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Brenna's avatar

This was interesting “And I also think there’s the broader truth that, for a lot of women, motherhood is actually a route to power.”

Sometimes I feel under valued in society because I don’t have kids. I do see reaching motherhood as some kind of higher status even though it’s rife with problems.

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Pamela Tanton's avatar

I keep picturing those baby monkeys with the wire “moms.” 😞

I’m not a mother, but I sure had one.

When I think back (I’m in the Boomer generation, born near the end of that era), I knew that my mother was sometimes miserable. She’d take to her bed sometimes on a Saturday, which forced my father, who was at work all week, to take care of us pretty much all day, and we knew to leave her alone.

I know that she was creative and smart. She actually got a full scholarship to a college an hour from home when she was in high school, but her father convinced her it wouldn’t work, she wouldn’t be able to handle it, etc., so instead she got married and had children.

At that time, very late fifties, early sixties, our culture did want mothers home with babies all the time. I’m sure my mother’s Saturday escapes to her bed were a way to deal with the week-long frustrations of caring for us alone.

But all we knew was that “Mom’s upstairs today so we’ll have Daddy’s eggs this morning.” Pretty twisted. We felt like we had done something to make her mad.

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