The Conflict (10 page)
Authors: Elisabeth Badinter
Maligned yet Envied
There is still a strong tendency to view childlessness in a woman as a failure. A woman without children tends to receive either pity or rebuke. As Pascale Donati said, “Non-procreation is a departure from the norm”
45
that comes with a price of social disapproval. After carrying out a series of interviews with
thirty women aged forty to fifty and thirty men aged forty-five to fifty-five, none of whom had children, she concluded:
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that comes with a price of social disapproval. After carrying out a series of interviews with
thirty women aged forty to fifty and thirty men aged forty-five to fifty-five, none of whom had children, she concluded:
If you do not have children but could have done, it is better to be a man than a woman, to live alone rather than with a partner, and, if you are a woman, not to make it too obvious that you feel fulfilled. On this scale, being a married woman who has chosen not to be a mother is the most suspect ⦠. Our society has established an acceptable period for self-sufficiency in a loving relationship, that is, the time it takes to meet and settle down together. But people are expected to move beyond this period and seek a more altruistic connectionâparenthood. Surely a woman who refuses to be a mother enjoys lovemaking rather too much?
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There are plenty of negative stereotypes about such women: selfish, incomplete, insecure, immature, materialistic, career-driven,
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and more.
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and more.
Ãmilie Devienne observed that a non-mother is constantly expected to justify herself, as if, by contrast, mothers never display questionable motives or behaviors.
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A non-mother is subject to pressure from parents, family, friends (who are parents), colleagues, in short, from all sides. With such pressure, it makes sense that having a child can come to feel like more of a duty than a desire.
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A non-mother is subject to pressure from parents, family, friends (who are parents), colleagues, in short, from all sides. With such pressure, it makes sense that having a child can come to feel like more of a duty than a desire.
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There are a number of indications that the state of non-parenthood is in fact secretly envied by some parents, who might admit to such feelings in private conversation
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or anonymous surveys but will not say so explicitly. The aggressive censure of childlessness is one such sign. For parents who regret having children, how could they acknowledge disappointment with the emotional gain after having made so many sacrifices to attain it? So selfish and calculating a view of parenthood and, worse, motherhood is inadmissible and therefore unsayable. Society is not ready to hear that some parents feel frustrated and bitter and would perhaps have done better without children.
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or anonymous surveys but will not say so explicitly. The aggressive censure of childlessness is one such sign. For parents who regret having children, how could they acknowledge disappointment with the emotional gain after having made so many sacrifices to attain it? So selfish and calculating a view of parenthood and, worse, motherhood is inadmissible and therefore unsayable. Society is not ready to hear that some parents feel frustrated and bitter and would perhaps have done better without children.
Nonetheless, childless women have been growing more acceptable in the last twenty years. French social scientist Odile Bourguignon has predicted that “women who do not want to have children will probably soon be given permission by our culture not to, reserving motherhood for women who want it.”
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Demographers and sociologists anticipate a rise in the phenomenon of childlessness by choice. In France “it is likely that among younger cohorts more women will have no children, but the projected increase in childlessness is limited: 11 percent of women born in 1970 may ultimately
remain childless.”
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This modest increaseâalso projected for Scandinavian womenâcompares strikingly with anticipated figures for the rest of Europe. British sociologist Rosemary Gillespie, who has studied the trend toward childlessness,
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estimated in 2003 that 25 percent of English women born in 1973 would not have children.
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Similar figures have been put forward for former Eastern bloc countries and southern Europe.
remain childless.”
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This modest increaseâalso projected for Scandinavian womenâcompares strikingly with anticipated figures for the rest of Europe. British sociologist Rosemary Gillespie, who has studied the trend toward childlessness,
53
estimated in 2003 that 25 percent of English women born in 1973 would not have children.
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Similar figures have been put forward for former Eastern bloc countries and southern Europe.
