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03/22/2007
Yes, Rebecca, it is an awful thing to say.
My ambivalence about adoption is well established here, if not fully fleshed out. Every time I write about it, many of you warmly assure me that I would love an adopted child as passionately as I love Charlie. But that's never been at issue; from the time of Charlie's birth, a transformative experience in ways both good and bad, I knew I could love any baby who'd been entrusted to our care.
The love has never been in doubt. The love seems like the easy part. Everyone I know who's connected with adoption in any way confirms that. I take that as a given, reserving my concerns for all the rest of it. So I was surprised — which is my detached, polite way of saying "sputtering with incredulous indignation" — to read this New York Times article on feminist writer Rebecca Walker's Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence:
The most incendiary notion in "Baby Love" may be that, for Ms. Walker, being a stepparent or adoptive parent involves a lesser kind of love than the love for a biological child.
In an interview, Ms. Walker boiled the difference down to knowing for certain that she would die for her biological child, but feeling "not sure I would do that for my nonbiological child."
"I mean, it’s an awful thing to say," said Ms. Walker, who in a previous relationship helped rear a female partner’s biological son, now 14. "The good thing is he has a biological mom who would die for him."
That is a good thing. Note to Walker's stepchild: Be very, very careful you're with the right person when you happen to get trapped in that burning building, okay?
What bothers me more than Walker's position itself — upgrading from "incredulous indignation" to "incoherent flailing" — is its shift from an earlier stance:
In a 2001 Curve magazine article she said, "the bonds you create are just as important and just as powerful as the bonds that you are born into."
When asked about this incongruity, she explained: "To grapple with how my parents [Walker is the daughter of author Alice Walker] raised me I had to come up with a philosophy that could sustain me. Having my own child gave me the opportunity to have a completely different experience. So hence a different view."
Fellow feminist Jennifer Baumgardner defends Walker's 180 by calling it consistent with Walker's feminist stance: "She reserves the right to evolve, and that's a good model for us."
But is it truly evolution when it entails a step back into what seems like a less enlightened view?
Dawn at This Woman's Work, who has always written beautifully about parenthood, adoption, and race, isn't bothered by the comment: "I figure, why should she feel sure? How can we know about things we haven't experienced?" And I am trying to come around to that point of view, remembering all of the people I know who've expressed worries about creating their families through adoption or donation. "How can I be sure I'll love the child?" is a very common question, and I usually admire without reservation the honesty it takes to ask it.
So why does it disturb me so — "full-body paroxysms of irritation" — that Walker's doing what amounts to the very same thing?
Thanks to T. for the link and sdn for the nudge. I would be delighted to find myself in a burning building next to either of them.
Posted by Julie at 07:33 AM in Jane, you ignorant slut, Why don't you just adopt? | Permalink
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Comments (94)
sounds like a lot of her world revolves around her relationship with her own mother. they are apparently estranged.
i think of rebecca walker as the sean lennon of feminism.
Posted by: sdn at Mar 22, 2007 7:54:06 AM
It isn't a very nice thing to say, but it doesn't make her thoughts any less valid. Her problem is lumping in other peoples' children from previous marriages in with adopted children...and they are universes apart. My sister has lived with a man for years who has a son by his first marriage. The boy is now 13, and although my sister tried very hard to fit in somehow, she was never allowed in. She has now been delegated to the role of money tree and emergency baby sitter. I don't think my sister has ANY maternal feelings for this boy at this point, although she would probably run into a burning building to save ANY child. If my sister had been allowed to adopt this boy when he was young, that would be a different story.
Posted by: Chickenpig at Mar 22, 2007 8:03:48 AM
Personally, if I had the opportunity to rescue ANY child from a burning building, and had to sacrifice my own life to do so, I would not think twice. Biological, adopted, friend, stranger, etc. What bothers me about her comments is not that she questions her relationship with an adopted child but that she seems callous with regard to children in general.
