“The most violent element in society is ignorance. ” ~Emma Goldman
I will start this off by saying that I – like many others – have been sucked into Momversation. Whether you like it or not or cannot stand any of the panelists, there is some interesting commentary that I am obviously not the main demographic for but hey, whatever, I also read mommy blogs and nod emphatically when making the decision for Steve over Joe as the host for Blue’s Clues. I’ve never commented despite sometimes strong opinions from the peanut gallery because it’s a comfort thing: I am not a mom and so I try not to push myself into obviously ‘Mom Only’ conversations. I can comment on marketing strategies and how companies approach moms because it seems pretty similar for all bloggers but when it comes to breast vs. the bottle or sex after baby? No fucking clue. The most recent episode I viewed I found courtesy of Maggie Mason. It was on how the female body changes after baby. Which great. Having seen some of these panelists in person I can unequivocally say that MANY women look better after (hell, even during) baby than I could ever hope to look in my life. Fine. Awesome. But then there was this bit that I found so irritating. So grating. So belittling towards people who have not had children because we will never understand anything ever in life until we have children. See also: Your life is unfulfilled until you have a child. You don’t know what love is until you have a child. You don’t know how to be self-less until you have a child. I also hear that chocolate tastes better, all brownies have pot in them and it rains whiskey. But ONLY if you have had children.
One of the moms – Mindy Roberts – said something that made everything inside of me sink because my God, why can’t women just be women and stop comparing and trying to make other women feel small. Or at least that’s how it felt to me when she said, “…what you were before you had a baby? You were a girl. And now you’re a woman”. And ooh, just suck me in the gut with another implication of how much more new and improved a female becomes once she has given birth. So screw you childless people whether it by choice, circumstance or general inability to get pregnant. Also you chicks who adopted because you felt it was the right thing to do? FAIL. NOT A WOMAN. But if by the grace of Mother Nature you are blessed with giving birth naturally then I hearby dub you an actual woman with super human powers.
I’m not just annoyed by the tone but I’m also hurt and angry and kind of pissed off that I lost my virginity AND got my period AND got boobs AND started a career and I’m still just a little girl. Damn it.
*A link to the actual Momversation episode*
I closed comments on this post because of the ire and the martyrism but I am re-opening. Because I LOVE provacative discourse. And this has been such a great conversation despite the childish behavior of a minority.
96 Comments
p.s. When I said “these types of comments” I meant HER comment– but then again, yours too, I suppose.
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I didn’t comment there because I didn’t feel that I could be polite. I really like to read many of the women who contribute, but I haven’t been impressed by the overall tone of the segments.
What a tacky thing to say.
Maybe THIS woman never knew love, maturity or selflessness before having children, but she certainly cannot speak for everyone who has spawned offspring.
She cannot speak for me. Frankly, I have known some women who become much more (and sickeningly) selfish and immature AFTER they have children.
Having kids WAS life changing for me. It DID make me into a woman, but I WAS TWENTY ONE AND TOTALLY STUPID SO THIS SAYS NOTHING.
Having a baby did change my definition of love, but it was only because it is a different kind of love…not because I was incapable of deep and whole love without a baby. It is amazing, but guess what? You certainly do not need it to be a fully whole human. (I also agree w/ Jonniker-people get a LOT of being parents. It is not entirely selfless.)
I certainly have much more admiration for women who are secure enough or know their own minds, temperaments, desires and goals to opt to be child-free rather than those who have kids without thought or out of a less than desirable need or “Just because that is what you do”.
I also have more compassion than to make a statement like this knowing there are women out there ACHING to be mothers that simply cannot due to situations out of their control. How dare she make them feel like less of a woman? Frankly…that struggle would add more dimension to a soul and character than she can probably imagine.
I am just pissed. I HATE that some of the most divisive, painful barbs thrown at women ARE BY OTHER WOMEN! Like women need one more goddamn reason to feel inferior in this world.
P.S.
Tweeted, stumbled and shared in Google Reader.
(I hope everyone else does the same.)
I will add that Mindy is only responsible for the ‘were a girl, now a woman’ remark. Do I think she said it on purpose and to be hurtful? No. Was I hurt by it? Yes. Of course this comes on the heels of having an aunt die of breast cancer and then hearing this woman say ‘you/your body was a girl until you had children’. Which FUCK no. Even if she didn’t do it on purpose, still hurtful and stings a bit. And we all know – or those who have seen Momversation – that the episodes are heavily edited especially given the time constraints. That said it is a matter of watching what you say and this remark was particularly insensitive.
