To Clarify. . . -or- The Angry Momma Post

My last post was intended primarily to raise a couple of issues: that when a married Catholic female decides to "live her marriage," as it's called, according to Church teaching, there is the possibility of unplanned pregnancies, whether because of miscalculation, lack of self-control, liquor, whatever. In the event of an unplanned pregnancy, particularly one that is "too soon" if you will, the intellectual class will wonder, particularly if she is in their midst, why she allowed this to happen to her. While it is true that certain professions are less supportive of frequent procreation than others, this was not the primary motivating factor behind my post. The reason my question of whether married Catholic women belong in the workplace was rhetorical, and the reason I clarified that I thought that married Catholic women do indeed belong in the workplace, is that I anticipated being told that when God blesses one with children, it is one's duty to stay home. I didn't really want to get into that. My real question was, how does one deal with the inevitable sneers in the event of an "oops" (or blessing)? Does one ignore and rest secure in the knowledge that one is doing God's will, and if so, how does this enter casual conversation? Does one try to raise consciousness and assert that children are not incompatible with careers? What I am hearing instead might run something like this. . .

HEADLINE: "GOD PLAYS DIRTY TRICK ON CATHOLIC WOMEN"

After allowing her to pursue her interests and develop intellectually for the better part of two decades, in the hope that she can make a livable wage using her God-given talents, God decides that the archetypal Catholic woman is not meant to pursue that path anyway, and instead blesses her with a large family. Unfortunately, her husband, in order to support her efforts, has been working in a job that is insufficient to support the large family economically rather than searching all over the country to find a livable wage for the large family that they didn't know they were going to have. Obviously, this is her fault for not being aware of her calling before she entered graduate school.

As one friend was told (jokingly, I assume) by her husband, she's just going to have to take this one up with God.

Gotta tell you, friends, if I really thought that this was the essence of Church teaching on the role of women in the family, I would probably have been a deathbed convert. As it stands, I do not believe that unplanned pregnancies are a signal to change vocation.

But what if they were? There is a definitive test for the vocation of motherhood. When you look at the little stick and see two lines instead of one, it means that God wants you to undertake the vocation of motherhood. It's a pretty easy sign to read, especially when you consider that there are digital ones nowadays that say "pregnant" or "not pregnant" instead of leaving it up to the women to interpret a "+" or "-" or the single- or double-lines. So that's good, no mystery there.

But what about you single women? I don't think a litmus test has been invented yet that you put on your tongue and it says "career path," "religious life," "marriage and kids in your future." God's calling may show itself a lot more subtly in your lives than in ours, I think. And when the time comes, you may not want to choose "either-or," but both. I, for one, believe that God made us capable of serving him in multiple ways, even within one person's lifetime.

"It's Just a Catholic Thing" (?) in the Professions

A few months after my daughter (now 16 months) was born, I had her with me in my department, likely for a meeting with my dissertation adviser. A professor whom I had never met saw me, and, being an outgoing, friendly type, he proceeded to tell me about his daughter who was expecting, to tell me that two children is sufficient because that's one for each knee, and a number of other things that I have now forgotten. He asked me if I had any other children, and, as I responded affirmatively, he asked slyly, "They're not Irish twins, are they?" Now, I thought cluelessly, my husband is part Irish, but I'm not. Obviously, I had no idea what Irish twins are. Asked to explain, he informed me that Irish twins were siblings born within one year--which, of course, would be unlikely given the likelihood that impoverished Irish Catholics (he wasn't talking about Orangemen, after all) would be breastfed. A few minutes later, he repeated the joke for the benefit of my officemate, herself raised Catholic, and we agreed with good-natured disapproval that this was a thinly-veiled Catholic joke.

The joke evokes nineteenth-century immigrants with families of 5-12 children, overworked women, shabby brown clothing, tenement housing, clothes lines--you get the picture. So my question is, how do contemporary intellectual Catholic women deal with such a situation? Over the past couple of years, I have had at least three friends ask themselves this question in one way or another. All were working, one a Ph.D. student. Two were using NFP and one not. In these situations, "oops-s" or "what the heck" moments inevitably happen. So then what? One friend had been married for long enough that she could easily pass it off as "we've been trying" or "we were ready," or whatever. One friend decided that since she had been married for less than a year and people had just given her presents, she would ask not to have a baby shower.

