A Rebuttal

**Note: I almost didn't publish this post. You guys had my back, and did an awesome job responding to the few negative comments.  You said it better than I could.  Still, I felt like I had more to say on the subject, and so here it is.  

Most of the time, I write a post in a single sitting.  I hit "publish" before I have the chance to chicken out.  A lot of what I write is emotional, written in the "heat" of the moment.  Even my more academic posts are written after a lot of thought -- but only one session at the computer.

This one is different.  It has taken me several days to find the words to say that I wanted to say, without giving more fodder to an anonymous person who clearly has already formed quite a judgmental opinion of me.  I hope that Jenny and the other various bloggers who disagreed with my initial post will read this and better understand the point I was trying to make.  You do not have to agree with me, but I think there is value in trying to understand different points of view. So here goes:

Dear Jenny Blogger,

I wanted to take a moment to respond to your comment that was left on my blog (in other words, at MY house) on Mother's Day, a particularly painful day for me and millions of others.

You weren't the only person to disagree with me, but your comment stood out because of the hurtful things you said.  I have tried to look past that, however, and to give you the courtesy of thinking about and digesting what you had to say.

Because that's what I do.  Instead of writing a scathing reply to an unknown stranger and calling them names, I prefer to really think about your comments and try to see where you are coming from.  And so I have.  I can honestly say that I think you misread some (though not all) of my statements, and you clearly missed the big picture I was trying to get across.  Here's what you had to say:

"I am sorry for the pain that infertility has caused you.  But you are so far off base its saddening and maddening all at once. By your logic, no one should celebrate anything because those who can't celebrate it are marginalized.  Should we not celebrate sports victories?  because some people have injuries or handicaps and can't play.  Should we not celebrate birthdays?  Because some people have died and can't celebrate anymore.  Should we not celebrate graduation?  because some people aren't smart enough or don't have enough time or money to finish.

  Have you stopped to think that maybe society is onto something with the way mothers are held so high? Its true that you can know love and take care of others without being a mother. But the love a mother has for a child --whether adopted or birthed -- is unlike any other. Sure there are moms who fail their children and shouldn't be mothers.  There are failures in every role in life. 

 If knocking others and diminishing the reality of motherhood makes you feel better, then so be it.  But your words really just make you look like a bitter, angry woman who is lashing out at mothers out of jealousy."  

Whew.  Let's tackle your comments one at a time, shall we?  You begin by apologizing for "the pain that infertility has caused me."  You immediately follow this up with a big word: BUT.  Which, as an adult, I know that you realize pretty much negates the previous statement you just made.  Think of the last time someone you loved said, "I'm sorry, but...."  How did that make you feel?  Did you feel as though that person truly understood your point of view?  Or were they just throwing out the obligatory apology before telling you that they really AREN'T sorry, and that you are wrong? You would have been better served leaving that insincere apology out of your comment, seeing as though it seems as if you didn't really mean it. (You don't even know me, so I don't know that I really blame you for that, but it still irks me that you have tried to sound kind while at the same time ripping me a new asshole.)

In the next few sentences, you give some examples of things that you believe I think (or said) that we should not celebrate.  You state that you are simply following my "logic."  Well, logical or not, I don't agree that we shouldn't celebrate those things.  I love birthdays, am an avid MyState College football fan, and celebrate my students' "graduation" every year.  I would like to point out, though, that neither sports victories, birthdays, or graduations are national holidays.  Stores do not have "Jo's Birthday" sales (though wouldn't that be awesome!), and no one (except my husband) is guilted into buying me gifts or saying sweet things about me on a particular day of the year.

But beyond all that superficial stuff -- and this is really where my biggest gripe lies -- no one posts stories on the Internet (that are "liked" by lots of people) saying that people who can't walk don't understand what athletic competition is like. Neither would it be acceptable to say that people who haven't graduated from college aren't "real" adults who don't understand how hard it is to have a good-paying job with benefits.  No one is marginalized when you celebrate the achievements of someone you love.  The problem lies in society's expression of the myth that to be a "real" woman, you must have children.  Mother's Day is just a small part of that prevalent thought process, one that is expressed in a thousand small ways every single day of the year.

