“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
UM, SERIOUSLY?!?! I had to have cysts scraped out of my uterus (sorry for that visual) 6 months ago, and have also had to endure 6 months of medical menopause to protect my fertility – yet I’m still not a woman?
Awesome.
A-freakin-men.
Oh dude, she’s going to get Lupron Rhi on her ass.
While I can safely say that being a parent has changed me, it certainly didn’t “make me a woman”, so ballet dancer I dated in high school did that, thank you very much.
Apparently being a mom kills off the part of your brain that involves compassion and understanding in some women. Sorry, hon.
Seriously glad you wrote this…I saw it too and had to pick my jaw off the floor. Unbelievable. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, but…really, I don’t know how to do that. It’s just an astounding statement.
According to this theory I too am a girl. A forty five year old married and childless girl. I have laid both my parents to rest, have had three different careers and have lived in as many cities. I also have undergone a partial hysterectomy. I have been a busy girl.
This totally gets my proverbial panties in a bunch. But on the plus side, if I am a girl then those can’t be wrinkles, right.
Having birthed two babies, I will tell you this: I feel LESS like a woman now than I did 20 years ago. Mostly I feel like a 12 year old who is just waiting for a grown up to show up and be in charge.
Babies are life changing, but so are LOTS of things. If you’re waiting for a child to make you a woman you’re probably not ready to be a parent.
That is all.
Even if I give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she meant that it’s pointless to try and regain your pre-baby body because it’s gone through so many changes, it sure came out badly. Also, as a person who through hard work (not obsession, thankyouverymuch) has a body about fifty times more healthy and strong than my (GIRLY) pre-pregnancy body ever was, I call complete bullshit on the notion that getting into the shape you want is some kind of frilly, useless, IMPOSSIBLE pursuit once you are a (WOMANLY) mother.
And by YOU up there I mean anyone, not someone in particular. Just so we are clear.
I’ve had kids and I love them and all, but I can say that being a girl is way better…other than the flat-chested part. That whole sleeping in thing is so not overrated.
(Please people, know that I’m kidding. I love my kids so much that moonbeams shoot out their asses.)
Wow. Just wow. That is the most ridiculous statement and I’m so glad you wrote this. I’ve never been to that site but now I’m curious. Please tell me there were some comments that told her that she is out of her damn mind. I’m not a woman because I’m childless? PLEASE. Tell that to my vagina.
Your post and Rita’s on Blogher (about women saying their children were their best accomplishment) came at a good time because I’ve been thinking about this a lot – I’ve actually be told in real life that there are certain things I just “couldn’t understand” because I’m not a mom. Maybe, but I’m not sure I’d rub it in if I were talking to me.
Thanks for speaking up. I hope you don’t mind if I join the chorus.
Oh, WORD. I saw it, too, and was so…put off by the statement, regardless of how it was intended. I’m so happy you wrote this, Heather.
WORD INDEED. Well said. I guess I am still just a girl myself, then, in spite of everything. (However the pot brownies and rains of whiskey just might convince me to give motherhood a try.)
Thanks for posting this, Heather. I’m GLAD that this pisses you off (and also that you’re not afraid to say it). I don’t believe that having a child makes someone a woman, either. Being a woman is about growing up and accumulating life experiences.
I have never ever watched a momversation, so I kind of don’t know what you are talking about so I feel a little bad saying this but…
Thats just dumb. Wow about women who never have children. Or adopt children. Your a woman. Don’t give it another thought.
” 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.”
This encapsulates exactly what I’ve been feeling, especially since I started blogging and have found few blogs penned by women who don’t have children who aren’t part of any “movement.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but just as a mom isn’t only about being a mom, I’m not only about my barren womb.)
There was an episode a few weeks back about the whole childfree movement, and unfortunately, not one panelist was free of child. Just sayin’.
Oh gawd. I couldn’t make myself watch this clip if you paid me. I have three kids and I’m thankful not to live in the had children = enlightened woman camp. I LOVED my single life and miss many aspects of it terribly. Why even compare the before/after? Some parts are better, but some parts suck ass whichever side of things you’re looking at. I would much rather know who you are (period) then who you are because you did/didn’t have kids, yk?
So I’m a 59 year old girl, since I adopted my twin 19 year old sons? But you have to admit, Maggie was funny with her comment about waking up with a new nose. I listened to this before I read your post and dismissed her remark as just dumb, but when I was struggling with infertility in my younger years, it would have cut me deeply.
You KNOW where I stand on that issue – as a 47 year old childless by absolute choice woman.
Amen, Heather. Amen.
That
is
some
BULLSHIT
Right
There
is
what
that
is.
I have two children and I can’t stand that kind of crap either. At one point I would tell people that I was considering not having them and you would think that I had grown a second head. What could possibly be wrong with me???? Being a mother is a wonderful thing. But it certainly doesn’t make me a better person or more of a woman or more ANYTHING than women without children. And I only wish that it rained whiskey.