But these statistics rely on several unknowns: Could realistic assessments of the costs and benefits of parenthood better equip prospective mothers than the expectations of adventure and emotional reward they currently associate with having children? A more reasonable approach to motherhood, along with a less restrictive model and family policies that support sexual equality, might go a long way to disprove the predictions of childlessness. Even in the absence of such shifts, and despite Phillip Longman's projection, it is hard to imagine a return to patriarchy.
But even if the proportion of childless women were to remain only at today's level, traditional definitions of women as mothers no longer hold. For a significant number of women, having children is no longer the summit of their aspirations. Not only do they reject the equivalence of womanhood with motherhood, they consider themselves more truly female than women whose fulfillment stops with their children. To some, the behavior associated with motherhood strips women of their sexuality.
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Children are associated
with “sacrifice.” The urge to have children is alien; the notion of maternal instinct carries no meaning. But it is absurd to exclude such women from womanhood or resort to the pathological diagnoses of the past.
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Children are associated
with “sacrifice.” The urge to have children is alien; the notion of maternal instinct carries no meaning. But it is absurd to exclude such women from womanhood or resort to the pathological diagnoses of the past.
Childless women have been hailed as pioneers in a new phase of feminism by such figures as Rosemary Gillespie and Mardy Ireland of the United States. Ireland points out that “the 1970s gave rise to the concept of androgyny ⦠with the androgynous individual exhibiting characteristics of both sex roles. Now, in the 1990s, some intently question whether human characteristics need to be dichotomized and defined by gender at all.”
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According to Catherine Hakim, the answer is that they do not. Child-free women, she says, prove there are no absolute or essential characteristics of women that distinguish them from men.
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According to Catherine Hakim, the answer is that they do not. Child-free women, she says, prove there are no absolute or essential characteristics of women that distinguish them from men.
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This idea would horrify both those who fear similarity between the sexes to the point of confusion and the advocates of women as female mammals who call them to fulfill their maternal instincts. But whether we like it or not, motherhood is now only one important aspect of women's identity, no longer the key to achieving a sense of self-fulfillment. Since the advent of contraception, women's identities have splintered and diversified. The inability to acknowledge this smacks of willful blindness.
FRENCH WOMEN: A SPECIAL CASE
French mothers have a bad reputation, which they owe to an old practice that is considered contrary to nature and morality: removing the baby from the mother unusually early. In the 1700s they entrusted their newborns to wet nurses; today they hand them over to child-care facilities or nannies. Judging from statistics, it is clear that French mothers are not all that keen on staying at home or breast-feeding. This attitude, so unlike that of most of their contemporaries, has elicited a good deal of disapproval from psychologists and anthropologists. As early as the 1920s, renowned anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski referred to French women as “notable aberrations.”
At the moment of birth, the mother's instinctive impulses are approved and reinforced by society which, through various customs, moral rules, and ideals, sees the mother as the child's wet nurse and nanny. This is the case in both the upper and lower classes in almost all European nations. And yet, even with such a fundamental, biologically endorsed relationship, there are societies in which certain customs, as well as a weakening of instinctive impulses, give rise to notable aberrations. A case in point is the system whereby a child is removed from the mother for the first year of his life and given to paid nannies. At one point, this custom was very widespread among the French middle class; as was the almost equally regrettable custom of protecting the mother's breasts by hiring a wet-nurse or feeding the child with artificial milk.
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1
According to Pascale Pontoreau, the “concept of a good mother did not exist”
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in France traditionally. It seems it still does not exist in France. Most mothers balk at the idea of giving up work, even in the first year of their child's life, and most of them bottle-feed. Public events like La Leche League's “Big Nurse-Ins,”
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held in big cities to encourage breast-feeding, mostly draw smiles, shrugs, and sarcasm.
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in France traditionally. It seems it still does not exist in France. Most mothers balk at the idea of giving up work, even in the first year of their child's life, and most of them bottle-feed. Public events like La Leche League's “Big Nurse-Ins,”
3
held in big cities to encourage breast-feeding, mostly draw smiles, shrugs, and sarcasm.