In the next paragraph, you ask me if I have "stopped to think."  Um, yes.  I think A LOT.  Especially about motherhood, feminism, and the role of women in society.  I think about how to go about achieving motherhood, and what I am going to do if I can't.  I think about why society venerates motherhood, and in my opinion, it has less to do with celebrating their hard work and more to do with maintaining the status quo and keeping mothers in a specified role (that of caretakers of children and the home).  I spend an ungodly amount of time thinking about motherhood, its role in my life, and its role in the lives of other women.

I will not argue with your statement that the love a mother has for her child is like nothing else.  I do not dispute that, as I have no personal experience as to whether or not that's true.  I would tend to disagree with a blanket assumption, though, that it is true for every parent. I see evidence to the contrary every single day in my profession. The acceptable propaganda is that being a mother surpasses all other achievements in life, but the reality is that it is different for every woman.  To assume that the love you feel for your child is the same love every mother feels for their child flies in the face of all of the horror stories we read about and hear on the news, way too often than we would like to admit. 

I thank you for agreeing with me that people CAN experience love outside of parenthood.  Again, though, you do the rest of us a disservice when you elevate one type of love (that of parent-child) over other types of love.  Isn't all love great?  Shouldn't all love be celebrated?  I dislike the hierarchy of love, and the point I was trying to make is that all humanity benefits from humans loving each other, in all the various forms that takes.

I am unsure about what your comment about "failures" has to do with what I was trying to say.  Unless you were just trying to point out that women who don't parent, or who parent the "wrong" way, are failures.  In which case I both agree and disagree.  There are horribly abusive parents out there that probably never should have had children, and I think we both agree that they have "failed" in their role as parents.  But to say that there are failures in all roles in life smacks loudly of a judgemental attitude that I just don't share.  What constitutes a failure to you?  Is a woman who doesn't have children a "failure?"  Because that is a common, unspoken attitude held by many and we childless women are confronted with that myth on a daily basis.  What other "failures" are you referring to?  Is a person who doesn't graduate a failure?  A person with a crappy, dead-end job?  A person who is alientated from their family? A person who makes poor choices and ends up in jail?  I have personally known people from all of these walks of life, and would classify none of them as "failures."  But, again, that's where we differ.

You then accuse me of "knocking" and "diminishing" the role of mothers, in order to feel better about myself. I did not intend to "knock" or "diminish" anyone's choices -- including that of becoming a mother.
In fact, in my post, I pointed out that I know lots of amazing moms.

**Sidebar:  Several others apparently read my post this same way, and I have re-read and re-read my words, trying to see where I demeaned motherhood.  I didn't, and it was never my intention to do so. All was trying to say was that mothers aren't the only ones who sacrifice and love others. **

My point -- and the one you missed -- was that it's not only moms that deserve our recognition and respect.  That LOTS of different kinds of people -- many of whom are not parents -- do similar jobs, and that we should recognize ALL types of "mothering" and of love and self-sacrifice.  In so doing, I noted that mothers are particularly self-sacrificing, that they put others ahead of themselves, and that they do tedious and difficult things every day.  How is that "diminishing" their role?  I don't believe it is.

I do believe that pointing out that other, non-moms, are also capable of doing tedious, hard, and loving things for others makes me feel better.  Knowing that I am valuable, that my worth is not defined by my ability to bear or raise children, makes me feel better.  So, on that point, you are right.  Writing my post DID make me feel better, which is kind of the point.  To put my feelings into words, to validate them, to organize them, to make sense of them.  All of this makes me feel better, which is why this blog exists in the first place.

I believe that mothers have a particularly difficult job.  They, however, do not have a monopoly on hard or difficult jobs.  I am a teacher at a low-income, high-poverty school -- my job is oftentimes heartbreakingly hard and difficult.  I would never say, though, that anyone who is not a teacher, or who doesn't teach at the same kind of school,  doesn't understand what a "hard" or "low-paying" job is.  Because the reality is that LOTS of jobs are difficult, low-paying, and often unrecognized. When you specifically exclude a segment of the population, and you claim that they are "less" than you because they haven't had the same experiences, well, that's just wrong.