(I will say that I have read Mindy’s blog for quite a while and I have never known her to come across as feeling that women without children are “lesser” so maybe she just didn’t think of who she would be offending or excluding with that statement. That said, I haven’t viewed that momversation yet.)
Thanks for writing this, Heather. I heard her say that too and had to rewind it because I was convinced I couldn’t have heard that right. But, um, yeah. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt that it totally didn’t come out like she meant, but it still made my gut hurt.
Just delurking to congratulate you for writing this. I didn’t watch the clip – and I hope that she didn’t mean it that way, but I would think that childless women everywhere would disagree with that statement.
There are so many different things that make all of us women – our challenges, choices, triumphs, defeats, successes and failures. To say that one single thing defines you – well, that’s one of the reasons that I have remained childless until now. I’m so afraid of losing my identity like I have seen so many other women do – and I know they are wonderful mothers, so I don’t begrudge them their decisions, but they have no right to judge me either. Why can’t people, especially women, accept that everyone has a different role on this planet – a single rule cannot apply to all of us. Again, thanks for writing this!
I was a woman before I had my son. I am a woman now. Things in my life have changed, but who I am has not. I get a little (OK, a lot) perturbed at women who allow motherhood to define them. My son is not an accomplishment, nor is he a reflection of myself, even. He is a person whom I love madly, whom I am teaching and nurturing and cleaning up after. But still, he is a person, separate from me.
And honestly? Giving birth ain’t all that. In fact, I will only adopt another child. I do not plan to gestate another one.
That a girl does not become a woman until natural motherhood was just a thoughtless thing to say.
Well thank god I’m pregnant because I have been waiting to get out of this “not a girl, not yet a woman” period I’ve been living in. First I thought becoming a woman would happen when I got my boobs, then I thought maybe when I got my period. I guess it really does take pooping on a delivery room table in front of your partner and doctor to make that dream come true.
I’m a regular reader but I rarely comment on your blog, but I just have to say, AMEN. Let’s stop assuming that the definition of womanhood and the way of experiencing it are defined by a set of fixed standards.
YES. Why don’t people think about the things they say before they spout them for the entire internet to hear? I’m so tired of the flawed argument that baby = relevant = best ever = I am the epitome of woman, hear me breast feed.
The ovaries that are rebelling against me even as we speak are screaming “WOMAN.” And I’m screaming “SHUT THE F UP.”
THANK YOU.
These videos are like train wrecks for me – I can’t stand them yet I can’t not watch them. Then I spend the next week blowing smoke out my nose because the things that are said are just horrific and retarded and demeaning. And then I go watch another one. So thank you for putting into words what I feel (and can’t apparently walk away from) and for saying it so well and eloquently. There is no need for these – I don’t see them fostering any kind of conversation, but instead seem to be even more divisive. This being a great example of such.
I have yet to see the clip, but I am put off on your behalf, my friend.
I have a few friends who are childless and I consider them to be far greater women than I will ever be.
Well said, Heather.
I’m always surprised how many people are so insensitive about comments like that. There are so many possible scenarios and so many couples who deal with infertility, I’m always so bugged at the rude, “You should have kids” comments.
My husband and I were just rolling our eyes at all the times lately where we’ve been talking to people and saying something about being busy or something and they scoff, “Well, YOU don’t have KIDS.” Um, thank you for that. I’m always surprised how often it happens. They have no idea what the circumstance might be.
A-F’in-MEN!!! I cannot stand the “once you have a child, you will understand” comments. Frankly, if these mommies were more literate and articulate, perhaps they could make me understand. Did they ever think perhaps that, just because I don’t immediately get their Sponge Bob or Veggie Tales jokes, that MAYBE I’m not the idiot…MAYBE, they’re just not funny!!!!
Thank God I married, otherwise, I would still be at the kids table at holidays!
That was right when I stopped watching…
That’s exactly how I felt about that “episode.” Only difference is that I was just pissed and left stammering (hate. momversation. gaah!) and your’e last sentence sums it up (in my opinion) perfectly.
Thanks.
I wrote about the same thing yesterday (at the end of my post). I linked to you so my readers know I wasn’t just overreacting. I’m still trying to give Mindy the benefit of the doubt…but seriously? I can’t think of a context in which that statement is okay.
If that’s the definition of being a woman, than I’m going to be a girl for a long ass time.
Dude. That is SO NOT COOL.
I know plenty of childless women, infertile women, and adoptive mothers who ARE CERTAINLY WOMEN.
I don’t know if people don’t THINK before they say these things or what; I have a vague sense of what I imagine she was TRYING to say, but there are at least 1,000 ways to say it without insulting a huge swath of the female population and, in doing so, making oneself look like a giant ass.
amen. just…amen.
birthing a baby certainly didn’t turn me from girl to woman. i’m pretty sure it was having a mortgage that made me a woman. heh.