There is a fairly direct line of descent from the unworthy mother of the eighteenth century to the mediocre mother of today, which is full of implication for the historic social
status of French women. That social status, along with a nonchalant approach to motherhood, might perhaps explain the country's high birthrate, a phenomenon that all demographers find surprising. Although French women are also drawn to childlessness, they have the most children. The key to this apparent paradox lies in the past.
status of French women. That social status, along with a nonchalant approach to motherhood, might perhaps explain the country's high birthrate, a phenomenon that all demographers find surprising. Although French women are also drawn to childlessness, they have the most children. The key to this apparent paradox lies in the past.
As we have seen, Scandinavian women are Europe's champions of breast-feeding champions while the French are at the bottom of the league. The two nationalities share the highest rate of professional activity in Europe, although French mothers continue to work full-time, particularly after the birth of their first child. With the second and, more noticeably, the third child, the numbers of working mothers decline: nearly 50 percent with one child work full-time compared to 25 percent with three or more children.
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While the Scandinavians and Dutch opt to work part-time, most French mothers see that as more of an imposed constraint than an advantage. Only 22 percent of French women aged twenty to forty-nine work part-time: 21 percent of working mothers with one child, 32 percent with two, and 45 percent with three. Overall, few women want to work less: only 9 percent of twenty- to forty-nine-year-olds who don't have access to part-time work wish that they
did.
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Part-time work is often a sign of weak job security and is used by companies more as a means of adjusting the payroll than as relief for busy mothers.
did.
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Part-time work is often a sign of weak job security and is used by companies more as a means of adjusting the payroll than as relief for busy mothers.
Given the high numbers of working mothers, the French birthrate poses a conundrum. Most recently estimated by the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) at 2.0 children per woman, it was the highest in all twenty-seven European countries for 2008.
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François Héran, director of the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), suggests three explanatory factors for this “French exception.” First, free nursery schools that take children at three years old (and sometimes youngerâa French invention); second, broad, flexible arrangements for couples (most children are now acceptably born out of marriage);
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and last, many women who plan pregnancies after the age of forty.
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François Héran, director of the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED), suggests three explanatory factors for this “French exception.” First, free nursery schools that take children at three years old (and sometimes youngerâa French invention); second, broad, flexible arrangements for couples (most children are now acceptably born out of marriage);
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and last, many women who plan pregnancies after the age of forty.
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These factors go hand in hand with another notable feature: France is world champion when it comes to contraception.
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In 1997, out of one hundred women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine who had partners and claimed they did not want to become pregnant, eighty said they were using a method of contraception. This figure is much higher than the global average (58 percent) and slightly above the average for Europe and North America (72 percent). However, this does not stop French women, unlike their Irish Catholic counterparts, for example, from maintaining a high abortion rate: more than 210,000 a year.
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In 1997, out of one hundred women between the ages of fifteen and forty-nine who had partners and claimed they did not want to become pregnant, eighty said they were using a method of contraception. This figure is much higher than the global average (58 percent) and slightly above the average for Europe and North America (72 percent). However, this does not stop French women, unlike their Irish Catholic counterparts, for example, from maintaining a high abortion rate: more than 210,000 a year.
One frequent assumption is that France's high birthrate is due to the country's immigrant population. but according to demographer Laurent Toulemon and others, this supposition “is not valid: The overall level of childbirth in the 1990s would be a mere 0.07 child per woman less if it were based only on women born in France. Furthermore, immigrants' daughters born in France have exactly the same total fertility as women born to mothers themselves born in France.”
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As a last resort, demographers explain this French phenomenon by pointing to the country's family policies, which are fairly unusual and, according to some, even unclassifiable. They are certainly generous, given that family spending has risen to 3.8 percent of GDP (including tax benefits), and puts France in third position among OECD countries, where the average is 2.4 percent,
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yet they are not as far-reaching as those in Denmark and Iceland.
