Confessions of Misogyny

 My four daughters would reassure you that I am one of the worst misogynists they know. Until I became a mother at age 28, I would always join the circle of men, never the circle of women. I was positive the conversation would be more stimulating. I despise women's fashion magazines and all the talk of diets , hair, shoes, and makeup. Being forced to watch Sex and the City would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Spending a year in a Catholic girls college in Rochester was the most alienating experience of my life. I was sarcastic, and no one seemed to realize I didn't necessarily mean it. One night my friends and I stayed up all night, discussing politics, sex, religion, life, death, etc. The rumor rapidly spread that we were gossiping about everyone on the floor. Learning from the college dean that "there was something in the nature of a woman that unsuits her for intellectual debate with men" elicited my jail beak to being the only girl in the political science classes at Fordham.

Working in the female-dominated fields of public librarianship and social work was a disaster for me. I never can accept that is the way it is and you can't do anything about it. I am a trouble maker pure and simple. When I am upset, I defend myself by getting more ascerbic and intellectual. I perceive that men enjoy gutsy women who giggle and smile and tease and insult and debate with them lots more than women do. I have always gone to male shrinks.

My most successful social work job was working with a great group of seriously mentally ill guys who were absolutely trapped in the system. Some had been in jail; most had substance abuse problems. I never was so appreciated by a group of people in my whole life. They were so wonderful to hang out with. I excel at eliciting the sanity in crazy people and the craziness in apparently sane people. There are lots of the latter in social work and public librarianship.

I also did extremely well with male gay clients. One told me I must have been a gay male in a previous lifetime I understand him so well. I Another paid me the greatest compliment I got as a shrink: he said I was his only experience of unconditional love. We had a strange therapeutic relationship. Until I treated him, an Irishmen from an utterly abusive family, I never realized how Irish I was.

I have never been hassled on the street by a guy in my entire life. I do smile a lot. I am perfectly comfortable being the only women in a subway car full of men. African American men and immigrants tend to find older, curvier women attractive, which is lovely fun. In the early days of women's lib, women whined incessantly about street hassles. I wondered if I was the ugliest woman in the entire women's liberation movement. I often have long conversations with homeless men. One street person teased me that I looked very friendly ,approachable, happy to talk, sometimes generous depending upon whether I had exceeded my day's handout limit, but I subtly conveyed that I could turn him to stone if he messed with me.

Would You Use a Male Babysitter?

I would have hired four of my brothers as babysitters; one might have taken his charges out on the roof. I still remember how delighted we were when one of my young uncles came to babysit. My Uncle Frank, six foot five, would hang from the top of the swing set, and we were allowed to keep all the money that fell out of his pockets. My youngest brothers were 15 and 17 when my daughter Anne was born. Going on vacation with them was pure joy for my daughters.

Several of my daughters' playgroups had helping daddies as well as helping mommies. We used a babysitting cooperative of parents when we went out; daddies were more likely to be the evening babysitter. The rest of the time we used our parents or my brothers. My daughter uses several young male actors as babysitters on the days I don't care for my grandson. I keep expecting Michael to say, "Go away, Grandma. I want Trevor or or Anthony."
My daughters had one male teacher in a one-room schoolhouse private school in Maine. On Long Island they only had two male teachers in grade school; one was their favorite teacher. My brother is a grade school teacher in Maine. He says male teachers of young children feel like everyone regards them as potential child molesters.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.men comprise:

• 5.4 % of Child Care Workers
• 8.5 % of Teacher Assistants
• 2.7 % of Preschool and Kindergarten Teachers

What are we teaching our children about sex roles. Have you used male babysitters? When did your child first have a male teacher? Has your child ever asked you why there are no male teachers in his day care center or grade school? Would you encourage your son to babysit or pursue a career in early childhood education?

Why Are Mommy Wars Not Daddy Wars?