If I may say so quickly and rather panicky-like, Mindy didn’t make the selfless comment — that was someone else, or rather, a whole bunch of someones, at different times. Ditto the love. Bottom line, a lot of people are idiots when it comes to putting their experience of parenthood in perspective and are totally insulting to others who made a different choice. HOO BOY do I get that feeling and know it well, even as I teeter on the razor-thin edge of parenthood.
And separately, after watching the video (which I didn’t the first time I commented, and will totally cop to it, and I’d guess others haven’t either), I reeeeallly don’t think she meant it the way it came out, or that childless peeps aren’t real women. I think she was trying to paint how she feels about herself in a certain light and it just came out in a very unfortunate way.
I have a 2 y.o. daughter that I never thought I would have because where I come form you don’t wait until you’re 35 to have your first (or only) kid. I have been changed quite a bit, I am now obese and more depressed than ever, although of course I adore my daughter and can’t imagine not having her in my life. But I have avoided Momversations on purpose for this very same reason. I can’t put my support behind anything that makes it so there’s an us and a them. Just not the way I go about my life. So I hear you loud and clear and I agree with you. So glad you wrote about this!
I didn’t watch the video because I couldn’t (slow as cold tar internet connection), so I cop to that as well.
I know that there are always issues of editing, multiple attributions and intentions, I get that, but I can see why this hurt.
I have had good intentions and spoken thoughtlessly a LOT. And I have had to apologize, eat my words and learn. I still do it and probably will till I die, but again…it’s how you learn.
So, I am not without sympathy for this woman. I am sure she wasn’t meaning to be hurtful, truly. I can totally see that.
BUT.
If you are going to go into a situation where you are making comments about a VERY sensitive, hot-button subject (And does it GET more sensitive than having children vs. not?) to a wide audience you really need to watch what you say and how you say it. Have an opinion certainly, but be careful.
And?
I would feel just as strongly about a thoughtless comment like this spoken by a childless person who put the assumptions on people who have children.
I just think more respect is needed all the way around.
Just my 2-cents (again)
Jonna – I pointed out that she didn’t make the other comments about being selfless, etc. And like you said it was unfortunate and sucky and I’m feeling really sensitive about being a woman right now and that comment didn’t help.
I get that — I just envisioned Mindy e-mailing me and being like, seriously? Did you watch the same video I did? DID I SAY SELFLESSNESS, BITCH? And then there’d be this awful smackdown, and I’d totally win and stuff.
(I’m kidding. She could probably kick my ass, considering I move at a snail’s pace these days.)
(But yeah, I totally know what you mean, too. Like I said, if I heard the love comment ONE MORE FRACKING TIME, heads were going to roll. See also: selflessness, body changes, etc. etc. DI-TTO.)
HB: I saw your comment after mine was posted. I think we were typing AT THE SAME TIME. All magical-like.
Ok good. Glad that’s all settled. I’m liking productive conversation and I wish there were some way to erase that ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality and realize that we are ALL women with our own things going on and our own choices and leave it at that. I’m all about empowering women in general not just moms or non-moms but all of us women as the individuals that we are.
It is upsetting enough not have the luxury of choosing whether or not I become a mother. To have dreamed about it growing up only to find out that that dream is not going to happen – or at least not how I wanted it to. It is completely another to have someone say that I am not a woman because of it.
I’m not sure if I am happy or sad that I read this, because honestly I don’t watch the momversations, but I am glad to see that I am not alone in feeling discriminated against for not having kids.
My mother once told me that every woman she knew who was not a mother was missing something essential, was hollower somehow, and I have carried a bitterness about that idiotic idea ever since. I had a hysterectomy due to cervical cancer, and people often ask me WHEN the Palinode are going to decide to adopt, not IF. Grrr.
Excellent post! I delurk to say so!
Dude. YESSSSSSSSSSSSS.
When Mindy said that, no matter what her contextual intentions were, I was like *GASP* and then, *FUCKING GASP* and then I fell over and wept for the womanhood I may potentially never have.
Aack.