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yet they are not as far-reaching as those in Denmark and Iceland.
French family policies are, however, more diversified than elsewhere, providing significant (if still inadequate) support for mothers who interrupt their careers to look after children under the age of three. After the introduction of paid parental leave in 1985, to help the parents of three children, the Provision of Services for Young Children, introduced in 2004, extended the policy by allowing parentsâwhich generally means mothersâto stop work for six months when they have their first child. But in addition
to stopping work, mothers were also helped to go back to their jobs. A “dual benefits system was set up [to provide] parents with access to child care so that they can continue to work, but also to let mothers decide instead to ⦠look after a young child.”
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The introduction of alternatives signaled respect for the diversity of parents' choices. There are similar benefits in Finland and Norway.
to stopping work, mothers were also helped to go back to their jobs. A “dual benefits system was set up [to provide] parents with access to child care so that they can continue to work, but also to let mothers decide instead to ⦠look after a young child.”
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The introduction of alternatives signaled respect for the diversity of parents' choices. There are similar benefits in Finland and Norway.
Nonetheless, French family policies are still not as good as they could be. They lack two important features that could persuade women to have more children. Despite the existence of paternity leave (in 2002 fathers became entitled to two weeks of paid leave after the birth of a child, three in the case of multiples), there is little incentive for fathers to share domestic work and child care with their partners, whereas Scandinavian countries have made moves to encourage men in this direction. Furthermore, womenâwho are more frequently unemployed than menâare given little help in the job market, and policies concerning flexible hours to accommodate working mothers are tragically inadequate. Last, high-quality child care is still not an automatic given. French mothers certainly enjoy unusual privileges, but their circumstances are far from ideal, yet, as we have seen, the fertility rate remains high. This suggests that family policies alone, even those as far-reaching as in some Scandinavian countries, do not fully account for whether or not women decide to have children.
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We have to go back several centuries to understand the behavior of contemporary French women. Since the seventeenth century, and especially the eighteenth, the model of the ideal woman has not been limited to motherhood. Quite the opposite, in fact: motherhood was held at a distance. For the ideal woman, being a mother was a duty necessarily performed to pass on a husband's name and inheritance but was insufficient to define her. Indeed, the job of mothering was deemed incompatible with the duties of a distinguished woman and wife.
Aristocratic French women, free of material concerns, were the first to practice the art of child-free living. In fact, the first wet nurse agency opened in Paris as early as the thirteenth century. In the seventeenth century, upper-class women handed their children over to wet nurses from the moment of birth. But in the 1700s, this phenomenon spread to urban society.
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From the very poorest to the richest, in large and small towns, it became general practice to send children away to wet nurses, often very far from their home. The least fortunate mothers, who were forced to work away from home in order to survive, might not have had any choice. But this was not the case for women in more comfortable circumstances, the same women who sought to conform to the accomplished ideal.
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From the very poorest to the richest, in large and small towns, it became general practice to send children away to wet nurses, often very far from their home. The least fortunate mothers, who were forced to work away from home in order to survive, might not have had any choice. But this was not the case for women in more comfortable circumstances, the same women who sought to conform to the accomplished ideal.
In order of importance, that ideal meant being first a wife, then a figure in society, and finally a mother. Breast-feeding and caring for children were clearly obstacles to the first two priorities. Women (and their families) who considered themselves above the common people considered breast-feeding as ridiculous as it was disgusting.
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Husbands and fathers were also responsible for this rejection of breast-feeding and of child care. Children were a hindrance to pleasure. Not only did some men complain that their wives smelled strongly of milk, but doctors at the time forbade sexual activity for the duration of breast-feeding (as well as during pregnancy). Since it was thought that sperm spoiled the milk by curdling it, fathers were forced into a long period of abstinence, during which they might be lured away from the marital bed to commit adultery.