The raging mommy wars infuriate me. The energy and passion expended on attacking other women's choices need to be directed at  American corporate capitalism.  Is feminism the unwitting tool of capitalism? Since mothers won the right and social approval to work full-time, wages have  stagnated, and the most mothers are forced to work whether or not they want to leave their infants and toddlers.

As an idealistic young feminist of the early 1970's, I was dedicated to essential social change that both parents could care for their children. As the work week got shorter, that seemed a possible goal. We did not envision a world where mothers and fathers worked far longer hours than their own fathers had.

In my 1950s and 1960s working- class neighborhood , one salary suported much larger families.  Now working-class familes often are forced to work a double shift or several jobs. Husbands and wives barely have time together as one leaves for work as the other returns. According to US Census Bureau,  "Research shows that blue collar fathers have actually changed more in terms of their involvement in homemaking and child care than have middle class fathers (including professionals), when their wives are employed away from home. "

During the Clinton years, the US abolished Aid to Dependent Children, which enabled single mothers to take care of their young children. These mothers were viciously stereotyped as welfare cheats. Would you choose a minimum-wage job at  Walmart or as a home health aide without benefits  to taking care of your children?   No wonder poorer women are deeply suspecious of feminists. How does it help them when women increasingly become doctors and lawyers and corporate executives?

From 1968 , I was concerned  that feminists emphasized abortion over child care as the essential women's choice issue. No members of my Redstocking radical feminist group were married or had children. A happily married woman was suspected of "false consciousness." Not having children was perceived as more important than providing existing children with the excellent care they needed.  Because the US is one of the least child-family nations in the industrialized world, having a baby often seems like a personal disaster, and women have no choice but abortion.

 The US is one of the only countries in the world that provides no paid maternity leave. Pediatricians advocate breastfeeding for a year, but even professional women find themselves pumping in the toilet.  My daughter, the MBA, was cautioned against storing breastmilk in the company refrigerate because it was "toxic waste." If you stand at a counter and don't have an office, breastfeeding is impossible.

Would it require a  massive reshaping of the American economy to make it feasible for parents to stay home with their babies?  If we can outsource radiology jobs to China or India, we can figure out a way for parents to work partly in the office, partly at homeThe argument that taking any time off work would ruin career advancement is absurd, particularly in the Internet Age. Soldiers fighting World War II were absorbed back into the economy, given help with education and retraining, without being penalized for leaving their jobs for four or five years.

Why not a GI Bill for caregivers, whether of children, the disabled, or the aged? If raising young children was properly valued as an essential contribution to the nation's future, parents need not suffer dire career consequences for working part-time or taking a childrearing break.

My mother, my friends' mothers, my aunts returned to school and work when their  3, 4, 5, 6 children entered school. They were outstanding students who then had rewarding careers. Their gifts, experience, and skills were honored. Things had changed  by 1988 when I returned to social work and library school after staying home for 15 years, Women who had worked full-time since their children were born often did not validate what I had learned outside their  professional worlds. What I had learned before social work seemed to be considered cheating.

Among my daughters and their Ivy League professional friends, only one parent stayed at home full-time with their child for two years.  At baby showers, the possibility of taking longer than a maternity leave from work is not discussed.   A breast pump is the most appreciated gift.  The possibility of the baby's father being the primary parent is never mentioned. These are affluent parents who could   afford to take a few years off if they lived more frugally. But they are terrified of destroying  their future careers. The more parents believe this, the more likely their belief will come true.

Early child care is almost entirely a women's job. The nannies in my grandson's playground are all women of color.  Everyone knows that a white woman taking care of a baby during the day must be his grandma. How many day care centers, nursery schools, kindergartens have male teachers? My daughters' playgroups had helping daddies as well as helping mommies.  There were often several  stay-at-home fathers among the parents..We organized a babysitting cooperative; daddies were usually the evening babysitters.  My daughters loved it when their friends' daddies babysit. "They are much more fun."

I recently encountered a meetup group of stay-at-home fathers at the Children's Center Library at 42 Street. Watching the men take creative, loving care of their babies and toddlers was one of the most fascinating, inspiring, lovely experiences I have had. I suspect if more fathers advocated for a better balance of work and child care, my daughters and their husbands would not face the same hard choices her father and I struggled with  in 1973.

