A Rant About a Silly Book

So I recently read a book called Why Have Kids? by Jessica Valenti.  It was a poorly written rant about how awful parenting is.  Most of it is a regurgitation of other books and articles, mixed in with fringe stories like the one where the adoptive parents sent their son back to Russia.  The author cited this story as if it were a common occurrence and therefore proof that parenthood "sucks," but nobody is willing to admit it, as if we would all send our kids back if we could.  She acts as if society tells us parenting is going to be wonderful, and then it's not.

I could not disagree more.  OK, it's hard.  But who runs a marathon and then whines, "People said it was going to be awesome and it was hard.  There was a lot of running!"  That said, if you don't want to have children, don't.  What society doesn't need is people having kids as a social or personal experiment, or because it's expected or because they have a book contract and need some practical experience in actually being a parent.  Going into it for the wrong reasons is bound to lead to disillusionment, sure.  But what the book fails to address is that there are people who are very happy and satisfied as parents.  There are happy homes where mothers are not second-guessing their decision to spend a portion of their lives raising youngsters.  Many of these are women who have been - and are - accomplished in careers and are now focusing their efforts on having a family.  I have a cousin who was a very successful lobbyist and attorney in D.C.  When she and her husband started a family, she had three children in 18 months, including severely premature twins.  It was hard!  Did she write a book about motherhood being a conspiracy to make women miserable?  No, she adapted her ingenuity, intelligence and work experience to raising her children.  In addition to their careers, she and her husband took on the full-time job of educating themselves on their twins' complications, to the point that a procedure her husband suggested has become standard practice in treating preemies' lungs.  And he isn't even a doctor!  As she organized a feeding for her twins at my house one day, she told me that having babies required a whole different skill set from what she had gained prior to that, but from my perspective, she wasn't going to allow herself to fail at mothering her precious kids any more than she would have allowed herself to fail as an attorney.  Now that the kids are older and she is back at work, I wonder if she regrets the time she took to nurture them when the twins weighed less than two pounds, or to take her daughter to mommy-and-me classes when it was a stretch to enjoy it.

I myself struggled as a new mother, newly out of school, newly unemployed.  The toughest part of my job was that it wasn't that tough in some ways, and exceedingly difficult in other ways.  When I had just one baby who slept a lot, a tiny condo to keep clean and very few tasks to do, I thought in desperation, "Is this all I'm going to do, then?  Is this all I'm good for?"  I was too new to the job to see the big picture, and, coming from a life where I worked or went to school 18 hours a day, I was definitely out of my element in my quiet, clean condo with my baby, who, despite my boredom, I really didn't know how to take care of.  It wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done, but it was certainly the beginning of the most worthwhile endeavor I've ever undertaken.  Now, with a plethora of schedules and activities to keep track of and ten times the laundry, dishes and housekeeping to do, I am much more in my comfort zone.  Even if my life is far less "perfect" than it looked when I was a new mom, my joy is full.

The saddest quote in the book for me was, "Sure I love my daughter, but being her mother certainly isn't the most important thing I'll ever do."  (My heart ached to think of her own daughter later reading that.) What a stark contrast to what Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis said:  "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do matters very much."  And this is a woman who did things that mattered very much.  This regal, beloved icon also said, "I'll be a wife and mother first, then First Lady."  And lest you think she wasn't a "feminist," she was often quoted as saying, "I am a woman above everything else."

Womanhood includes motherhood, if not physically or literally, then in spirit and soul, like Mother Teresa.  If the feminist movement can't see that, then I think it has lost its way.  Why would a movement designed to raise and glorify women seek to debase and devalue the divine nature of motherhood?

Valenti uses an analogy in the book of a friend who went through physical therapy for a hand injury and quit because the benefits didn't measure up to the effort required.  Her point was, "we can put in a lot less effort when it comes to parenting and still get virtually the same result."  Wow.  I bet she used that same philosophy in writing this half-baked book.  Maybe next she'll write a book about how writing books is unfulfilling.  Anything is unfulfilling if you set out to do a crap job of it.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf said of the gospel of Jesus Christ, "Let us not walk the path of discipleship with our eyes on the ground, thinking only of the tasks and obligations before us.  Let us not walk unaware of the beauty of the glorious earthly and spiritual landscapes that surround us."  The same can be said of parenthood.  The exact same.  Having children isn't the only worthwhile way to spend a life.  Of course not.  But don't tell me I'm a sell-out for undertaking it and don't tell me I'm naive for loving it.