F-Word Parenting: Feminist Parenting for Today’s World

When I was getting married, I was talking to some female friends about how I was going to change my last name to match my husband’s. For me, someone who grew up in a family with four separate last names and found it obnoxious and confusing, this was a matter of logic and ease. When I mentioned casually that I planned to do this, however, my friends’ eyes widened and their nostrils flared. “But you’re a feminist!” they said, as if this would somehow preclude me from making that decision. It’s true, I am guilty of being a full-fledged, card-carrying, woman-loving, loud and proud Feminist with a capital F. I was raised by them, and everything I have experienced and learned in my life has pushed me farther and farther into being one.

As I see it, an important part of being a feminist is the crazy idea that I, as a woman, am a human being with intelligence and agency, and am thus capable of making my own decisions, ones that make sense for me and my life. This reaction to me making the conscious choice to participate in a cultural practice that is, granted, steeped in patriarchy, was the first, but trust me nowhere near to the last experience of the complexities and hypocrisies of trying to be my truest self while also being a woman in American culture. We want to fight against patriarchy and free ourselves from its oppression, while still being able to decide what traditions and cultural practices we would like to continue. No matter the decision we make, we have someone telling us it’s the wrong one.

If I thought that strapping on a chiffon gown, getting married, and changing my last name would bring these issues up, I had no concept of how becoming a mother would put me into the depths of my own internalized, and the outside world’s, patriarchy. Whether you are a mother or not, your decisions about reproduction and how and when to do it are NEVER without someone else’s opinion and power over you. Often, this person in power is male. Your doctor, or the politician or judge in your area who has made decisions about the kind of care and choices you can make, a pharmaceutical company or insurance company telling you what they will or will not cover. You’re also dealing with the opinions of every human around you, and now that we have constant access to social media, opinions of people who have nothing to do with us or our lives, and the false photos of perfection thrust in our faces. It feels like no matter what you do, you’re wrong. I know so many mothers who feel this way. And though I know parents who identify as male have many of their own issues to deal with (and don’t you think I won’t be addressing them at a later date), the particular plight of the modern mother is something that I find particularly urgent to address.

In my own experience, I have never once felt like I have even the possibility of doing this mothering thing the “right way.” That’s because, spoiler alert, IT DOESN’T FREAKING EXIST! If I breastfeed, I’m too attached, if I bottle feed, I’m depriving my baby. If I decide to stay at home I have to feel ashamed every time someone asks me what I do, and if I decide to go to work I’m abandoning my baby to be raised by strangers or strapping my parents with the responsibility. I mean, I felt I failed right from the beginning because (gasp!) I had a C-section! There is no right way to birth a baby, feed your child, transport them, help them when they’re sick, pick their education, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. Every day I have felt the weight of the impossible job of being a mother to my children. Every day I have put all of those judgements onto myself and more. Me, the raging feminist trained as a therapist and coach, who knows all the reasons it is wrong to feel this way, I feel it a ton. I have heard these ideas in some form from almost every person I know; well-meaning, feminist, supportive people. They can’t help it, it seems. We can’t help it. We’re trained to think this way.

Think about how a little girl is generally socialized (though there are wonderful changes happening in this area, they are sadly still in the minority). Little girls are trained to be nurturers, to care for their dolls and their siblings and their friends. We are taught as we grow to judge mothers in so many ways. We judge mothers who are poor and have to work, or are poor and use social welfare programs to support their families. If a mother has economic privilege we judge her if she works when she doesn’t “need” to and uses help, or we judge her for staying at home.  We judge women in stores for how they speak to their children, we judge women online for how they look or how their children are dressed. Women grow up with the constant pressure to look right, eat right, protect our sexuality, be sexy and also virginal, be a mother and a professional. We’re supposed to “do it all”, work and mother and blow dry our damn hair every day (or every three days, who am I kidding). In all of this, we aren’t supposed to have any needs ourselves. We’re supposed to do it all with a smile on our faces, asking nothing in return, because the smiles on our children’s and partners’ faces are payment enough.  

But, shocker, they. are. not. enough! It is not fulfilling to only care for others and be treated as though we are less than human, have no needs, and are constantly failing to live up to the idea of what a mother or a woman “should” be. Women are being crushed by the weight of these expectations, rooted in patriarchy. Add to that the unbearable weight of racism, homophobia, xenophobia, poverty, illness, and a world that is increasingly feeling unsafe for everyone in it, and it can feel like there is no relief in sight. We already know that, though we’ve been taught to wait for our knight in shining armor to save us from the tower in which we’re held captive, he is actually the guard keeping us in. The only thing we can do is burn the damn thing down and free ourselves.

So how do we do this? Well, as usual, the first step is always to acknowledge you have a problem. My name is Hannah, and I have internalized patriarchy. Phew, that felt good. Take a look at your life, at those moments when your stomach drops and you’re judging the hell out of yourself. Really take a moment and look at it. What makes you feel in that moment that you aren’t enough? What makes you feel that there’s something you “should” be doing to be a “good” mother? Where is that coming from? And then ask yourself this: if I were a dad, would anyone be asking this of me? 

So yes, the first step is awareness. Am I judging myself right now? Am I judging other mothers? What are my expectations of myself and others and where do they come from? Ask yourself all of these questions and then really examine the answers. Then begin the practice of calling yourself out when you are putting the patriarchy on yourself. Say it out loud. Notice, and acknowledge, over and over again. Give yourself and the women around you the space to be human beings who do things differently and who deserve grace and compassion, not judgement. And then call it out in others. Say it. SAY. IT! If a family member or your partner or another mom is judging you or someone else from their own internalized patriarchy, call it out and name it for what it is. I know this isn’t easy. I know you’ll have to pick your battles. But please, for yourself, for your children, for us all, call it out and let’s burn this tower of patriarchy to the ground, one unrealistic expectation at a time. And if you need help and support on that road, that’s where Parent Empowerment Coaching comes in. You know where to find me. I’ve got your back.