Forget "Having It All"

Forget "Having It All"

Adult nonfiction
"Our ideas of women and men have evolved over the decades,
pushed by cultural dialogue and shifting policies. We have softened
some of the rules around gender, broadened roles, relaxed rules,
gotten more intersectional in our understandings of identities and
oppression but where mothers are concerned, we have clung more
persistently to rigid ideas and expectations, which limit not just
mothers but all women irrespective of their reproductive choices.
Ideas of motherhood influence everything from gender expectations to
parental leave policies to which public bathrooms have changing tables."
Amy Westervelt, a journalist, was working in the hospital two
hours after she gave birth to her second child. In fact, just two
hours post delivery she hit a major deadline. Two weeks later,
walking to her mailbox, she had an epiphany.
"...At some point mainstream feminism became more about teaching
women to game capitalism than it was about actually replacing or
improving a system that fails both genders. Many people have
continued to suffer under this approach, and women have been
particularly screwed."
The thought became the genesis of Forget "Having It All".
Basically it's a history of mothering in America from the arrival of
the first Whites to the 21st century. The text is conversational and
readable. There is a nice balance between scholarship and narrative.
Two qualities make this book stand out within its genre.
1) It is the most intersectional book of its kind that I've ever
seen. Westervelt shows that race, class, gender, and sexual
orientation really matter. In the decades between World War II and
Roe v Wade when teenage girls became pregnant Blacks were supposed to
keep and raise their babies while Whites were supposed to give theirs
up for adoption. Generations of Indigenous children were stolen--
first by boarding schools with a mandate to save the man by killing
the savage and then by white social workers who saw a communal system
of child care as negligence. Women in prison for minor offenses often
lose their children to the foster care system. And, of course, when
eugenics reigned supreme tens of thousands of Women of Color, poor
women, and women with disabilities were forcibly steralized.
2) At the end of every chapter there are cultural and policy
suggestions for bringing us into a more just society. Scientific
Motherhood And Modern Reproduction, for example, encourages people to
look beyond the rigidities and frailties of the nuclear family to more
communal living styles. The policy fix is comprehensive modern sex
education.
If you want to look both backward at the origins of our current
messed up system and forward at ways to transform it you'll find
Forget "Having It All" to be a must read.
On a purrrsonal note, yesterday Amber and Brian threw a really nice
backyard picnic as an early Fathers' Day celebration. We had subs and
cookies and a very welcome chance to talk and be together. Adam
brought me the Mothers' Day gift he'd ordered off Amazon--the 2020
Guide To Literary Agents. Now I can start looking for an agent to
represent my work to publishers. (Jules)
It is still much too hot. I like the noisy box in the kitchen window
that makes cool air. Whoever invented that was a genius. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to our wonderful family.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway


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