Posted by: chrissieroux at Mar 22, 2007 8:04:04 AM
It makes my hackles rise, too---mostly on behalf of the child who probably loves her like a mother who has now been told in no uncertain terms that he is not loved like a son. I suppose philosophically I have no problem with her theoretical failure to love, but Lordy, to specifically and publicly state it about a specific kid is so monstrously cold it leaves me gape-mouthed and trying to look politely away.
Ouch.
I think we love the thing we serve. Nothing demands more service than a baby, and because you give the greater portion of your time and life to it, you come to love him or her more than you love you. It's neat, and I suspect it works for most folks whether the baby came out of their body or not.
Posted by: Joshilyn Jackson at Mar 22, 2007 8:05:16 AM
"Lordy, to specifically and publicly state it about a specific kid is so monstrously cold it leaves me gape-mouthed and trying to look politely away."
I can't say it better than that. I am having Ayelet Waldman flashbacks, complete with the suspicion that this is partly a less-talented associate's way of making a name for herself: I am bold and outrageous! Read me! Discuss among yourselves!
Also, as I read it, she seemed to be presenting her experience as some sort of great truth. I can't fault someone for being an emotionally stunted bitch (unless I was to be a hypocritical emotionally stunted bitch), but I don't assume my shortcomings are everyone's shortcomings.
Posted by: Slim at Mar 22, 2007 8:21:59 AM
And yes, it does say "for Ms. Walker," but I dunno . . . her assumption that his biological mom would die for him made me feel as though she thought that was the natural order of things.
Posted by: Slim at Mar 22, 2007 8:24:25 AM
I guess I am glad that some women are brave enough to articulate the fact that the experience of motherhood (bio or adoptive) may not always transform one into a good or even adequate parent.
My sister in law, pregnant with her first & only child, stold me that she was worried she would not love the baby. And in fact, she did not and never has loved her daughter (now 14). Or at least, I have never see her display anything that looks like affection, support, or kindness to the child. (Her daughter once had to be hospitalized with a terrifying brain problem that caused [temporary] paralysis on one side of her body; my s.i.l. could only express irritation that the child was "whining" about her fear and pain. And that's sort of the highpoint of her mothering: the rest of the time she criticizes the child incessantly for even the most innocent acts or desires. This kid can't do ANYTHING right, according to her mom. It's really heartbreaking to see.)
When she gort pregnant, my s.i.l. honestly and rightly had reservations about whether she would be a good parent. I wish that our culture were capable of acknowledging that not every sober, employed, sane, functional woman in an intact marriage is capable of becoming a loving parent. It's just not in the cards for all of us.
If my s.i.l.'s doubts had been taken seriously and acknowledged as legitimate(and not poohed-poohed by the chorus, "but of COURSE you'll be a wonderful mother!" and "once you hold that little baby in your arms you'll feel overwhelming love") she might have made the right decision and not had a child. But it's as though expressing doubt about your ability to love a child is not permitted; even when people do articulate such doubts, they're drwoned out by the overwhelming sea of opinion that the appropriate instincts will kick in automatically. Our culture uniformly turns its face away from the painful truth that not every mature adult who is a sober, sane, non-drug-addicted, non-criminal, employed, married, middle class, well-educated, high-functioning person is also capable of being a good parent.
My s.i.l. isn't a bad person and doesn't intend to hurt her daughter. She just never loved the kid (or at least, I can see no evidence of anything that looks like love) and I think my s.i.l. is struggling pretty heroically to cope with her responsibility to a person she finds to be a chronic irritant (even though her daughter is a sweet, well-behaved, courteous dream-child -- probably too terrorized to be anything but "perfect" I guess).
So, when people say "I wouldn't love a child" for whatever reason, I think it's important to encourage and accept those statements and support those folks in the decision not to become parents, bio or otherwise. Whatever Walker's basis for her statements, whether they're legitimate or not, I think we need to resist the impulse to shush her, reassure her, tell her she's offensive, doesn't know what she's talking about, etc. When Walker says she might not love a kid, or not very much, she might be telling an important truth.