Families, in-laws, doctors, and moralists, believing that family cohesion was threatened by the arrival of a baby, encouraged new mothers to place their children with wet nurses. All of society approved of this practice, and women themselves did not seem to complain about it. Quite the opposite, as we see in a number of contemporary accounts in which the women seem to delight in the fact of sending their children away. As well as being an obstacle to her sex life, a young child got in the way of a woman's social life. When a child came home from the wet nurse, he was immediately entrusted to another paid caregiver, the governess
(followed by a private tutor for boys), before being sent away at the age of eight or nine to boarding schools or convents.
(followed by a private tutor for boys), before being sent away at the age of eight or nine to boarding schools or convents.
In the Age of Enlightenment, it seems, a woman's duties as a mother were negligible. Looking after a child was not considered sufficiently gratifying, nor were day-to-day chores. Women who put their ease and pleasure first respected the view articulated by historian Fustel de Coulanges:
Was there ever a less charming bother
Than a gaggle of infants who wail?
One cries father, one cries mother,
The other calls both without fail.
And all that this pleasure will incur
Is being called no better than a cur.
Than a gaggle of infants who wail?
One cries father, one cries mother,
The other calls both without fail.
And all that this pleasure will incur
Is being called no better than a cur.
Women from the privileged classes found their fulfillment in social life: receiving guests and paying visits, showing off new clothes, going for walks, attending the theater. A socialite would be out gambling every night until the early hours. Then she would “enjoy peaceful sleep, or at least only interrupted by pleasure.”
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And “noon found her in bed.”
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She was untroubled by pangs of conscience toward her children because her community agreed that social life was a necessity, a fact confirmed by doctors themselves. Physician Moreau de Saint-Ãlier, for example, said, in the mid-eighteenth century, that looking after children “was an
embarrassing responsibility ⦠in society.” Off-loading them gradually became a mark of social distinction.
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And “noon found her in bed.”
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She was untroubled by pangs of conscience toward her children because her community agreed that social life was a necessity, a fact confirmed by doctors themselves. Physician Moreau de Saint-Ãlier, for example, said, in the mid-eighteenth century, that looking after children “was an
embarrassing responsibility ⦠in society.” Off-loading them gradually became a mark of social distinction.
The lower middle class, the wives of tradesmen or local judges, were eager to imitate their more fortunate sisters. For want of a dazzling social life, they might adopt the trappings of an enviable status by consigning their own maternal duties to paid help. It was better to do nothing at all than to appear preoccupied with something so undistinguished.
The result was that at a time when there was no substitute for breast milk and when standards of hygiene were abysmal, babies died like flies. During the Ancien Régime, mortality in children under one year was over 25 percent and nearly one child in two did not reach the age of ten.
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These statistics were changeable, according to how babies were fed and cared for. As a general rule, half as many children kept and fed by their own mothers died as those sent to wet nurses: between 11 and 19 percent, depending on the location and the conditions.
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These statistics were changeable, according to how babies were fed and cared for. As a general rule, half as many children kept and fed by their own mothers died as those sent to wet nurses: between 11 and 19 percent, depending on the location and the conditions.
This fact, which remains shocking to scholars of the family and especially in public opinion, did not derive solely from the fact that children had not yet been granted their present protected status. It was also rooted in women's desire to define a broader role for themselves and emancipate their lives from exclusive motherhood, which brought them no appreciation. Liberated from the burdens common elsewhere, eighteenth-century French women (and English)
from the highest ranks of society enjoyed the greatest freedom of any women in the world.
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from the highest ranks of society enjoyed the greatest freedom of any women in the world.