Your final statement, in which you call me a "bitter, angry woman" who is "jealous" of mothers is probably the most accurate statement you made (and, as you intended, the most hurtful).   I am both bitter and angry at all that infertility has robbed me of, and I've written about that many times before.  I am most certainly jealous of other mothers, another troubling feeling that I have written about as I try to deal with my jealousy in the least destructive way possible.  But I ask you this: does the fact that I am human and possess these human feelings negate what I was trying to say?  I suppose that to you, it does.  Because I am not a mom, you dismiss my arguments out of hand.  Because I am not a mom, I don't understand and therefore you don't have to listen to what I have to say.

And THAT is the problem that I was railing against.  I have no issue with giving your mother flowers, or taking her out to dinner, or with every mom on the planet receiving breakfast in bed one day a year.  None of that matters.  What DOES matter is how we make other people feel, every day of the year.  What matters is that we, as a society, diminish non-moms and dismiss them because they don't have children.  What matters is that we recognize only one kind of mother, and we ignore all of the others that don't fit that mold.   What matters is that we don't recognize, publicly, that your value as a woman is not tied to the state of your uterus.  

I am positive that I will get a chorus of moms disagreeing with me on this, and your perception is valid.  As a mom, you may or may not have experienced what I experience as a childless woman.  I don't know how long you have battled infertility, if at all, or what scars you carry with you.  I don't know what common ground we share.  It is not difficult for me to imagine that you think I am crazy, that I am imagining these perceived slights because I am jealous, and angry, and bitter.

And, maybe, you are right.* But, maybe, just maybe, you are not.  Maybe childless women ARE treated differently.  Maybe, just maybe, women who do not have children (whether by choice or not) do feel undervalued, diminished, and ignored by the more prolific population. ** Maybe our decisions are questioned, or met with scorn and ridicule.  Maybe we are told, over and over again, that our lives do not truly begin until we become mothers. Maybe that meme you forwarded, expressing how only moms know what "real" _____________ is caused more heartbreak than you know.

My post was intended not to bash mothers, but to lift up those who are continuously battling the long-held stereotypes of womanhood equaling motherhood.  It was intended to let those childless/motherless/abused/infertile/uninterested/career-minded/single/babyloss women know that the love and sacrifice and joy that they spread every single day is just as valuable as that given by moms.

I've looked carefully, and nowhere in my post did I say that we shouldn't celebrate Mother's Day, or birthdays, or graduations.  What I did say was that the WAY we celebrate it, and more specifically the way our society treats women who AREN'T mothers, upsets me. And then I attempted to reach out to those who are sitting down with me (while everyone else is standing and getting the accolades), and to let them know that they do matter, that they do have worth.

Think of it as elevating all women to honorific status, not as tearing down mothers.  Mother's Day itself isn't the problem. The problem lies much deeper, at the heart of our society's veneration of motherhood, deserved or undeserved. It lies in the lie that motherhood is an achievable and desirable goal for all women, and that mothers do something that other people cannot. 

And, my friends, that is simply not true. We are all capable of love, and worthy of honor and respect, whether the person we are taking care of is six years old or sixty. 

And, despite your harsh words the other day, I believe we are all capable of compassion, and understanding, and forgiveness. And so I apologize to you, Jenny, if you felt belittled by my post. I don't agree with your interpretation of my words, or of my goal in writing them.   I do think that, as women, we really should strive to build each other up instead of tear each other down, even when we approach issues from opposite sides of the fence. Instead of calling names and making the rift between us even greater, wouldn't it be nice if both moms and non-moms alike could work together to make sure that everyone on Planet Earth felt valued, appreciated, and honored for the work that they do?  

The ALI-blogosphere has always been a safe place for women in all stages of child-loss, child-seeking, child-rearing, and even permanent childlessness to express themselves.  I'd like it to stay that way.  The only way for that to happen, though, is if we open up our hearts and really listen to what each of us has to say.  You are more than welcome to write a post about what Mother's Day means to you, or why you hate Cinco de Mayo, or what your favorite recipe for salad dressing is.

I promise that, while I won't agree with you on any of those points, I will value you as a contributor, a woman, and a human being -- no matter how many kids you do (or don't) have.

END RANT.  :-)

* You aren't. 

** We are.