Posted by: victoria at Mar 22, 2007 8:36:05 AM
Indubitably. No one's suggesting Rebecca Walker should adopt, for example, if she has such reservations. No one should. I am still hung up on her implication that now that she knows real love, she sees that her earlier love — for her stepson — wasn't as powerful as she'd thought.
Which, wow. What a thing to say.
Posted by: Julie at Mar 22, 2007 8:39:07 AM
As the NON-bio Mom in a lesbian relationship, I can honestly say she is either a cold-hearted bitch or insane. I would fight, kill, or die for my child and I cannot for one minute understand where the hell that comment of hers came from. The first second I held my son after his difficult birth, I knew I would die for him, I would do ANYTHING to protect him. That is NOT evolution of thought. It leaves me sputtering in fury!
Posted by: Exiled to Canada at Mar 22, 2007 9:20:31 AM
As I said at Dawn's, the statement feels judgemental. Even if she is only speaking of her personal feelings, there is still this implication about adoption in general. A lot of the general public suffers from the belief that adoptive ties are secondary to biological ones. I think statements like this reinforce these stereotypes.
Not only would I throw myself in front of a bus or anything else for all of my children (adopted and biological), I make the assumption that everyone would. We wouldn't think about it, we wouldn't contemplate our ties to that person, instinct would propel us forward. Protecting our young comes before survival in my opinion. There would be little room for an intellectual exercise.
Do I think in less dire circumstances people differentiate between their children? Yes. Sometimes based on gender, adoption, personality, looks, and on and on. Because of this I think the more relevant question is how would Ms. Walker or anyone else treat their child on a daily basis. They should be concerned with how they parent in life, not in possible death.
Posted by: Lisa V at Mar 22, 2007 9:43:18 AM
It doesn't bother me so much. People are different. I'm adopting, but I genuinely believe *some* people would not be able to love an adopted child is much, and I think it's wonderful when they are able to realize that. It's a good thing, and it's better to be mistaken about it and miss out on adoption, than to adopt and then realize they were right, that would be tragic.
I think stepchildren can be a whole different ball game than adopted children. It sounds like her stepson was just that and not a child the partners conceived/adopted as a couple, and that he wasn't adopted by the new partner. I think that does make a big difference, I think it's pretty normal to not feel the same way about a stepchild, and from what I hear the child usually wants it that way, they have their own ties to their existing parents.
Posted by: at Mar 22, 2007 9:47:02 AM
Personally, having both a biological son and an adopted daughter, I would rescue both from anything, but then I would rescue anyone that needed it (I hope)..... Although I might not agree with what the writer stated, they are HER feelings, and we don't have to like them....I guess we should feel pity for someone that feels the need to actually put them into the written word so her former step-son can read them....poor guy.
Posted by: Stacey at Mar 22, 2007 9:56:25 AM
Perhaps it's not so much her believing this as writing a book about it and talking about it in the New York Times. Presumably her stepson knows how to read; presumably his friends do; presumably his friends' parents both know how to read *and* know who his stepmother is, so might actually search out the article. Plus, she has to know the statement would be controversial.
I am somehow unsurprised that this is a previous partner.
Posted by: wolfa at Mar 22, 2007 9:56:50 AM
I don't have stepchildren or adopted children (or biological children) but I think it may have a lot to do with whether you've taken on the role of their main parent (or one of their main parents). I accidentally had a 10-year-old foster child for a while and because no-one else cared what happened to him, I had to, even though he had a living parent. I think if I had stepchildren with a living (and caring) parent it would be different, even if I lived with their other biological parent.
Posted by: katie at Mar 22, 2007 9:58:36 AM
I read that article the other night and thought, It's really not fair that she gets to publish books just because she's Alice Walker's daughter. I don't think it's worth taking what she writes seriously. She's just a priveleged kid who keeps writing books about herself that really didn't need to be written, just because she can. And, not that this has anything to do with anything, but I met Rebecca years ago when I was in college. I was in charge of driving her to her hotel after she spoke at my school, and I was really excited about the honor. She couldn't have been more frosty or ungracious.
