“Bring it” - my thoughts on post-postmodern feminism

For a long time I have thought about writing on this topic. What finally prompted me was that over the new year holiday period, myself and my wee family had the absolute pleasure of experiencing “village life”. You see, I have a 2 and a half year old darling son and 3 and a half weeks ago I gave birth to my beautiful daughter. While on holiday we were staying with family and friends in shacks on a farm up the road from the beach. Older children played with my son, other mothers fed him, other people (including my own parents) helped with my newborn, my husband was able to go fishing, we managed to get to the beach and did walks to the local cafe.. I was fed, I was watered.. I helped with meals and dishes when I could but mostly I was encouraged to rest and spend time with my baby. No-one gave me advice and my instincts were respected... It was perfect ❤️

But more than anything, it made me appreciate my husband so much more because I realised in the absence of a village, how much I rely on him to fulfill the entire role of one at home, especially during these early days until gradually I can pick up more again. Don’t get me wrong we have had our fair share of grumbles in the past over work load divisions / parenting roles but he has hugely stepped up to the plate since our daughter has been born and I acknowledge that fulfilling the role of an entire village must be a tremendous amount of pressure on him but I couldn’t be more thankful. It’s just I’m not always good at showing him how much I appreciate him so I’m making more of a conscious effort to do so.

Experiencing village life also highlighted for me why becoming parents in this village-less society can be so challenging for mothers and their relationships with their significant other, especially if their partner (through no fault of their own) has somewhat traditional views on male and female roles when it comes to domestic tasks and parenting. It is also incredibly challenging when a mother chooses to or must return to work. This nearly always happens when our children are of an age where it is still developmentally normal for them to have nighttime parenting needs and then our babies/toddlers are frequently ill because they're in daycare, so we work when we're ill ourselves to save our sick leave for when our babies are ill and need us at home... and so on and so on.  This only leads to sleep deprived, immune suppressed mothers struggling to face each day. 

As a result we have seen the pendulum swing from parenting to the developmental needs of our children to parenting to the needs of mothers or parents. Another factor here is that once again due to the absence of a village, we are seeing mothers and fathers who are so ill prepared for the realities of parenthood that they can't cope and see what is actually normal infant/toddler behaviour as problems that need fixing. Because we no-longer grow up with the village around us to teach us what normal birth, breastfeeding and mothering looks like, nor do we have the "village to help us raise the child" when it is eventually our turn to become mothers/parents ourselves. This has seen the birth of a society that lacks empathy for our babies/toddlers, a society that views sleep training as necessary and normal, breastfeeding beyond the age of one as abnormal and the employment of mothers as a hassle. 

Mothers should not be asked (like I was before going on leave prior to the birth of my daughter) how they plan to get by on 8 days sick leave per year with 2 children... or how long they plan to breastfeed for (because while I’m breastfeeding it will be me, not my husband who must stay home with my sick child). These types of questions would never be presented to a male employee that was also a father. Yet we mothers are expected to work like we are not mothers and mother like we don’t also have paid jobs which I believe is thanks largely to the feminist movement where women have tried to advocate for their rights by suggesting and trying to prove that they should be treated equally to men across all areas of life.

My dream is that one day our society (and governments) acknowledge the importance of a mother’s presence for her children by supporting her firstly to meet the normal biological needs of her children (which would see the end of sleep training and more child-led weaning) and also to take it a step further, a society that supports her in the above but also in her right to a career or simply in this day and age, supports her when it is necessary for her to return to paid employment for the good of her family. Not only is being a stay at home mother not financially viable for the majority of families these days, but women are also choosing to have careers... and why shouldn’t we? But when we have lost our village this is incredibly challenging.. and it’s no-wonder we are seeing a rise in maternal mental health difficulties when in the absence of a village (or an extremely supportive partner) what feels like the weight of the world falls on her shoulders which necessitates her to go against her natural motherly instincts in order to survive. This is a HUGE topic and to be honest it’s difficult to know what the answers to these problems will look like.. but I am excited about the new wave of "true feminism" we are seeing.. a wave where women advocate for equality in places like the work force, pay scale, domestic roles etc but also acknowledge that certain things about being female (ie when we become a parent) will never be equal with men and that to keep pretending it can be equal is doing a huge disservice to ourselves and furthermore to our children 🙌🏼❤️

So mothers and fathers of this new post-postmodern feminist age, keep doing what you’re doing.. we are raising children who will grow into adults who will be our future leaders. Leaders who will value what we mothers do and maybe as a result, one day we will start to see some kind of modern day village return: perhaps in the form of things like support for pregnant working women who become gravely ill during pregnancy, better parental leave for both fathers and mothers, sick leave for mothers that keeps her own sick leave separate from that of her children’s, some kind of flexibility around hours for mothers with young children in order to support the sleep deprived working mothers (very challenging but worth considering) or giving women career security should we choose to stay home for 3-5 years in order to dedicate ourselves as "mother" in those crucial early years, and a society that talks more about birth, breastfeeding and motherhood so we are better prepared and therefore able to surrender to what it means to raise children respectfully when we become mothers ourselves. Because while feminism has been amazing for women in almost all areas of gender equality, this is only so when motherhood is not factored into the equation.. and if we want to see an end to the likes of sleep training, we need to keep doing what we are doing and doing it loudly.. lets keep this new wave of feminism going and define our own biological needs and that of our children rather than having it defined by the patriarchy. We know we are raising more empathetic and emotionally intelligent children by doing so... and quite frankly we owe it to the world to keep going.

And in the words of the amazing L.R Knost:

“It will take one generation choosing gentle, compassionate, respectful parenting to change the world for all future generations. This is OUR time. Our chance is NOW. Lets do our bit to change the world, one little heart at a time”