my two cents.

My mom was a single mother for most of my brother's and my upbringing. She worked as a nurse and supported us in every way imaginable. In a lot of ways, she defined herself by her relationship to us, and she prided herself on being a good mother. Which she was.

So, when one of her colleagues decided that our family didn't meet the definition of 'family' because there was no 'marriage' and no 'father,' it hit my mother hard. I was young, but I remember it involved some sort of invitation snub -- a party for 'families only' or something -- and a subsequent confrontation. By proxy, it hit me hard. This was the family I knew, the mother I knew, and someone felt entitled to literally define us out of existence.* By heading up a non-traditional family, my mother was forced to constantly fight for the right to mother her children.

As evidenced by recent blow-ups over motherhood on some popular feminist blogs, motherhood is an emotional subject. It's hard out here for a mom. Single moms, working moms, stay at home moms... older moms, younger moms, adoptive moms... The struggles are different depending on your position -- maybe a working mother struggles with inadequate family leave policies, while a stay at home mother struggles with isolation -- but birthing and raising a child is a friggin' hard job. All these mothers have to deal with the judgment of strangers, the government, schools, family, bosses, lovers, psychologists. I will not add to that judgment.** Well, maybe I'll add a positive judgment to the mix. Here goes: Yay Mothers! You rock.

But.

My initial reaction to these posts was defensive, angry, and resentful. I'll explain why I reacted this way and why this anger and resentment does not necessarily denigrate motherhood or women who mother.

I'm not a mother.

Chances are I will never be a mother. Not by having been pregnant and giving birth, at least. Maybe by raising kids, my partner's kids, adopted kids, something like that. Who knows. Maybe not.

I have a tenuous enough relationship to my gender as it is. So when something like pregnancy or birth i s held up as indicative of one of the main things that separates women from men, something that that "vast majority" of women do, and something that turns women into productive members of society, I cringe. Not because motherhood is wrong or bad, but because I have decided not to identify with motherhood's centrality to a productive female identity.

It's worth noting that feminists aren't responsible for emphasizing the role of motherhood
in a female identity. A childless woman -- an infertile woman, a childfree-by-choice woman, a woman whose gender identity doesn't permit pregnancy -- doesn't thing she's less of a woman because angry feminist moms are telling her so. She gets this from society at large and brings these sentiments into feminist discussions. Likewise, a feminist mom doesn't feel guilty about how she approaches motherhood because angry feminists have some anti-child, anti-mother bent that makes it more difficult for her to birth and raise a child. No, it's just easier to fight over specific blog quotes from specific feminists that we read everyday, because society is just too big. We can't even decide what to call it! (I didn't use the word "patriarchy" for a reason.)

I've opted out of a female identity that requires pregnancy. I'm of the opinion that expanding the definition of womanhood is a good thing. Give mothers the support they need to succeed in a very difficult job. Fight for the right to choose motherhood. Avoid the dreaded mommy drive-by. But acknowledge that, as women, we're being groomed to have children from the moment we're handed a doll. Having a child is wonderful and difficult. But choosing to remain childless also requires strength and conviction.

*This is mean: this woman was an evangelical Christian whose son got addicted to meth and hid gay porn under his bed so she would be sure to find it. I judge her, even though my mature self recognizes that she was denigrating my family so that her own family could be redeemed.

**Now that I have the first * out of the way: I vow not to judge children or their parents in supermarkets, nice restaurants, family restaurants, fast food restaurants, bars, taquerias, movies, parks, cars, schools, zoos, church, the post office, streets, and offices. I make no guarantees for other locations, but only because I can't think of any others.