mothers – Inspiring Change LLC

Gendered: “girl culture 2”

One of my colleagues was raised by her father. While he was in the military, she experienced many different global cultures, and was raised around men. She mentioned to me that while she understood what I was talking about in my first Gendered post, she wasn’t raised in that way. She was raised by a man and that experience made her emotional and communication patterns different than most American women. More masculine, we could say. Makes complete sense.

What she then said was that her more unique direct and simple speaking style has often brought her the experience of rejection and judgment by women, even close friends, who were socialized to be constantly circumspect, people pleasing and perfectionistic in all relational matters.

She has been called “angry,” “too direct,” and other unpleasant words of judgment by women. She has experienced looks of surprise and body language of distancing and distain while talking in professional meetings, therapy settings and social outings. I have encouraged her to write a personal response to my post so I can add it here.

I, too, have been cautioned against speaking my mind even by my Midwestern-Lutheran-socialized-by-awfully-nice-people-30-years-together spouse. We have even disagreed on something as simple as whether we ought to say our opinion to family members or even more horrifying, friends. Socially, he will almost always choose the grin and bear it or simply ignore it route. Me? I’d rather find a nice enough way to speak my mind. I spend enormous amounts of time in my mind trying to suss out the right way to say what I am thinking so I don’t lose connection to those around me. (I’ve been doing that as I write, edit and re-edit this post.) Even with all that internal sifting, no doubt some have and will call me a bitch behind my back.

But you would never do that, would you gentle woman reader? Become automatically uncomfortable when a colleague, boss, friend or loved one violated those carefully maintained but invisible gender norms. Provide some emotional feedback? Subtly step back in disapproval? Most of the most painful comments and betrayals of trust I experienced as a female pastor throughout the years were from other women in my social and leadership circles.

While most of us are struggling to wake up to our inherited and unearned privilege of race and economic status in contemporary America, may I be among those who bang the gender drum at the same time. Inherited gender roles are reinforced every day, without reflection, and women are the ones who seem to have the most at stake when other women don’t obey the rules.

Let us wake up and act up. We have been controlled and socialized by rigid expectations about our bodies, our biology, our fertility, our parenting and caretaker roles and yet we have been at the head of the line when it comes to enforcing the rules. If we want freedom and opportunity for all, let us mean all. This freedom to be ourselves, no matter our gender identity, is what I believe feminism is about. Call me a feminist. And then ask me to offer my point of view. I’m quite sure I’ll have one I can share.

Reader Response: Dividing Family Loyalties

Many thanks to M who took the time to write me about his experience with family loyalty. Here is his letter, in part:

“I am writing because I have been on the wrong end of this issue. That is, my wife has put the needs of her parents ahead of me and our marriage. We married in 1987. In 1995 we made the fateful decision to move in next door to her parents. Problems stared within a few months of moving in.

When a spouse puts parents (or really, anyone else) as a higher priority ahead of the needs of the marriage and their spouse this is the biggest domino that falls causing a cavalcade of other bad actions and decisions…The anger that is festered, self-doubt, damage to self-esteem causes so many poor decisions from how your money is spent, time and priorities are allocaated, how the children are engaged, infidelities and job effectiveness.

Unlike if this happens with friends or worse, a spouse has an affair, in these cases the offending spouse can make those people disappear from the relationship and the relationship has a chance to heal via distance, deeds and time.

When it is a parent or family member, in my wife’s case she was unwilling to stand up to her parents (mostly her mother) and say my husband comes first. When a spouse does not stand up …the family member takes full advantage of this weakness and manipulates the entire engagement. In my case, this continues to damage the marriage. The relationship with the in-laws only worsens and cannot heal or improve. The constant conflict is beyond exhausting.

You may ask why did I not see this before we got married. We met and married and started our life together 2000 miles away from her hometown. Consequently, I did not have the opportunity to witness this enmeshed relationship prior to 1995.

My wife in 2017 moved in with her mother. And I am now at 60 years old alone, trying to put the pieces of my life together.”

Attachment Parenting : You’re Mom Enough Without It

The cover of TIME magazine (5/21/12) with the beautiful 20something mom breastfeeding her 3 year old son had me shaking my head.

What WAS she thinking taking that picture, and having her full name on the magazine cover? Ten years from now her son is going to have to face his friends when they ask him what it was like to suck his mother’s breasts. Because they have proof. A million covers of TIME magazine, internet pages and downloads later. Really. The social insensitivity of that photo takes my breath away.

As for the topic, the so-called Attachment Parenting style advocated by Dr. Bill Sears, well. That, too, has it’s serious problems. Let me be brief:

Attachment Theory describes the emotional or relational attachment between a developing infant and mother. It was first studied in depth by John Bowlby (and later by Ainsworth, Main, Cassidy, Hazan, Shaver, and others) in the 1950’s. It posits that the emotional attachment between mother and child is the main determinant for that child’s internal sense of self-in-relationship throughout life. The mother, if she is relatively consistent in her caregiving, responsiveness, and mirroring of the child’s emotions, creates a “safe haven” for a developing self against the world. That same mother, as her child begins to reach out to the world beyond her, creates a “secure base” from which a child explores the world and can return to mom safely and with support for a developing independence.

This science has been studied for the last 50 years, and has developed a deep collection of research, data, and process that I subscribe to as a relational psychotherapist. About 55% of us are fortunate enough to have mothers that welcomed us to the world, sheltered, fed, changed, disciplined, loved, laughed, cried and protected us well enough that we emerged from our infancy able to approach others for support, and not worry too much about relationships. This is called having a “secure attachment” style. The rest of us, because of our mother’s own anxieties, environmental stress, illness, or other issues develop an anxious, withdrawing, or mixed attachment style that we carry from childhood through adulthood at about a 75% rate.

Now, here’s my issue: There is nothing in the research of Attachment Theory to indicate that mothers must breastfeed their infants and toddlers, co-sleep with them, or never put them down in order to create secure emotional attachment. Nothing. What the research indicates is that mothers who do their level best to hold, look at, speak to, and provide consistent emotional responsiveness to their child’s distress, and support to their developing independence despite issues like also being a spouse, or working, or using daycare, or tending to other children in the family, or having friends or hobbies, usually produce relationally secure children. Period.

So if you love your children, are relatively secure yourself, have the most stable marriage or partnership you can create, have good health, and manage the details of your life pretty well, you don’t have to give up your body, mind and self out of the fear that your child isn’t getting what they need. Pending unseen catastrophes, they will, they can, and they do.

Most of all, I’m sad that mothering can feel so overwhelming to some of us that following the direction of one single doctor seems safer than following one’s own common sense and the collective wisdom of the millions of mothers and fathers who have gone before us. Attachment parenting? Dump the pseudo-science and let your child sleep in their own bed. It’s safer for them, and you may actually get a (mostly) full night’s rest even when you’re up at 3am to nurse, change or rock them back to sleep. Honest.