More Marriage Talk

I said a lot of provocative things recently, and Good Enough Mum has decided to take me on. I think there are some misunderstandings, perhaps I mixed too many serious ideas with smart-ass comments and blurred the lines.

"Kateri's approach is to start by deciding which member of the couple is the Bearer of the Banner of Righteousness and should therefore get to do things their way..."

Who's right and who's wrong really has no place in this discussion. Whatever the merits of both sides, the fact is this man is bullying his wife, shaming her in public for her choices. This woman has a two month old, a two year old, and a job, and instead of being useful, he's throwing a tantrum. That's a shitty thing to do, and he loses all credibility in my eyes by doing it. Forget that he's being a shitty partner, he's being a shitty father.

His unreasonable expectations expose how out of touch he is with what's normal, making it plain that he does very little of the childcare around that house. Otherwise, he would know that it's developmentally appropriate that a two month old would only be able to sleep in her mothers arms, or that a two year old might still need a pacifier, especially through the transition to siblinghood.

There are many valid reasons not to cosleep. It certainly doesn't fit everyone's lifestyle. A hissy fit on the part of the husband is not a good enough reason to stop, unless he's willing to do the extra work. When the baby wakes up at night, is he going to get the baby, bring her to the mom, and take the baby back to bed when nursing is done? I know someone who made this compromise, and guess who never woke up when the baby did? Guess who woke up anyway? Guess who ended up doing extra work and getting less sleep because of her husband's hissy fit?

I think the person making the parenting decisions should be the same person who's doing most of the work of childcare. In most households, that's the mother. In this household, I think we can say with certainty who is doing the most work, what with the roof sporting an asshole with a sign.

The thing I didn't talk about in my last post and what has only been touched on in the comments is the sex thing. Behind the talk of "bedroom as sanctuary" and "date night" is the expectation of sex. The timing of the husband's strike relative to the age of the baby is telling. She passed the arbitrary magical six week mark. Maybe her head wasn't ready for sex when her body was medically cleared for it, so her husband mounted himself on the roof of their house in protest. Disgusting. Of course this is only specualtion.

Onward to the criticism of my utopian fantasy:

"Until, of course, the day when one of your wives decides that she wants child-free time in the evenings, and thinks the children should go to bed earlier than you think they should.  Or until some other dispute about childcare crops up.  Or until somebody gets PO'd because they think they're getting lumbered with more than their fair share of the housework.  Or until one of the women turns out to be a bitch or a drama queen." 

The idea that the conflict would nullify the value of the idea is silly. Of course there would be conflict. I've been a part of enough catty female friendships to know that. The good part of having so many adults around is that disputes can be viewed from a variety of perspectives, instead of just two opposing people. I also think that women tend to resolve conflicts differently that a woman and a man. You would take sex completely out of the question. If the tables were turned, there would be a list just as long against the viability of the nuclear family.

"So, unless she's planning on setting up a cloning facility, men are going to have to enter the equation at some point.  In Kateri's ideal family, therefore, the children would have parents somewhere out there who were considered completely dispensable, who weren't even considered worthy of mention as part of the family.

Which is deeply, bitterly ironic.  Because Kateri is - for want of a better term - a birthmother."

One of the reason I would be comfortable doing something like this is because I know that Josh would never abandon his girls. He would always be an involved, loving parent. It never occured to me that we would cease to be family, even if we lived apart. He is the child of a divorce himself; he knows how it feels. One of the things that bothers me about this plan is that it frees men to be shitheads instead of fathers. I must have more faith in men than she does, because I think there would be way more fathers than shitheads.

I am also kind of giggling at the idea that "men would have to enter the equation at some point". Of course they would. The world is full of men! Would it be so shocking to be having a long term relationship with a man, get pregnant and have a baby, without getting married and setting up a nuclear family? Who says a man would not be welcome in the house if he wanted to be there? There is no limit to the creative arrangements that can work when the adults put their heads together. There is no reason to assume that the traditional marriage is the best structure for a family.

Underneath all of this, as GEM pointed out, is that I'm a birthmother. I wouldn't be a birthmother if single motherhood wasn't such a frightening thought. I can tell you right now I am not cut out for single motherhood. I don't think many women are. One of the most appealing things about my utopian fantasy is that the consequences of unplanned pregnancy wouldn't be so punitive. It sits close to my heart, that a female-centered family structure could make birthmotherhood obsolete.

Some would argue that sex should be punished. You can insert "irresponsible" in there if you want, but not all unplanned pregnancies are the result of irresponsible sex. Abortion, adoption, and single motherhood are the three choices a woman faces when her irrepressible sexuality bears fruit outside of marriage. All of them involve tremendous loss. Having a social structure where women can have babies without needing men to help them can free them from the loss and drudgery of those three options.