I hadn’t watched a momversation until last night. I had some saved up in the Google Reader because Maggie had linked to them. So I binged a little. The body one of which you speak was the first one I watched. That Mindy person? WTF? Since I binged I saw her do kind of the same thing with the circumcision conversation so I chalked it up to her being “that kind of mom”. If you haven’t watched the circumcision one please do because the way Alice (Finslippy) handles the attack is beautifully genuine. It made me love her more.
So yeah, like everyone else said, thank you so much for speaking out about it. I’m willing to believe, because of things Maggie has clarified, that Mindy may suffer in the editing room but I’m still not OK with the way momversations are portraying moms, not to mention all the rest of us girls.
Heather – I love you!
Such backwards thinking. I grew up around a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds who got pregnant because they wanted to be viewed as “women”. The assumption was that they were pregnant because they were poor, ignorant and lacked a vision for what their lives could be outside of their neighborhood. Yet here I see a bunch of educated, middle class women talking the same crap. Unbelievable.
I think where these things go wrong is when people change things from “I feel that …” to “You feel …” or “You won’t …” or “You are …” statements, when they put their feelings on everyone else. Yes, many women feel like they haven’t ever truly loved until they had children, FINE, but that doesn’t mean it’s a universal experience appropriate to use to make others feel bad.
Maybe SHE felt more womanly after she had a child. Great. Fine. But to say that no one is, is obviously hilariously wrong. But I will say that it was probably a thoughtless, rather than calculated, statement, meant to make herself feel better rather than tear down others. That doesn’t make it RIGHT, but I don’t think it was intentional.
Also? Having children isn’t a selfless act. I’m kind of sick of hearing that. You get a LOT out of being a parent, and there is a vague narcissistic quality that drives some to procreate. So if I hear ONE MORE TIME that raising other people is purely selfless, I might call them out on it. And the majority of reasonably enlightened parents I speak will agree with me.
However, I will say that it’s not exactly polite to hear, in response/backlash to stuff like this, people make just as many universal statements about moms — and I hear it a lot, especially now. We’re all people. Can’t we all just get along? Just because some of us chose to be moms doesn’t automatically lump us in the idiotic category of people who use words like “mompreneur.” There are fools of all stripes.
Heather, I’m so glad that you wrote this. I watched it and felt really put off by that statement. I have to wonder, though, if there was a little bit more to the story. Those momversations have clearly been edited all to hell, so it’s possible that the context was lost. Be that as it may… OUCH.
I agree, some of the women there make it sound like that. I also read mommy blogs, they can be quite funny and there aren’t many non-mommy blogs around like yours, don’t you think? Maybe I have to look more.
I liked coolmom.com which I ran into also from Momversation, it’s by Daphen B, I saw some of the videos and she’s completely different from most of the other Moms, she’s like hey, motherhood was right for me but it’s not the only way to go, and I felt pretty fulfilled before having kids. I liked that, a breath of fresh air.
I also saw the episode on child-free by choice and I laughed my butt off at Dana’s comments. If I recall correctly, she said that she NEVER thought that she would get married OR have children … she really stressed the NEVER part. Then she went on to say that her feelings changed when she met her future husband at the age of TWENTY-ONE! I thought that was so hilarious to bring up in a child-free by choice episode. She wasn’t child-free by choice, she was just too young to know what she wanted!
Hi Heather – I had the same gut reaction that you did. Thanks for putting it out there so well. Cheers!
I found this post via Zandria’s blog and felt compelled to come and read your post. I totally agree with you and I’m sure I’ve heard similar things before from other mothers.
I myself resent the idea that you’re not a proper grown up unless you’re married and have children. There are a lot of experiences I have had that my friends who followed that path haven’t. Most of them have probably never even been on a plane alone – I’ve moved to two countries by myself, survived a father almost dying in a horrific accident and cared for him after, survived an accident myself, had a good career, etc etc. All things that make me the woman I am. And if I don’t ever have children then I won’t feel lesser than because I don’t.
We need to support each other and not be out to prove ourselves. I think comments like that come from insecurity and we should all just get over it!
Girrrrrrl, I love this post. And I’m a mommy.
Because you know what? My biggest problem with the ‘mommyblogger’ label is not that it’s so exclusionary, but that it’s too INclusionary. We are not the same, she and I, just because we both gave birth.
I’ve never seen momservation. I’m sure it’s a great show. But I find that the more I stay away from the things that tell me how to blog (and my lawd there are so many of them) the happier I am.
And I shouldn’t have started the comment off with ‘Girl.’ You are, absolutely, most definitely, thunder-strikingly, most completely, all woman.
xo
Having visions of the personal growth, maturity and complete sense of wisdom and wholeness of Octomom. Ugh. Not just offensive, idiocy. Good for you calling her on it.
I’m a compulsive commenter (a compulsive opinion-giver, to be more precise), but yes, I hold my tongue on the mommy blogs. Not my place.
But yeah, this is effed and definitely hurtful. I feel this same condensension (word?) from some folks, re: being partnered, too, and it’s looooooooooooooooooathsome.
That said? These types of comments all stem from insecurity, a need to defend oneself and one’s choices. We all feel it at times, I suspect, and it’s no fun at all.
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