you’re making the absolute right decisions (probably because they’re the same ones I made). However, for me, I never stepped into the reality of my maturity until I felt that it was irrevocable.
Re Y’s #9: Absolutely correct that there are many paths to overarching, mature responsibility. The military is certainly one route. As long-time readers know, I’ve advocated a universal draft, akin to the one they have in Israel. First, I think it would be a great social leveler (black, white, brown, rich, poor, Southern, Northern, etc.). Second, I think it would instill a grievously lacking sense of patriotism. Third, I think it would help kids grow up. Our four year colleges seem sometimes to extend the most dangerous parts of adolescence, with “hooking up,” binge drinking, eating disorders, and all the other dangerous habits that seem to plague college campuses. Having kids come to college at 20, after two years of rigorously serving their country might create a much more dedicated college population, that really could benefit from its time there (and, by the way, recognize for what it is all the indoctrination spewing from the faculty).
Incidentally, this isn’t just a kind of emotional NIMBY view, one that I espouse because I’m too old for a national draft. I already thought it would be a good thing when I was back in high school, having seen what a useful social tool it was in Israel. I certainly wouldn’t mind it for my own kids.
Bookworm,
I agree with many others who post comments here that your articles are well thought out, such that there is often little of relevance to add! But as you can see, sometimes we will add comments.
I enjoy your site tremendously because it is an oasis of relative calm. Do you often have to police rantings and ravings in your comment section by removing them or editing them? Or rather is it your own courtesy and thoughtful approach - rather than the baiting we see elsewhere - that leads to the simple civilized approach that I see here? I’d like to know. I ask because the comment section is remarkable for its courtesy and thoughtfulness.
On the specific topic - feminism and child-rearing - I believe that the current state of Western civilization is one that treats child-rearing as secondary. The traditional society we came from is a society where women were expected to assume the role of mothers and child-rearing as their primary occupation. The rigid roles for men and women have been discarded. I am not advocating either a return to those roles nor an acceptance of the status quo.
It is not capitalism that has caused this; birth rates for Europeans within Westernized culture have plummeted and they’re hardly capitalistic. Men and women have discarded the traditional roles and are now living lives where a focus on having and raising children is simply seen as irrelevant or not worth the burden. Establishing a career and advancing it is diametrically opposed to establishing a family and advancing it.
Until we find a way to ESTABLISH A CULTURAL NORM wherein it is possible for a man and a woman to establish and advance their careers and also establish and advance a family, we will continue to struggle with this. And the raising of children in a healthy Westernized society will continue to be a significant problem.
Of course we will add comments if Book says there is a need for them. How can we let her down?
Book, I believe your desires would be better served via a fifth branch of the military, called the homeguard corp. Why? Because, it is a good compromise between universal service and of course the professional military. Since people only in it for 2 years are… not going to be there long enough to become a “professional” (that takes about 10 years more or less), we don’t want them fighting our wars. If only because more of them will die, by making mistakes they cannot avoid. And of course, pushing children into wars to mature them, is perhaps unethical on its face, unless everyone is facing annihilation or slavery.
By having a Fifth Branch of the military, we combine such things as the Peace Corps with such things as military discipline, because after all who will be the ones training the Home Guard? Active military, they will be the trainers, until the HG produce their own people, which should be just as potentially good if we get SF/Marine trainers, i.e. Iraqis being trained.
Perhaps as a reward for the best unit, we may send their regiment overseas to the war front, or the lesser rewards would be to be sent to other countries, at peace. Since they are not there to “keep the world wide peace and stability” as the Army and Marine Corps do, they are kept separate as an entity, just like AF is kept separate from Marine Corps. Why? Because the Marines serve different functions than the Zoomies. And so do the HOme Guard serve different functions.
You do know, Book, that this is a variation on “war solves all things” right? By militarizing such things as the border and border recruitment of illegals, we take the lessons learned from the active military to apply to the civilian sector. Many people are uncomfortable with this. Or even if they are not, and are just lying about being for a draft, they still don’t know how to do it in the most effective manner.
I think to do it right, requires building an entire institution from the ground up. Since I tend to think the military institution we have now isn’t broken, so they shouldn’t try to fix it… especially since it would be the government trying to fix things.
Do you often have to police rantings and ravings in your comment section by removing them or editing them?
I think by then the problem would have gone beyond the ability to handle. I am most reminded of Neo-Neocon and her problems with abusive commenters. I think when you create an environment of “leniency” and “freedom” (1st Amendment), that in order to sustain it, you must be required to lay down the iron fist of law and order. Don fullfills this requirement of being the enforcer in some ways.
But primarily, it also has to do with what commenters come here to do. Do they come here to start arguments, and to argue? Or do they come here to read, discuss the comments, and await for Book’s next post?
