For the past few months I’ve been struggling emotionally with the thought of never having another child, not because I can’t, but because in all honesty I’m not sure I want one. I love my job; my marriage is strong; and the family of three feels right for us. And Bumpy is a happy, outgoing, and confident boy.
And then I read this last night:
Only at the sacrifice of intelligence and the chance to do their best work can the majority of modern women bear children. This is the damnation of women.” — W.E.B. Du Bois, 1920
What do you think?
Well, that’s a man talking.
Not just any man.
I’d like to point out that DuBois said this in 1920. Which means he’s the other side of Virginia Woolf pointing out in A Room of One’s Own that most of the women writers in English literature did not have children. I think there are more role models of women who are smart and do good work and have kids too. I think that having a child has made me much happier and more fulfilled, more filled with purpose. I certainly had the time to do great things, but I’m not sure I had the motivation. Now I want to use whatever time I have to do good work, work worthy of taking me away from my child.
If you read the rest of the essay, “The Damnation of Women,” and all of his other writings on the condition of women (mainly black) throughout his long and varied intellectual career, you’d find that he extols the work — and work it is — of motherhood. You’d also find that he often describes motherhood as the most fulfilling type of work in the industrial/industrious modern world.
But Du Bois also recognizes white hegemonic patriarchy for WHAT IT IS, which is to say, he recognizes that the MAJORITY (not privileged academics with relatively flexible schedules) women really are left with having to make dubious sacrifices in a world where the market place — the public sphere is still very much male-centered.
I don’t think one can jump from what he’s saying to “all mothers are stupid.”
That, to me, is reductionist.
Very eloquent. I have even more admiration for him.
If you do want a girl at some later point, there is adoption. There is also mentoring, for kin or others. My niece is almost 11 and my nephew may be turning 10 shortly. At least part of my duty as uncle (as I define it) will make sure that they know Mommy and Daddy are lovely, but they don’t know everything about life. (Jeff in particular is a NASCAR dad, though he wouldn’t watch a stock car race unless there was a lot of drinking involved).