On the Job of Raising a Feminist Son

     

In trying to figure out this identity as a full-time mom, partner, and homemaker, I've found it difficult to fully embrace it as the incredibly difficult, exhausting, mentally challenging "real" job that it is. 

I still sometimes find myself working too hard to prove to others that I am not some uninteresting, barely educated, oppressed woman. I focus on the fact that I'm now more productive as a poet and editor than I've ever been before, or that I'm working on prepping to go into a PhD program once Emerson goes to school. Sometimes it is the actual assumptions of others I'm working against, but often it's just my own internalized crap.

What's so hard to get across is that I'm not just doing the normal day-to-day of cooking meals, cleaning messes and wiping a tiny ass--it often feels like that's all I do. But, in all reality, my very awesome, very eccentric, very expensive education is being put to excellent use EVERY.SINGLE.DAY--from linguistic theory, to botany, to yogic philosophy...all the way to Oulipian procedures. And, obviously 15 years of critical theory has done something to my parenting, for better or for worse...

Part of what I keep coming to in parsing out what it is I really do^ is that I am at the beginning of a multi-year project in raising a feminist son who is also comfortable in his own power as a (I assume) masculine being. Everything that I do, every rule/habit/tradition my partner and I negotiate into our family, every aspect of how our home runs impacts Emerson's experience of work, worth, gender, and consumerism. 

I have the opportunity to help raise not only a feminist man of strong character, but a feminist man who is also well-educated, white, and of a privileged economic class. This is no light responsibility.  

In a world where our young men--one could easily argue--are a bit in crisis, where there is a fresh round of culture war on women being waged by those who run our government, and where patriarchal systems are evolving into trixier new incarnations....Yes, I think it is safe to say that raising a child in a conscious, compassionate, deliberate, feminist manner is a lot of work, regardless of their sex. 

So....I'm working on not just knowing that being a homemaker and mom is a real job and a potential site   for world-changing work, but also feeling that this is all true. Really grokking it.

^ The murkiness, the shiftiness of this term in our culture is so obnoxious. For years now, when meeting new people, I've opted to asked the question, "What do you do with your time?" 

Naked as We Came

                                                                    Sally Mann, Goosebumps

Magic Man and I have differing views on clothing and nudity.  I hold degrees from 2 schools that are clothing-optional campuses; I think that makes my views clear.  He sees getting up in the morning and putting on public-ready clothes as a natural part of life.  Even if you're not going out in public, the clothes are a healthy and necessary reminder of civilization, he asserts. 

I don't 100% disagree--giving up on getting dressed can be a sign of depression or other illness.  But, I also think that one works hard in life so as to be able to NOT wear pants (or anything else), if one chooses. There is nothing "natural" to me about clothes. ESPECIALLY in the Texas heat.  I do appreciate a good bra, being of the larger breast persuasion...but outside of that, the rest is mostly optional in my mind, and I have spent chunks of my life happily wearing clothes only part-time. As a result, I have also enjoyed far fewer body image problems than a lot of women I know, especially considering that I've always been a chubster (or Rubenesque, as my mom puts it).

I have no intention of forcing my kids to wear clothes when we are in the privacy of our own home. It is incredibly important, obviously, for them to understand conventional social rules around bodies, privacy, and audience. Home alone with your parents is different than at a friend's house for a birthday party. But, as long as that understanding and respect of culture is there, I see no point in forcing them to stay dressed all the time if they don't want to. There is nothing wrong with their bodies, and making them anxious about covering themselves all the time only increases early-sexualization of their bodies. I think it brings shame into a place it does not belong...possibly making it harder for them to hold clear boundaries of body safety later on.

 TBD's body is his body. It's not mine (even now while still totally encapsulated by my body.) If he doesn't want to cover it, within the safety of set boundaries, I think that should be his choice.

Magic Man and I haven't come up with set rules yet. Seems a little premature.  But, I have full faith that we will find a happy medium. He has no desire to have kids who are anxious about their bodies, just as I have no desire to have kids who can't function in public life. 

Here is a solid post on the subject by Shannon Hayes (author of Radical Homemakers). I agree with so much she is struggling with here. 


Ugh...ok, back to sipping this nausea tea. Yes, I am still vomiting.

(29 weeks, 5 days pregnant)