Because if you have too many people, and then on top of that, too many people who argue for argument’s sake… well it kind of snowballs. Arguers, attract more arguments and more people who like to argue. So I think if Neo had been more forceful at putting her foot down and crushing some people (which Bush is similar to also), peace and tranquility could reign supreme.
Which is why also classical liberals like Neo, who believe in freedom of speech, letting everyone have their say, and so forth… also need barbarian warriors to enforce the law, to enforce the order, from those who would wish to use the graciousness of the host(s) to disrupt the peace.
It is why the West currently needs the US military most of all. To fight brutal people, because the values of the West (liberty, prosperity, freedom) are no match against the Islamic jihad without the brutality and ruthlessness of less civilized people.
Bookworm Room is a very scaled down model of macro politics and climes. Even the internal matter of US law is a scaled down model of the sheer chaos in the rest of the world, it just isn’t as scaled down as a blog. As you go down the scale, order is more easily imposed and maintained, and less easily disrupted. Because there are less people involved, less variables to control and remember. A direct democracy may not work for 300 million, but it would work for say.. a couple of tens or hundreds on a plane in deciding what they will do about the hijackers.
But still. Neo is a good example of what occurs when you allow people to think of you as weak, and an easy target. Or allow vulnerabilities to crop up. One of the most important factors, after all, is the vulnerability of your commenters. If they are emotional, hysterical, or prone to mindless prejudice, bad things can happen even without a systemic campaign of revolutionary upheaval. If they are tranquil, full of tranquilizers, and are not easily disturbed or provoked into a reaction out of anger, then the vulnerabilities will be less easily exploited.
But of course, I must be fair to Neo. Her choice of titles… (Neo-Neocon) was perhaps the red flag in front of the bull so to speak. Whereas Book with the “Bookworm Room” is perhaps… not the cup of tea of most political advocates and partisans. Given their interest in partisanship… and not reading. I’ve noticed that many times when Neo has replied to one commenter or another…. those who criticize Neo simply does not know how to read, because what they are reading is not Neo’s words but their own mental distortion of what they are seeing.
I think the cultural norm Mike was talking about can be fullfilled by what John Ross recommended. Which is… have children in your early 20s… and THEN pursue a career in your 37s or 40s.
John Milton was after all an enlightened kind of guy for his century, but we have even more enlightened men in the here and now. The point Ross made, of course, is that successful men usually are trying to find a someone to start a family with, and youth matters given the biological clock.
Thank you, Mike (#14). In answer to your question, the debate here is almost invariably civil. When people get a little testy on hot topics, they always graciously apologize, both to me, as the bog’s proprietor, and to anyone else who might be “listening in” to the comments section. In the almost 3 years I’ve had this blog, I’ve only deleted 3 comments, and that was for obscene or abusive material written by people who had not commented here before and who have never again returned.
It is a great source of pride to me that my blog is a place for such civil debate. To me, this kind of debate is the essence of the marketplace of ideas, a site where people explain and defend their own beliefs, rather than shouting down others.
BW, I do not think I have ever read a more cogent, accurate, or important phrase than children “are a necessary step on the trajectory to healthy maturity.” As others have noted here, the comprehensive nature and the clarity of presentation of your thoughts often leaves little else to be said.
I agree completely with the concept that having children is the primary mechanism which turns a individual into a adult.
Sure, it is not the only one, but it is the main one. And I do believe that there is a biological imperative motivating that maturation. Hormones may start the process, but the intellect requires the results to continue the growth.
Jo has a phrase for it. When she and I married, both in our thirties, we were “kids”. After we had our own kids, we became adults.
In my practice, I tell new parents that now they have to grow up. They are completely responsible for another life.
They must consider how to care for and protect that life. It creates some interesting discussions.
Al
Some of the comments above stimulated a thought I haven’t seen examined.
“The Fourth Turning”, by Strauss and Howe, presented evidence for a major historical cycle (Saeculum), which repeats with a period of roughly a century (four generations). The cycle is ultimately based on the nature of childhood rebellion. Each generation displays a distinct predictable personality (based on rebellion against their parent’s generation), which, as that generation moves through childhood, production, leadership, and death affects the character of the culture.
Essentially, the cycle begins with two sequential generations moving progressively toward more irresponsibility, and the following two generations moving progressively back toward more responsibility to complete the cycle.
Feminism introduced a variation to this pattern. The generation that normally would have been born to the women who put career ahead of childrn will be delayed by almost a generation.
This produces two consequences. One upcoming generation will be smaller than normal and likely with an atypical class distribution. The following generation will be in conflict with itself because it will represent two distinctively different philosophies.
It isn’t clear what effect these two unusual generations will have as they sequentially assume control of the culture.
My guess is that the progression toward a more responsible culture will be delayed. This will diminish our culture’s ability to responsibly react to the cultural crisis which normally occurs at about that point in the cycle.