Some people (and I'm starting to think I'm one of them, for a variety of reasons I won't go into here) just aren't suited to traditional marriage. Does that mean they shouldn't have children? Or if they do their lives should be as difficult as possible? Why?

Comments

[Jessica]

Your utopia wouldn't work for me, but I'm sure it would for a lot of people. In fact, there are societies where it is pretty much the norm. Iceland comes to mind. Very high percentage of unmarried mothers, sometimes living with the father, more often not. Fathers involved, but whether or not he's husband material is up to the mother. She might marry him after many years. It isn't expected. Large supportive female clans that help with the children. Seems to work for them.

[Jaci]

I wonder why our society doesn't support larger female interaction (esp. among mothers). It seems that we are told to have a great amount of friends and support but when it comes down to it, we are isolated by petty female issues that I feel only come into play because of men.

Like Kateri, I think that there would be more fathers than shitheads (and as a child of a shithead and stepshithead, I feel that this would help keep the shitheads out of the kids lives). Can you imagine the positive influences REAL men, fathers, would have on the development of the children?

Maybe I should move to Iceland.

[Moxie]

What a graceful and thoughtful response, Kateri.

[Sarah V.]

Great to see more in this debate - I look forward to getting the chance to write my response (which probably won't be until the weekend now, alas). Two minor points until then:

1. How do you quote from my blog like that? I can never manage to paste anything into a Typepad post, so I have to type everything I want to quote out by hand. Do you do the same, or is there some clever trick I'm missing?

2. I never noticed that that's the acronym for my blog name before, and it's so cool! When I saw that, I thought "GEM? Who's GEM? Oooh, is there someone else posting about this as well?" before I realised. What a good acronym!

[The Pajama Mama]

Ya know, if we would all let one another live in our own little boxes and RESPECT how others do things (even if it's not the way WE do them, things would go a lot easier. Who CARES how someone else is raising their child or maintaining their family?!?! All that matters is what works for YOUR family.

Duh.

[Lilian]

Kateri, when I read your post that originated this discussion, I remembered that I saw a report on TV about women who *already are* living in the way you describe. I can't for the life of me recall where, when, and exactly what it was, but I distinctly remember it was what you describe - several women with children living together and sharing childcare and housework. I thought at the time that it was very clever.

[Casey]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, Kateri. Mostly because some of my friends are poly and considering having kids. The idea of building life-long, intimate (although not necessarily sexual) relationships with people who aren't related to you is intimidating to a lot of people. I find myself feeling a little uneasy with it, and I've been trying to figure out why that is. I guess I'm not clear on how one depends on and supports multiple adults without losing part of herself.

I'm babbling now, so I'll stop.

Great post!

[HeatherRainbow]

I'm poly, and we have been discussing having kids for awhile. I think it is more practical (in my opinion, and for my life) to have more people willing and able to take care of each other, and the children.

[alchemist]

Maybe it's just because my mom was a little under-involved with me (to put it very mildly), but I've never seen nurturing as a gender-specific trait.

I grew up in a house with Mom, Dad, 5 brothers, 1 sister, Grandma, and "M", a family friend who moved in permanently when I was 6 and became like another mom to me, after my sister went away to college. My big brothers fixed my breakfast and lunch every day & walked me to school and played with me. Dad spent more time with me than Mom did, and was usually the one to take me to the doctor. Dad or M looked after me when I was sick. My brothers and I baby-sat Grandma (who had alzheimer's). Everybody took care of everybody, for the most part.

The idea of arbitrarily removing Dad from this picture, and taking away the "parenting" roles of my much-older brothers, leaves my inner kid feeling bereft.

You don't have to have an all-female household to make single parenting reasonably practical. My 22-year old nephew lives with his ex-girlfriend, their 4-year-old son, my 24-year-old niece and her 2 year old son. The adults in the household are all friends and all share childcare duties and bills, so they're able to make it work. It's hard for my nephew & his ex to go on with their separate love lives while sharing a home, but not as hard as it would be to miss out on time with their son, and for them, staying together as a couple was totally impossible, so this is what they came up with.

I'm really proud of my nephew, but to him this is just normal--he's a dad, so he'll do whatever it takes to be with his son and make a happy family for him.

I do get that not all men are like that. There's a bad apple or two on my branch of the family tree and plenty more out there for the picking. But I don't think we should reinvent the family to exclude men from the hearth on that basis.

[Beanie Baby]

Have you read any le Guin? I might have brought this up on a previous post, but whenever I read your thoughts on this subject I'm reminded of one of her societies where marriages consist of four people--two women and two men.

How we've set up "family" is so arbitrary, and such a recent historical construct; it drives me nuts to see people defend it as "the" right or natural way to do things.