This question comes to mind for a couple of reasons. First, well, people ask the most audacious questions! When I was pregnant last, the father of one of my son's friends from school saw us in Target, expressed surprise, and asked, "Were you trying, or was this a surprise?" One of the aforementioned friends remarked, as we discussed similar such remarks, "Do they realize that they're asking you whether you're having sex?"

O.K., so people are nosey. But it goes beyond that. In certain circles, it is just the unspoken rule that you should space your children according to your career goals. Hence, one female professor mentioning that her youngest was her "tenure baby," though it was unclear if he was the result of the celebrating, or her award for accomplishing the task! Within a year of my entering the M.A. program, one of my professors had her "last chance" baby, and two months after I had my daughter, my almost-adviser had her post-tenure baby. Others waited--and advised their grad students to wait--not until tenure, but until getting the tenure-track job. Recently, the female grad students in the department have decided that A.B.D. is a convenient time to have children, a decision I support wholeheartedly, obviously! But there is still somewhat of an unspoken consensus that children are to be spaced rather further apart that one to two years. While my "spacing"--a new baby with a 7-year-old--drew attention from a school dad (also a professional, incidently, but a professional father), spacing children every two years (considered ideal by those who are actively growing their families) is a professional faux pas. So what about Catholic professional/academic mothers?

Some, of course, believe that these terms are contradictory, and I could point you to the blogs to prove it. My friend who works at a Catholic high school has been condescendingly treated to the casual assumption that she would not be returning to work--EVER--by her colleagues for the last several months. But the role of Catholic women in the family is not my purpose for this post. Rather, I am embarrassed to admit that popular opinion is my concern.

Morality and Church teaching aside (though very much bound up with this post, as I hope is obvious), "accidents" are for teenagers, low-income households, minorities, and Catholics? All of these are stereotypes, but stereotypes which the average enlightened intellectual holds in the deep recesses of her politically correct heart. Just look at Amanda Marcotte.

This begs the question. . . Do married Catholic women really not belong in the workplace? This question is rhetorical. I do not expect an answer. Rather I am using the question to imply its answer--that of course married Catholic women belong in the workplace, if they so choose! So then, what about the "oops" factor? NFP "works," but people have different levels of resistance, and error and the Will of God are always factors! ;) Perhaps married Catholic females belong in the workplace to enlighten the masses, and should cling to the beatitudes for encouragement: that those who suffer mockery in the name of holiness will have their reward. But if asked, "You're pregnant again?" that's hardly an answer that will satisfy the average enlightened intellectual, provided the discussion occurs openly rather than in a series of sneers and snickers (yes, I am hard on my fellow academics). I have even encountered resistance to the motherhood-academic combination in Catholic academic circles (circles formed to discuss the intersection of faith and professional life!), so how much more should secular academics resist the Catholic academic's attempt to live her marriage faithfully, understanding its possible consequences (blessings)?

Large families and accidents--Catholic stereotypes both. Neither FEMLA, nor tenure procedures, nor enlightened liberalism allows for those realities. I don't know the answer, and I hate a cliff-hanger post. I further hate admitting that the sneering disturbs me. But it does. So while married professional women wait to reproduce until they reach their goals, what does the Catholic woman do? Stay home? Or not marry until after tenure/promotion?

Housewife, Peasant woman, or Academic mom?

The current generation of working women is still rebelling against the housewife-image perfected by the Donna Reed and June Cleaver generation. I firmly believe this to be true. Feminism was founded on a rejection of the domestic standards upheld by the women who are no longer our mothers, but perhaps now our grandmothers. However, having lost touch with the actual experience of that familial life, are we rebelling against an idea that is hollow--the TV sitcom version of the dutiful wife/mother--or is there any remaining offense to be had?

