Panel Discussion, "Young Feminists Take on the Family" (page 6 of 7)

Adoption

AR: When Jennifer and I were interviewing for Manifesto, we asked people why they got married. A common answer was because we were in love. And I thought, "Well, I'm in love and I'm not married. Are you more in love if you get married?" It was just this default answer. And even though I think our choices are limited - Cathy, you in a sense had a moment in your life where you had a choice between two mothers. And you, more than choosing a mother, you were really choosing, as a bi-racial person raised in a white family, an identity. Could you address the concept of adoption, specifically inter-racial adoption, and why you sought out your birth family?

CM: That's a lot. It's a little complicated because at first I had this fantasy of a black mother. I spent years and years fantasizing about who she was, imagining who she was and revising it.

Meeting different black women who were interesting to me gave me different models. I knew then that I was part black and part white, but I didn't know my birth mother was Jewish and I didn't know she was white until I was 26 or 27 years old. Because of the laws of closed adoption, you get non-identifying information. They don't feel beholden to giving you very much detail at all. But then I found out, and I had this Jewish birth mother who, all of the sudden, I liked immediately.

I didn't realize how much I did want a relationship with her until I met her. But at the same time I was uncomfortable trying to integrate this Jewish identity because I had never - it was so far from my mind. In college, I was very involved in Black Nationalist politics and it was kind of the horror of all horrors to end up with a Jewish family. It put me in opposition to everything I was trying to be a part of. So it was a lot to integrate all at once. And the questions about biology. . ..

When I met my birth mother, there was so much about her that was so immediately likable. She had a lot of my sensibilities. A lot is dictated by biology, and it was immediate and it was very interesting to me. At the same time, she was an extremely troubled person and our relationship was severed after the first year.

And then, in the process of mourning a lot of things around that experience, I did come much closer to my birth mother, who I didn't feel - we had a difficult relationship at times. She's kind of an anti-mother in a way. My mother is - she's not transgender but you might think so if you saw her. She was always very much the man in the house. And so, it was very complicated.

Motherhood: Challenging Myths

AR: Irshad, you said that you don't want children. I know that that is hugely threatening to society.

IM: I think my children would be hugely threatening to society.

(laughter)

AR: It obviously was a choice you made at a certain point in your life and I'm wondering why you made it? What are you facing having made that decision?

IM: Like so many young women, in my adolescence I certainly dreamt of bringing home the briefcase. Peeking into the bedroom and seeing my husband cradling our baby. That's the way it was going to be, no question about it because if you can imagine it, you can achieve it, right?

And I had no idea that I could even be a candidate for lesbianism, never mind be one. So that realization didn't dawn on me until I was locking lips with another women, a few years later. But not even at that point, but during the course of time. I'm a huge believer in self-awareness.

We are, all of us, very complex creatures. And I am deathly afraid of imposing my baggage on you creatures. It's not even about the world having too many people already, why not adopt, et cetera. It really has nothing to do with that, although it probably would if I took it that far.

But I don't want another very - let me put it this way: I'm dealing with so much in my life as it is, and so much about what it means to be an ethical person in all sorts of respects, that to subjugate my kid to these kinds of discussions, which I undoubtedly would, and demand answers, however temporary they may be, would probably drive the kid crazy and truly make that kid a little bit more threatening than I would like him or her to be.

I've had this discussion with friends as well, and they always said to me, "Aw, you're being too hard on yourself, you'd make a great mother." But what is it to be a mother? What is it to be a father? So I think probably I thought this through too much to actually have a child.

It's like, there's no right time to buy a house or to have a child. Don't think about it too much, otherwise you'll never get off your ass to do it.

AR: I'm sure that some people in Leora's book might actually consider this a bad thing, but one of the things that has impressed me about Noelle is that I knew her for many years and didn't know she was married and didn't know she had a kid. It's not something that consumes her life. I guess that is more revealing about the other people in my life, who do have kids and are married because it actually consumes a lot of their conversations and a lot of their time. I think that's maybe an odd compliment to make of you, but I actually consider it a real mark of your independence. Is that something that you do intentionally?

NH: So many people have said that to me, which is really strange to me. I mean, I never have pictures of my daughter with me, and that always seems to be some sort of mark of the bad mother.

(laughter)

I was thinking of a number of things while everybody was talking. First, you said that there is no way to win, and there isn't. There's no way to win. My husband and I got married two-and-a-half years ago and my daughter was born a year ago, and there's always this assumption, when the two of us are together, that I'm the one who knows everything about her. We screened our doctor, we Googled her and she came up on all these feminist organizations: fabulous, a feminist pediatrician. But every time we go there, she's says, "Mom, do you want to hold her while she's getting the shots?" "Mom, how much is she eating?" And the thing is, my husband is actually the primary caretaker for our daughter.

AR: In those moments do you say something? Do you say, "Why are you talking to me?"

NH: I do, but sometimes it's exhausting and I just want the baby to get the shot already and I don't. It's not that I don't take care of her. It's just that my husband is actually better at it. He's better at it. He's better at being with the baby for hours and hours and hours. Me? I'm like, "Okay sweetie, it's been about an hour and a half, I'm going back to the computer."

If I were a male, I would be considered an amazing father, so involved. But as a mom, there's this constant assumption that I should be primarily concerned, and I think that part of this, dealing with some of the things we've been talking about, is because we have this isolated model of what constitutes a family.

Whether the couple is heterosexual or non-heterosexual, you have this assumption that the child has two primary parents. And you are isolated in your little family unit, in your little house or apartment and you take care of that child. Almost nobody else helps, unless you're lucky enough to have grandparents who make an occasional appearance. But other than that, you are responsible.

There has been a huge movement called attachment parenting that is both reactionary and very liberal. You have some home schooling Christian families who are all for it, and you have liberal feminists who are all for it. Except the thing is that it encompasses breast-feeding the baby until the baby is ready to wean itself. Maybe that's at one year, maybe it's at five years. But that's okay. Don't care that you can't fit into your clothes. Don't care that you have to have the baby suckling on you, wherever, whenever, for years. You should be with your baby at all times; the baby should sleep with you; the baby should eat with you; the baby should never, ever watch television, God forbid. There are so many rules to be a good attachment parent. Having become a mom in the last year, I've been inundated and watched over by well-meaning women who are members of all the right groups, whose politics I totally agree with, with whom I can go to peace marches and rallies, and yet who are utterly horrified that I'm not breast feeding anymore. Because it's better for the baby, and it's all about the baby. And actually, in my case, the baby weaned herself. If I tell them that, then they're like, "Okay."

It's incredibly hard because I led this very independent life for a long time, and I had my identity largely based on my work. Then all of the sudden, you become a mom and your identity is supposed to be based on your family. That's supposed to be enough. You're not supposed to want other things. Your priorities will have changed, as everybody tells you, when you get pregnant. And my priorities didn't change that much. I mean, I love my daughter and she is important to me and so is my husband, and so am I and so is my career.

My husband and I have actually forged what I think is a very feminist family arrangement. My husband is the primary caretaker and he's training to be a social worker. He's all about nurturing. His mom is a lesbian and so he is already accustomed to unorthodox family arrangements. He definitely is like the wife in our relationship, in that more traditional sense, and I am more of the bread winner, which is really sad, let me tell you.

(laughter)

But nonetheless, we are constantly expected to reverse roles. Even people who are supposedly on our side, often assume the reverse and still put the onus on me. Sorry to vent.