Anne TootillTo Be or Not to Be a - Part One
September 11th 2006 16:56
You know you’d think that in a world that does a good deal of talking about the ever evolving equality between the sexes women would have greater freedom of choice. But as it turns out, like that old adage, the more things change the more they stay the same. At least when it comes to one issue in particular the feminist movement seems to have failed to leave it’s mark. What am I talking about? Motherhood.
I’m not going to say it happens from the moment of conception. I know I was there but for some reason the details are kind of fuzzy. However I can personally attest to the fact that by the time I was four and had been given my first doll, the brainwashing had already begun. I was encouraged to feed, diaper and rock her to sleep. Most of the toys I received from that day on had to do with my learning to be “the good mother”. Toy highchair, stroller, pint-sized clothes, pretend baby food, at seven years old motherhood was already the thing I thought most about aspiring to. And when I played along everyone noticed. “How cute. What a good mommy you are.” I was showered with kudos and attention. What better way to make me want to play some more? And if that wasn’t enough to ram the motherhood message home there was always a T.V. show, movie or old lady with a high white bun who made sure I knew that love and marriage would lead to only one place…a baby carriage. By the time I was in high school and soaking in all that Danielle Steele I was convinced that one day the hands of fate would provide the hook-up for me and my knight- in -shinning armor and then I’d have his son (got to carry on the family name) in order to complete our love or to show him how much I loved him or simply because that was what I was supposed to do.
A woman is supposed to become a mother. Everyone says so. And if, egads, you just say no, then as my father-in-law once told me, “women who don’t want to have babies are idiots.” And I thought Lincoln already freed the slaves.
I’m not going to say it happens from the moment of conception. I know I was there but for some reason the details are kind of fuzzy. However I can personally attest to the fact that by the time I was four and had been given my first doll, the brainwashing had already begun. I was encouraged to feed, diaper and rock her to sleep. Most of the toys I received from that day on had to do with my learning to be “the good mother”. Toy highchair, stroller, pint-sized clothes, pretend baby food, at seven years old motherhood was already the thing I thought most about aspiring to. And when I played along everyone noticed. “How cute. What a good mommy you are.” I was showered with kudos and attention. What better way to make me want to play some more? And if that wasn’t enough to ram the motherhood message home there was always a T.V. show, movie or old lady with a high white bun who made sure I knew that love and marriage would lead to only one place…a baby carriage. By the time I was in high school and soaking in all that Danielle Steele I was convinced that one day the hands of fate would provide the hook-up for me and my knight- in -shinning armor and then I’d have his son (got to carry on the family name) in order to complete our love or to show him how much I loved him or simply because that was what I was supposed to do.
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Comment by MamaB
Seriously? Seriously.
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