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rmI am sick of news and magazine articles telling me what I want. Or explaining what women really want as if we were some strange animal on national geographic. I can't even bring myself to read the latest instance in the Times, the headline of which seems to indicate, "Well, all the _really_ smart women are totally going to give up their careers for babies."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html (having skimmed the article, I must say, in all fairness, it isn't that bad, -- as much as any article trying to ascertain if the choices women make make sense can be -- but it does make me crazy that women and their choices must always be examined as if we are "the other" whereas no such public analysis of men really exists outside humour columns).
I think I may be more offended by this than most. Afterall, I went to a school for ten years of my life where I got an astounding education, but knew every single day that it was such only for the sake of finding the best and most extraordinary match possible. I was given absolutely every intellectual challenge possible, so that I could serve men cleverly and then have enough babies to reclaim the feminity so obviously lost by blowing things up in a chemisry lab at age 13. By those standards, everything I do is a waste, and when you look at everything I do, how damnably ridiculous is that?
I am not, for the record, anti-children. I'm actually very fond of them and want them in my life, and very possibly in my home. I've just become self-protective of my body, defensive, strange about claims on me over the years, that I don't think I want to give birth to any (which, I realize I should figure out soon, being 33). I despise them as status symbols though. I despise the way we use them as signifiers for all sorts of attainments. I think it's unfair to so many people on so many subjects and makes parenting to much harder for absolutely everyone.
But is any women ever old enough to avoid being told how to be a good and clever girl? It doesn't seem so, even if we do eventually become old enough to ignore it.
It is worth noting that on the alumni application form for Stuyvesant, they have a blank merely for family, and you write in whatever. On the alumnae applicatoin for my prior school (which I am of course barred from not just symbolically, but in fact, not being a graduate), there is a detailed section for the husband, and then seven blanks to list the names of children. Seven. In New York City. In 2005.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/20/national/20women.html (having skimmed the article, I must say, in all fairness, it isn't that bad, -- as much as any article trying to ascertain if the choices women make make sense can be -- but it does make me crazy that women and their choices must always be examined as if we are "the other" whereas no such public analysis of men really exists outside humour columns).
I think I may be more offended by this than most. Afterall, I went to a school for ten years of my life where I got an astounding education, but knew every single day that it was such only for the sake of finding the best and most extraordinary match possible. I was given absolutely every intellectual challenge possible, so that I could serve men cleverly and then have enough babies to reclaim the feminity so obviously lost by blowing things up in a chemisry lab at age 13. By those standards, everything I do is a waste, and when you look at everything I do, how damnably ridiculous is that?
I am not, for the record, anti-children. I'm actually very fond of them and want them in my life, and very possibly in my home. I've just become self-protective of my body, defensive, strange about claims on me over the years, that I don't think I want to give birth to any (which, I realize I should figure out soon, being 33). I despise them as status symbols though. I despise the way we use them as signifiers for all sorts of attainments. I think it's unfair to so many people on so many subjects and makes parenting to much harder for absolutely everyone.
But is any women ever old enough to avoid being told how to be a good and clever girl? It doesn't seem so, even if we do eventually become old enough to ignore it.
It is worth noting that on the alumni application form for Stuyvesant, they have a blank merely for family, and you write in whatever. On the alumnae applicatoin for my prior school (which I am of course barred from not just symbolically, but in fact, not being a graduate), there is a detailed section for the husband, and then seven blanks to list the names of children. Seven. In New York City. In 2005.
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Interesting..
Date: 2005-09-20 04:30 pm (UTC)I found a salient bit tucked away near the end of the article: nannies. Many of the young women cited come from the economic sector where families employ full time nannies. From what I've observed with my daughter's friends, there seem to be several issues for nanny-raised children that don't surface until adolescence/early adulthood. It's what I call the 'nanny paradox'- if you have a good nanny she feels that she has to earn her keep by providing structured activities. If you have a mediocre nanny, the kids are plopped in front of the TV or video game console for an excessive amount of time. Either way, they don't do the developmental work of structuring their own free time, or learning to take responsibility by carrying out responsibilities at home. This can lead to difficulty with excessive media consumption, and substance abuse-when you don't know how to set your own direction, it's easy to let someone, or something else do it for you. Between this and the 'trophy yupchild' mentality, these young people have a lot of difficulty discerning who they are and what they want. It's different in degree but also in kind than the teen struggles of yore. They missed the developmental 'work' pf childhood and had adolescence thrust on them too soon -so they stay stuck there, often until their mid-twenties. Hello, aimlessness and depression. No, this does not happen to everyone growing up in that circumstance- but I've seen enough of a subset of them to believe that it occurs more often than it should.
Perhaps for these young women, raising their own children is seen as a form of reclaiming control of their lives.