“What becomes quickly clear is that the cult of “natural” motherhood is just the latest manifestation in a long history of reducing women’s bodies and lives to status objects to mark class privilege.” — Amanda Marcotte

Dear Amanda,

Your article on Slate has me wondering if perhaps you are a little bit confused about something.

You are telling me that motherhood and the way that I choose to mother my children who I chose to have.. Reduces me to a “status symbol” that marks class privilege.

What struck me about that statement is that it assumes that this family and these children are the property of my  husband and that the only way I can avoid being the property of my husband is to view MY* children with MY DNA* as an inconvenience that prevents me from getting good real work done. (*The word “MY” does not indicate they are exclusively mine. I’m just using it to point out that the children are not something my husband created all on his own while using my body as a vessel.)

The “natural parenting cult”, in my particular case, believes deeply that not only are the children not my husband’s property. They are not my property. They are not property. They are individual human beings that own a full set of human rights.

A man does not own a family. A woman does not own a family. A child does not own a family. It’s a big stew of good stuff, bad stuff, privileges, responsibilities, and choices.

If I am a “status symbol” of “the family”, and “the family” is something that I own a share of (along with my husband and children), then how is it “sexist”? When a shareholder at a company chooses to be actively involved in the company rather than simply making choices in a board room, that shareholder is not “being exploited”, that shareholder is taking an active role in order to protect his or her interests in a company in which they have invested.

A stay at home parent is taking an active role in their investment, they are not simply unpaid employees of the spouse who is off at work, and they are not taking orders from that spouse who is off at work. They make a disproportionate number of the day to day decisions that impact the family, even as the working partner is the one who provides the money and support. I would hope that the stay at home parent does not simply use the provider as a source of income while excluding them completely from major decisions that impact the family, because THAT is a situation in which someone is being taken advantage of.

Do not confuse the stay-at-home motherhood of today for the stay at home motherhood from the 1920’s where women had no chance to make choices for herself and where women were essentially the property of their husbands.

“Natural Parenting”is not a vehicle in which women are controlled by men. It’s a parenting method that involves work and sacrifice from both partners. It’s a group effort. The only element that falls “more” on a woman is the act of providing breastmilk. If the woman is ALSO the stay at home parent, that increases the disproportion. However, not all natural parenting families are “mom stays home” families. And even when they are dad may still foot a lot of the tasks not related to breastfeeding.

Sexism exists a lot in “traditional” parenting methods. How could it not? When you adopt a parenting method that involves a hierarchy that places children at the rock bottom how can it not open the doors to other forms of hierarchy?

I have seen sexism where men insist that their wives quit breastfeeding at a certain time because they want their wife’s body back and don’t want to share it with the baby. That is the presumption of ownership.

I have experienced sexism where a previous partner wanted me to take a particular form of birth control that my doctor advised against, and he blew up because I did not discuss “our” decision with him. That is the presumption of ownership. (He wanted me to use the ‘patch’ due to having read that it increased the libido in some women. I did not want to use it because my doctor advised me against it for several reasons.)

I have asked my partner if he would be okay if we fed the baby formula. His answer is that it is my body and he can’t tell me that I HAVE to provide milk to our children. He supports it, he prefers it, and he would look into donor milk if it were necessary.

I have asked my partner if he would be okay if I chose to let the children cry it out. He would choose to simply rock the children himself when he was home from work. And if he didn’t, my mother in law likely would. Because at that point it is not something that requires ME, it is a decision about the children and he has equal say in the things that do not involve my body.

When he is home I tend to hand him the kids and go to take out the garbage or put together the dresser that we bought. We don’t divide tasks by “man” and “woman”. We divide them by ability, necessity, availability, and the skills that each of us have individually developed.

To declare that a parenting style exists solely to control women and keep them from being “suspiciously idle” speaks more about your personal feelings toward motherhood and children than it speaks to sexism, feminism and womanhood.

I do not need to be my husband in order to be his peer. This is as much my family as it is his.

I do not breastfeed in order to be a status symbol for “his” family. I do not babywear to be a status symbol for “his” family. He does not work in order to be a status symbol for “my” family.

We do the things we do for OUR family because it is OURS and we love it fiercely and these are the choices that we make together for the children that we have chosen to have and to raise.

I do not need to work outside of the home to prove my worth as a female or human being or to “be equal”, because equality is not something that can be granted or removed. Legal rights are, and none of my legal rights are jeopardized. Perceptions are, and my partner does not perceive me to be “less” or “his to control”. The only perceptions that are out of whack are the ones held by you, or others that look down on MY choice and attempt to assign it to a man as though I am not capable of choosing something like this all on my own.

The problem is not that I see my children worth investing in, and that I want to breastfeed them and babywear them and use cloth diapers. The problem is that this is looked down upon as being a lesser pursuit to working in some high paying position where we earn pieces of paper and sit in an office making decisions that seldom last past the life of a company in a time where few companies exist for very long.

The real issue for feminists is this: Why is motherhood looked down upon as being a lesser path? Why is it something that men own? Why is a family something that is the sole property of a man rather than something that a woman has equal investment in? Why is breastfeeding so trivialized? Could it be that it is something that only women can do and therefore it is worthless? How is adopting this view “feminism”, and rejecting this view “sexist”?

Food for thought.

-Sarah