Consider this. . . The woman of the 40's and 50's was an updated "angel of the house," if you will. She was the ruler of the domestic sphere, until her husband returned from work to find his steak and mashed potatoes on the table. She cooked and cleaned, shopped on a budget, raised children, and perhaps not much else. Who knows anymore? She was the apple of the eye of product developers and advertising agencies. More commercials and products were geared to this woman than to any single consumer today. Well, no. Children are the number one target today, and what does that say about who runs the household? But you take my point. We look at her full skirts and her plastic smile and listen to the Stones' "Mother's Little Helper" to understand all that was wrong with our perfect image of her. Of course, my generation doesn't really have an image of her that is separate from the criticism. She is not my grandmother, though they were contemporaries and share some of the same problems. And so I, also, reject this image, as I have been taught.

During (and perhaps immediately after) my younger child was born in the autumn of 2005, my dissertation adviser (and friend and confidant) had a running joke about me--that I was one of those "peasant women" who give birth in the field, then strap the baby to their backs and keep working. Strictly speaking, this is not true, though it was great for a chuckle. I emphatically did not want to, or, more accurately perhaps, feel that I should have to work in the months immediately after my baby was born. It turns out that I did not merely stay at home and bond with my baby, but that's another tale. . . I have colleagues who were in the classroom within weeks of giving birth. I freely admit that I could not have done this! Instead, I waited through October, November, and December, took on a less-demanding-than-teaching assistantship, and eased back into teaching in the summer and fall. I also took a class on professionalism in the fall.

I have heard and read many discussions recently about childcare, from a friend who is confused & vexed, a blogger whose husband became distressed after she recovered somewhat from first-time daycare blues, from a committed stay-at-home blogger mom lamenting "outsourced motherhood."

[An aside: my 15-month-old just dialed a play phone, help it to her ear, and said "bye bye" before the recorded voice!! Cute!!]

My own experience with childcare is limited. My husband & I did not put our son in any form of child care until he was 3; rather, we "swapped" child care duties literally between graduate classes. Until after kindergarten, which he attended part time, one of us was with him for most of the day. Last August I sincerely tried to place my baby in a church mother's-day-out program one day a week, but after two days of observation/trial, I simply could not. I just do not trust others with my baby--both for emotional and hygienic reasons. We both became very ill after that day of observation, which did nothing for my resolve or self-confidence.

[Just changed a diaper and had my daughter take 3 steps to me!]

Working-woman daycare culture is clearly not for me. However, while I have arranged the past 2 semesters so that I could stay with my daughter during the day and teach in the evenings, when she could be with Daddy, I can not identify myself as a "stay-at-home mom." I criticize both camps, perhaps too freely. That's not my purpose here, however.

It is ingrained in my consciousness that a mother needs to take care of herself while taking care of her children, insofar as it is possible to do both. In spite of extremely difficult situations, including a stretch as a single mother of me and a marriage that was even worse than the first, my mother managed to raise 6 children to believe that taking care of children is valuable, and that one can accomplish a great deal while doing so.

We have a rather unhealthy dichotomy in our contemporary conception of motherhood--a word that good feminists would avoid because it connotes an identity rather than an act--"working mother" is set in opposition to "stay-at-home mom." These terms are interesting in themselves, as "mother" lends more of an air of seriousness to the former situation than the less formal "mom." Hmmmm. . . Of course, working part-time in order to parent also connotes certain personal and financial sacrifices for family. I am aware of a married couple who divorced due to their conflict over whose career was more important. No children without compromise! For me, academia, perhaps grad school in particular! offers a reasonable compromise between these competing versions of motherhood. And dual academic careers are ideal.

But I wanted to think again about the 1940s housewife and the "peasant woman." We base our rejection of "traditional" motherhood on the former, but include the latter in our conceptualization of oppressed women of previous generations who had no choice but to bear children, etc. We differ because we have autonomy, can choose careers, can choose to mother, the possibilities are endless! But are our choices presented fairly? Are we always sacrificing something that the other choice offers? Two roads diverged, and all that. . . I choose to multitask--to work with a baby at my feet (not on my back!). I take care of her; she is mine; I am mine.