Yes! I WIN blog roulette today… happened to land here from a chain of Twitter people and am thrilled this is the first post I read. Welcome to a permanent home in my feedreader:) JOY and FEMINIST squee!
directed here by sweet/salty and feeling very invigorated by this post. i saw that momversation too (what is it about the grating valley girl voices that just keep sucking us all in?) i was not jazzed about her contribution much….i am a mom and find what she said to be such a trivializing statement. to all of us. believe me, i still feel like a girl sometimes, and the body is not the issue, the whole package is. maybe she is more woman because she gave birth to three when i only have two, or had them through the vag, or, or, or…that is thing, we as women are all very different and all still women. (not trying to be personally mean to her).
i like how you made a statement about this, and rightly you should. there are some things that just are not true, this is one of them. and life does not magically alter post birth, it just radically changes. i think that is why there are so many mom bloggers pressing so many ideas out there, we are no longer raised in a society that prepares us for the change so we wander about, asking questions, spouting opinions and sometimes saying things we should not.
thanks for writing this, i really loved reading it.
I’m *gasp* married AND childless – by choice. What does that make me? A perpetual tween? (That would explain a lot about my taste in television, but that’s neither here nor there.)
The inadequacy and self doubt we as women place on OURSELVES is bad enough – do we really need to be made to feel like lesser human beings for not having children? Um, no.
Thank you for writing this, Heather.
I agree that the comment was thoughtless, but I’m going to defend a radical idea: it takes one to know one. This is not to say that you are not a woman if you do not breed, NOT AT ALL. I prefer to keep my ideas of “woman” separate from those of “mother.” Sometimes they coincide, but sometimes not. And the absence of one does not negate the other. But I will say this:
My husband lost his mother eight years ago. I have been there with him, walked alongside, but my parents live and so I CANNOT understand fully what it means to live through that loss.
I have presented at diversity trainings in four states, about priviledge and power and invisible inequities, but no matter how much I read or I empathize or I observe I am still a priviledged, overly-educated white girl and so I can not EVER truly, truly understand.
When mothers say things about how you cannot understand unless you are a mother, it probably sounds mean and heartless to others. We are not saying that you do not know love or selflessness or sleeplessness or fear, but rather that you cannot really, truly understand because you have not lived it. It is not your experience. The same way that being a man, or being a person of color, or being a Catholic is NOT a part of my experience. I can learn. But it does not change what I am, and the truth of my own experience.
It has nothing to do with being less of a woman, I agree that’s a crock of shit. But to say that we are the same, me with this experience, and you with differing experiences, is (in my opinion) demeaning and a lie.
I responded to this on my own blog. I felt this post warranted one of my own.
Delurking here because this is probably the best thing I’ve read in a long time. I don’t really have anything more profound or original to add to your post, or the other comments here, other than THANK YOU for your insightful words.
I’m a mom and an avid reader of the typical mommy-blog – Amalah to Zoot and every stop along the alphabet.
I was sort of excited when I saw the first few Momversations. They were interesting and thoughtful and the participants were funny and self deprecating. And then it changed. The panelists became a bit more hard edged in their statements, the judgment factor notched up ever-so-slightly. And suddenly it wasn’t so much fun to watch any more. The episode that completely cured me was the one on circumcision, where the panelist who introduced the question had no INTENTION of having a conversation on that subject. She just wanted a bully pulpit from which to condemn anyone who had made that choice. I am sorry that what began as a promising conversation turned into something so much less valuable and interesting to us all as women. I don’t know whether this has been an editorial choice, but they certainly lost me as a viewer.
And, Heather, you are a woman of substance and intellect, and I am routinely impressed by your thoughts on the world, large and small. Thank you for a terrific contribution to the entire community of women online.
I agree with you. Time makes you a woman, having kids makes you a parent.
Seriously. I’m so sick of this mom shit. That’s part of the reason why I decided not to be a part of BlogHer anymore. They don’t directly say they’re all for only moms, but there’s so much parenting crap through BlogHer that it makes me sick.
I’ll tell you something, I’ve felt like a woman many times in my life but when I gave birth a month ago and had to have my hoo-ha stitched up, I mainly just felt sore. And come on, I’m tired of these sweeping parenting generalizations. I know plenty a teen mom who is no more a woman after having a baby than she was before. Same goes for many moms who I like to think chose to become mothers partly because they were already smart, together women.