NYC, 1974-1976, Nonsexist Childrearing in Action

Emma belonged to a Chelsea Manhattan playgroup for two years, from 1974 to 1976. She was 17 months when it began, 3 and ready for nursery school when it disbanded. Playgroup met 5 mornings a week in the basement of the Y on West 23rd Street. Parents had the option of coming 1 to 5 mornings. Scheduling was a nightmare that I had naively accepted. I kept the minutes of playgroup, and I wrote a paper about it for a social work class in group dynamics 20 years later.

I thought you might be amused by parenting, Manhattan style, 1974. How earnest and how absurd we were in so many ways. But we were absolutely committed to allowing our kids to be free to be you and me.

Ranging in age from 28 to 40, we all lived in Chelsea and Greenwich Village. With one exception, our playgroup child was our first child. At 28, I was the youngest mother, but the only one from a large family. We all were college educated, with serious careers before we had children. There was an editor of psychiatric books, a writer, a teacher, an artist, an art therapist, two social workers, one vocational counselor, two psychology graduate students, and  a psychiatric nurse.

Most of us were struggling with our decision to stay home with our children. Confirmed apartment dwellers, we saw little relationship between mothering and housework. All of us planned to remain in Manhattan. Dreading winter cooped up with newly mobile, newly negative toddlers in one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartments, several mothers were contemplating returning to work to regain their sanity. Significantly, no one returned to work full-time during the life of the playgroup.

None of us had long-time friends who were staying at home to raise young children. We needed to build a new circle of friends; our friends from work no longer sufficed. We were not traditional wives and mothers. We desperately wanted intellectual colleagues fascinated with child development, determined to raise children without our own inhibitions and neuroses. All of us considered ourselves feminists, committed to nonsexist childrearing.



Playgroup was supposed to give us time off. The first year the ratio was one mother to two children; the second year it was one to three. Many mother who weren't on duty stayed anyway, particularly those with younger children. When we weren't playing with our toddlers, we engaged in ongoing group therapy. All of us had been or were currently in therapy and could talk comfortably and knowledgeably about conflict, repression, projection, and denial. We endlessly analyzed our marriages, our families, our psychological makeups, our childrearing philosophies, and our children's personalities.

Six of the 10 core members are now mental health professionals. Remarkably, none of our children are currently in jails, mental hospitals, or rehab centers. We were an extremely self-conscious group. The simplest decision was carefully scrutinized for its optimal effect on our children's intellectual and emotional development. The latest child development books and theories were eagerly shared and discussed. Husbands' participating in child care and housework was the norm. One couple was not married, and no one made anything of it. Everyone eagerly welcomed fathers' participation.

No one wanted to push early academics on our kids. Creativity and exploration were the predominant values. No child was ever pressured to participate in any activity. If he didn't want to draw, paste, paint, sing, snack, his autonomy was respected. We had reasonable expectations about toddlers' capacity to share. A great deal of mess was tolerated, and children were not pressured to clean up. "No" was a word seldom heard--from adults

We were enlightened Manhattan intellectuals, very influenced by the ferment of the late 1960's. All the children addressed all the adults by their first names. Zealous attempts to enforce good manners were frowned upon. By 24 months, all children knew and used the words, penis, testicles, vulva, vagina. Toilet training was a continuous show-and-tell entertainment. The potty was in a prominent place in the room. I vividly recall two-year-old Emma saying, "I see your penis, Michael. Would you like to see my vulva?"

 At any one time at least two mothers were pregnant or breastfeeding, and all the children's questions were freely answered. My second daughter Michelle started attending playgroup when she was 1 week old. Playing with baby Michelle was a surefire activity. Surrounded by 2 year olds every day, Michelle developed prodigious social skills.