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Unlike their peers in Mediterranean Europe, they were at liberty to come and go as they pleased as participating members of society. Indeed, their presence and wit were considered necessary ingredients for refined society. In the cities, they held salons and worked to surround themselves with men and women of consequence. To be successful, it was not enough to dispense the odd well-chosen word: they were required to perfect the subtle art of conversation and keep up-to-date with current affairs. Some achieved a degree of local notoriety and others a level of historic glory. Women who embodied female distinction and left their names inscribed in eighteenth-century history were cultured and knowledgeable and sometimes childless, or they performed the basic maternal duty to have children and arrange for them the best possible marriages.
This unusual model of emancipation is the heritage of modern French women: their identity is not restricted to the role of mother. Despite the more demanding role for mothers that emerged at the end of the eighteenth century
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and held until the advent of feminism, French society still has a singular approach to the status of women.
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and held until the advent of feminism, French society still has a singular approach to the status of women.
French Women Today
The triumph of Rousseauian naturalist philosophy, the rise of the bourgeoisie, the pro-birth ideology of the late nineteenth century, and the later psychoanalytic revolution all radically changed the status of children. A precious, unequaled asset to society and his parents, a child warranted assiduous maternal care. Women were required to be attentive, responsible mothers who breast-fed and kept their children in the home. As historian Edward Shorter put it, women took “the sacrifice test.”
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But it was not done without reticence and resistance in wealthier circles where mothers continued to bring wet nurses from the countryside into their homesâa practice that lasted until Pasteur discovered sterilization and opened the way for the widespread use of bottle-feeding.
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But it was not done without reticence and resistance in wealthier circles where mothers continued to bring wet nurses from the countryside into their homesâa practice that lasted until Pasteur discovered sterilization and opened the way for the widespread use of bottle-feeding.
The striking thing, however, about French mothers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is that, despite an evolving ideology of the good mother devoted to her children, nonchalant and indifferent mothers succeeded in slipping through the net of social opprobrium. A woman had to be genuinely cruel, like the mother in
Carrot Top
,
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to incur disgrace. Right until the end of the Second World War, in spite of doctors' solemn warnings against the bottle and their promotion of breast-feeding,
23
many mothers turned a deaf ear, and with the father's approval.
Carrot Top
,
22
to incur disgrace. Right until the end of the Second World War, in spite of doctors' solemn warnings against the bottle and their promotion of breast-feeding,
23
many mothers turned a deaf ear, and with the father's approval.
Bottle-feeding, which thrived after the war, was considered a compromise aimed at reconciling a woman's personal
pursuits with her duties as a mother. Bottle-feeding meant a woman had freedom of movement and could be replaced as her child's caregiver, therefore restoring the ability to be both mother and woman. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, most French women pursue a triple role: wife, mother, and professional. Motherhood represents only one factor in a woman's fulfillment, necessary but not sufficient in itself. Women do not intend to give up any aspect of their lives, neither motherhood, which they come to later and later,
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nor their other ambitions.
pursuits with her duties as a mother. Bottle-feeding meant a woman had freedom of movement and could be replaced as her child's caregiver, therefore restoring the ability to be both mother and woman. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, most French women pursue a triple role: wife, mother, and professional. Motherhood represents only one factor in a woman's fulfillment, necessary but not sufficient in itself. Women do not intend to give up any aspect of their lives, neither motherhood, which they come to later and later,
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nor their other ambitions.
French women thus present a special case because, unlike most Europeans, they have the benefit of historic recognition of their identities beyond motherhood. Just as eighteenth-century society readily accepted sending babies to wet nurses, so twenty-first-century society considers bottle-feeding and child care perfectly legitimate. The existence of child-care facilities and nursery schools for very young children shows that society supports a model of part-time mothering. Grandmothers, mothers-in-law, and fathers do not complain. It is understood that only the mother can choose how to manage her life in her and her children's best interests. There is no moral or social pressure bearing on a woman to be a full-time mother, not even in the first year after birth. French society acknowledged a long time ago that the mother need not be the only party responsible for her child.