Thank you for writing this. I’ve been thinking about many these same things for quite some time, but have not been brave enough to write about it. Yet.
I noticed the same thing when I watched the Momversation, but I thought I was the only one because until this post I haven’t seen anything about it on the great, big Internets.
So I’m glad you pointed it out.
Before I got knocked up, I remember thinking that I didn’t understand why there was some sort of high-and-mighty motherhood “club” almost. Sure, motherhood is a wonderful thing and it challenges you and changes you in ways you may never have thought possible (I actually can’t say yet, but this is what I hear lol), but it doesn’t make a woman MORE of a woman or a BETTER woman. It just means she has a magical, stretching uterus.
We are all women, whether we have children or not, whether our children are biological or not, whether we don’t have children because of choice or circumstance, etc. Womanhood is womanhood. Not motherhood.
I’m really happy you pointed this out. Rock on.
@Loralee – “I would feel just as strongly about a thoughtless comment like this spoken by a childless person who put the assumptions on people who have children.”
Exactly.
HA HA HA. Jennie’s comment is killing me, because um, YES. Not for anything, and not to dismiss the women who feel otherwise, but to me, there is nothing particularly womanly about pregnancy, at least for me, or, I’m guessing, the one afterwards. I felt MUCH more like a woman all dressed up and going out to dinner with Adam.
This is more of a … marine mammalian state. Not a womanly one, because for God’s sake at this point, I have more in common with COWS than I do most (other, equally real) women. I suspect trying to categorize it into something grander is the only way to, uh, make yourself feel better about it? When really, sorry, there isn’t a way. At least not now.
But really, I digress.
So Mindy wrote in her comments that she didn’t mean what she said and it’s been bothering her ever since the video posted: http://themommyblog.net/blog/comments/ahahahaha-momversation-are-you-ok-with-your-post-baby-body1/#more
The end.
Knowing Mindy, she wasn’t out to make anyone feel as awful OR as agitated as you all do. Mindy is a caring person, and wouldn’t want to hurt anyone.
None of you have ever said anything out of context, or explained something using the wrong words? I don’t think so. This wasn’t meant to insult. Don’t let it.
I am going to say this very slowly and hope that people can understand:
I watched the Momversation episode and heard what Mindy said. I got upset as did many others. Mindy then noted in a comment on her site that she goofed when she said what she did. I LINKED to that comment in this comment section and noted that she did apologize.And I thought it was over. What people became further agitated about had nothing to do with Mindy so she needs to stop playing the martyr card. It had to do with the response of two people in her comments section who said things not out of context or badly edited but because that is honestly how they felt.
I love good discourse. I’m in politics so I have to enjoy it but I cannot stand when people don’t read or for some reason can’t follow along to what happened prior. Read the comments before participating in a conversation. That’s really all I ask.
Wait—you reopened the comments because you love good discourse? And because of my playing the martyr card?
Check the score. How many hurtful comments to my one? My integrity and livelihood is at stake.
I tried to be fair. Defending and clarifying is not playing the martyr card, and I am really sorry that this is the only comment of mine that will appear here. I choose to disengage once the followup episode airs on Momversation.
Glad you opened this back up because I came late to the “party”.
After I had my daughter I became a mother. I was a woman LONG before I gave birth. It is quite sad that any woman today would define her adulthood by having given birth. I feel very sorry for her children – they have the added pressure of being the reason she wasn’t a girl for the rest of her life.
Give me a break.
I think you blew Mindy’s comment WAY out of proportion. You may need to examine why you were so personally offended by it.
A follow-up episode? Oy vey.
Maybe Momversation should consider sticking with topics they know something about… or can manage spend more than just a single afternoon researching.
Sometimes we say things that come out wrong. Look what happened to Michelle Obama last summer when she said,. “for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”
Critics pounced on her — give a girl a break. Sometimes just forgetting to say one word changes the entire context of a sentence. I believed Michelle Obama’s explanation and thought the critics were a bunch of vultures who were more interested in advancing their point of view then acknowledging that sometimes the things we say aren’t anywhere close to matching our intent.
In part I think the discussion is very much like the critics of Michelle Obama, even when she clarified, her critics kept on harping on her original statement. Isn’t that what is happening here? Mindy’s statement, taken out of context, is very offensive. But what if someone asked her what she meant before having a feeding frenzy at her expense? Would you still be upset? Or would you have given her the benefit of the doubt?