Most of us belonged to a babysitting cooperative as well. We were an amazing source of support to each other. When one of us had a baby, all the others turn turns bringing the new parents an elaborate evening meal. I have never again experienced such a caring community of parents, committed to mutual aid.

Such a playgroup probably possibly could not have existed in the two other places I raised children--Bangor, Maine, and Long Island. I know it could not exist now in Manhattan. I spend three days a week in the same housing development, cavorting with my grandson in the same playroom, the same playground. Now I talk to nannies, not parents. Understandably, parents discourage their nannies from starting playgroups and inviting people they don't know well into their homes..

The Chelsea playgroup was one of the most fascinating, frustrating, turbulent, nurturing experiences of my life. After two years we were all very different people from the self-conscious, judgmental twits we were at the beginning. Comfortable in our mothering, we no longer had to criticize each other to bolster our wavering self-confidence. Watching very different children develop helped us to understand our own children's unique personalities.

In many ways our children were freer from sexist stereotyping than their children are now.

Presidential Candidates of 2044

The Future

I deliberately chose serious pictures of my then  8-month-old and  5-month-old granddaughters. Read the green shirt. Intellectual self-confidence breeds true. I will be 99 when they can run for president in 2044.

Radical feminist that I was, I was shocked to discover when my first daughter  Emma was born in 1973 that motherhood empowered women, made them much stronger and braver. I decided to write a book reconciling intense motherhood and feminism. Twenty -six years later I am trying to gather up writings scattered in untranscribed noteboks, on  floppy discs most computers can't read, too many blogs under too many pseudonyms.

During the primary campaign, I was chagrined to discover that I had gifted my 4 daughters with brilliant nonsexist childrearing, but apparently felt it unnecessary to grow young feminists. They often  had never heard of authors that had shaped me.

My grandmother was born in 1898. She voted in the first election open to women. At 40 she was a widow, with 7 children, including a two year old. She had lost a daughter and both her parents were dead. My mother had to abandon her journalism dreams and go to secretarial school. Looking back in 1980 at 1939, she wishes she would have become a lawyer, like her dad and two brothers. If she were born 25 years later, I am certain she would have gone into politics. My daughter Jane, who is both a lawyer and a writer, has succeeded where my mother and I faltered.
The book will concentrate on my mom and me, but I will also discuss my grandmother, my daughters (stressing education, career, combining motherhood and career), my niees. I have two granddaughters, 8 months and 5 months; another is due in early September. I also have 2 great nieces. I hope my granddaughters and grandnieces grow up in a family friendly America, but I was sure my daughters would as well. I hope we will have a woman president before they are eligible to run in 2044.
I have an abundant of original source material, including well over a thousand letters my mother wrote to my soldier father from November 1942 to February 1946, when he first met his 7-month-old daughter. My mother lived in Uniondale, 3 miles away from my home in Baldwin from 1947 to 2002. She was a community leader and the mainstay (close to assistant pastor) of her church, St. Martha's. She went to nearby colleges, Nassau Community and Hofstra. She taught American History at Uniondale High School from 1969 to 1980.
I decided to make St. Martha's my church home, at least for the time being. I went to the weekday mass this morning and talked to five people who knew my mother well. I am now in the Uniondale Library, looking at their strong local history collection. I have all the documents from my mother's hard drive, with long lists of phone numbers. At least five of her closest friends are still alive, including two who have known her since they were 13.
My uncle, another history teacher, has a huge archive of family letters, including the ones my grandmother wrote to them when he was pursuing graduate study at Notre Dame. He moved from Long Island to the finger lakes when he retired. We are spending our summer vacation four miles away from where he lives. I teased him if he leaves me his archives, I will write his biography. He never ever throws anything out.
I have never thrown out the journal I kept from the time I dropped out of Columbia Law School after two weeks in 1971 through my pregnancy in 1972-73. Most of it is about feminism, wrestling with the possibilities of combining ambition and mothering.
My daughters never experienced discrimination through their brilliant college and graduate school careers. It is only now, when three of them are new mothers, that they realize their daughters do not live in a post-feminist world.