Although they are constantly admonished to take on their fair share of parental and household chores,
25
French
fathers continue to contribute very little in this area. But in their place, the state shares responsibility for the baby's well-being and upbringing. And because the state's duty toward the mother and the child is universally accepted, that public opinion tends to be far more scathing about the state's shortcomings than about any failure on the part of the mother or, especially, the father.
25
French
fathers continue to contribute very little in this area. But in their place, the state shares responsibility for the baby's well-being and upbringing. And because the state's duty toward the mother and the child is universally accepted, that public opinion tends to be far more scathing about the state's shortcomings than about any failure on the part of the mother or, especially, the father.
Tolerant and blame-free, this collective attitude plays a positive role in women's decision to have children. The lighter the burden on the mother and the greater the respect given to her choices as a woman, the more likely she is to want the whole experience of child raising, and even to repeat it. Supporting part-time motherhood is the key to increased fertility. Conversely, insisting that the mother sacrifice the woman seems to delay her decision to have a child and possibly discourages her from having one at all.
For How Long?
For nearly three decades, a subterranean ideological war has been fought for a wholesale return to nature. We cannot yet assess its consequences for women. The reverence for all things natural glorifies an old concept of the maternal instinct and applauds masochism and sacrifice, constituting a supreme threat to women's emancipation and sexual equality.
The advocates of this philosophy have an extraordinary weapon on their side: a mother's guilt. Naturalism has been
with us for thousands of years. History provided dazzling example of the efficiency of such guilt when Rousseau succeeded in convincing women and society to recommit to the exclusive role of the mother through guilt.
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Women everywhere heard the moralizing heaped on Sophie, the future wife of Ãmile in Rousseau's eponymous book, loudly and clearly, particularly those who had nothing to give up. Respect for mothers: there at last was an improvement in women's status.
with us for thousands of years. History provided dazzling example of the efficiency of such guilt when Rousseau succeeded in convincing women and society to recommit to the exclusive role of the mother through guilt.
26
Women everywhere heard the moralizing heaped on Sophie, the future wife of Ãmile in Rousseau's eponymous book, loudly and clearly, particularly those who had nothing to give up. Respect for mothers: there at last was an improvement in women's status.
Women are no longer in the same position. They play a significant role in society, and if they all began to stay at home for two or three years after the birth of each child, the economy would feel the effect. But the fact that we can even entertain the notion of a wholesale return to the home shows that playing on women's guilt eventually works on their minds. If women are subjected to the relentless message that a mother must give her child everythingâmilk, time, energyâor pay for it later, inevitably more and more of them will give in.
The greatest enemy of naturalism is individualism and its hedonistic promise. Although some women are fulfilled by the rewards of naturalism, everyone else sooner or later works out the advantages and disadvantages of all-embracing motherhood. It is an incomparable experience of giving life and receiving love; it is also a daily diet of frustration and stress, self-sacrifice and conflict, along with feelings of failure and guilt. Contrary to the claims of naturalism, love is
not a given, not a mother's for a child, nor the child's for its parents, who might find themselves enfeebled and alone in old age, with no recompense for their sacrifice.
not a given, not a mother's for a child, nor the child's for its parents, who might find themselves enfeebled and alone in old age, with no recompense for their sacrifice.
Hedonistic individualism wants the pleasures without the pains, or at least prefers the pleasures. If almost one-third of German women choose childlessness, it must be because they feel that becoming mothers is not worth the cost. If 38.5 percent of the most highly qualified women decide against having children, it must mean that they are fulfilling their potential through something other than the kind of motherhood imposed on them. The proponents of ideal motherhood as they see it had better heed the message before it is too late.
For now, French women have avoided the dilemma of all-or-nothing motherhood. They have successfully resisted the decrees of pediatricians. But can they hold out against the naturalists, who have such solid support from institutions around the world? Can they stand firm against the doctors and nurses in charge in the maternity ward? Against the escalating rhetoric of guilt? Although financial crisis and economic instability are hardly conducive to social resistance, it seems that young women in France are still doing exactly as they please.
But for how long?
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