If after talking with her she had stood by her statement then have at her. She would have deserved this very public tongue lashing. But she realized what she had said was wrong. She apologized. I think people owe her an apology as well.
I have an idea! If you find you don’t like the Momversation episodes and/or might become offended because they are MOM-versations then don’t watch them. If their main audience was directed at all womankind don’t you think they would be named Wom-versations? There are plenty of other websites out there for you all to browse, and police, without having to land on that one.
Personally I believe Mindy that she was stating it like she would to a 7 year old and that they edited a lot of her content out which made it all seem worse. Let me ask you. How else would you describe it to someone who is really too young to understand? And, oh my God hold your bra straps ladies, she’s a mom, so she might just repeat something like she would say to her child since that’s the world she’s surrounded by. She wasn’t talking to the whole of womankind. She was talking to a camera about her feelings and trying to describe something that is rather personal. In efforts to lighten it up a little she used a conversation with a 7 year old as the basis for what she said. In the aftermath of the Mindy lynching that took place she chose to stand up bravely in the face of all the adversity and sincerely apologize to those who she offended AND YET YOU STILL CAN’T LET IT GO! Can’t we all focus on the really tragic things in life. Starving children or something?
Gees ladies! Let it go!
Get over it and move on already!
I agree exactly what Summer said.
When I met my husband, he had his future son’s name picked out. When I married him, he still wanted kids. Now over six years later, we have no kids, but two weeks ago he had a vasectomy and I had absolutely no say in that. Yes every person can make his own choices, but did he have to permanently and negatively alter MY future too? I am still very raw about this (as if that’s not obvious) and now I hear people making stupid comments like this.
Oh well, guess I’ll never be a woman.
Hey, does that mean I can get rid of my job and all my bills and my ADULT responsibilities and go eat pudding all day and play in the sandbox? Gosh, that would be nice.
Chris, I never said that a woman has to give birth to be a woman. Ever. I was clear, and some here seems to be assuming I said that because others misunderstood and are now piggybacking each other.
Emma, you didn’t even spend time researching this *post* before commenting. You would have seen that your comment is moot, and frankly, insulting considering the care I have shown in this matter.
Well, Mindy, since you were kind enough to apologize for insulting tons of women who haven’t given birth, I’ll be big enough to apologize to you.
After watching the momversation with Heather, Dana, and Rebecca re: the childfree, I guess I just figured that if no (or very limited) research is required in taping a momversation, the same standard should be applied in discussing them.
My bad.
Ignore the ignorant woman. She’s just one of those people who thinks anyone who’s different than she is comes up short somewhere. In this case, she used the words “girl” and “woman”.
As a mom myself, I can honestly say that the only difference between a woman before and after giving birth is the stretch marks and the word “mom”. And if you adopt, you can still be a “mom”. Further, if you overeat, you can still have stretch marks!
What was supposed to be the difference between a girl and a woman again?
To the self-righteous patronizing Ms. Roberts, I say, “Bah humbug. Speak for yourself.”
It’s on Momversation but it happens in real life ALL the time. Maybe not specifically, and the quote may have been taken out of context, but the thought is there.
If I had a dollar for everytime I heard something along the line of “Oh well, since you don’t have children you wouldn’t understand”. I would be one rich bitch.
well, i wanted to go to a place en donde no pasa nada, so i visited you but it´s the opposite! i am a mother and pissed off for you, while it took strength to get three children out of my body without medication, does that qualify me for some special award? i think not. yeah, children change your life, you deal with annoying young whining voices instead of adult whining voices… but how egotistical is it to think that having children makes you a woman?!! bite her head off and if you can´t i´ll send my tribe of children to do it in your honor.
abrazos,
biz
So today I found out that I wrote this just for my ten minutes of fame. Screw politics, I want to write incendiary blog posts for a living. It’s always been my dream!
But really this topic has been exhausted and I think that most of us have come to the consensus that Mindy said something off the cuff that was edited and then came out wrong. She apologized. And think that most of us are in agreement that giving birth does not a woman make.
The end. Let’s talk about wine. Seriously. I’m wondering about people’s favorite wines so email me and tell me yours: nopasanadablog@gmail.com.
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