Posted by: Kristin at Mar 22, 2007 10:09:52 AM
Yes, that bothered me too. I mean, you can't legislate someone else's emotions, but as you say, wow.
Over and above that interview with Walker, though, did you happen to catch Alexandra Jacobs' review of the book (and Peggy Orenstein's WAITING FOR DAISY) in the Book Review last weekend? She begins, "For most of history, having a baby--or heck, a dozen--has simply been women's natural lot, not something they had time or inclination to examine at any length. Now, the 'journey to motherhood,' as it is often called, is something to be feared, postponed, mulled, and eventually exalted in endless memoirs, or 'mom-oirs'....The majority of these are extremely tedious. It is difficult to think of another subject so miraculous in its fundamentals, yet so banal in its particulars."
Well, fuck you Alexandra Jacobs! I'm not quite blaming the Times for Walker's statements, but the paper of record seems determined to portray her in a less than positive light.
Posted by: BrooklynGirl at Mar 22, 2007 10:23:44 AM
I am not sure why it bothers me. Because it is public? Harsh?
I have three foster children and one adopted child. I would gladly run into a burning building for any one of them. I suspect I would do it for any child.
I can't imagine loving anyone more than I love these children. So if there is a difference between the love I would have for my adopted children and bio children, I can't even begin to imagine it.
Posted by: baggage at Mar 22, 2007 10:23:45 AM
I'm with Joshilyn and Wolfa; it's understandable to have those concerns for a theoretical child, and maybe a good idea to air them out. But after you have that actual person in your care and you've made the decision to parent for better or worse, it's fair to hope that for the kid's sake you will be discreet about your reservations or concerns. I've talked to two mothers (both with biological kids, since we're making that distinction this week) with serious regrets about their parenthood, but those were expressed in confidence and I would never dream of disturbing them or their family by talking to the children in question. To state such a thing baldly for strangers and for those kids to read? It's tacky, and I worry that that poor kid's feelings will be damaged.
Posted by: trope at Mar 22, 2007 10:24:02 AM
I think (as others have probably said) that a sharp distinction has to be drawn between stepparenting and adoption. Yes, in both cases you're raising (or helping to raise) a child who isn't related to you biologically.
But in the stepparenting case, the primary bond is between the child's stepparent and the child's parent. The stepparent chose to marry the parent. The stepkids were just a bonus (or, apparently, in some cases, a burden).
With adoption, the adoptive parent is choosing the child, not as an extra, not as an add-on, but because s/he wants the child.
Not the same thing at all.
Posted by: niobe at Mar 22, 2007 10:26:07 AM
I have both bio kids and a step-daughter and would rush into a burning building to rescue any of them. I am glad Rebecca Walker is not going to adopt anyone any time soon and I feel incredibly sorry for her (former?) step-son for the public slap-down, though presumably he knows what sort of person she is by now.
While my own step-mother was quite clear about her discomfort around children and that she had no desire whatsoever to parent, it wasn't really scarring for me except that when I realized I would be a step-mother myself I resolved to love the kid -- it wasn't the kid's fault I was with her father.
This is rambling, but I think it's OK to find Rebecca Walker's statement pretty odious -- for its public dissing of an intimate relationship with a child and for the way it was presented as a generally-held opinion. If she feels that way, fine for her but please, Rebecca, only get involved with the childless, don't inflict yourself on another kid.
Posted by: cori at Mar 22, 2007 10:26:59 AM
This is a toughie. Sure, she has a right to her feeling and her realization, and being honest about it TO HERSELF is important. Maybe she never formed a real bond with him, but that lack of a bond is individual and specific to HER. Being honest about it to a therapist or to a close friend is also important so that she isn't eaten alive by the guilt of feelings she cannot help. But publicly stating the limits of her love for her stepson is downright cruel to him and to his biological mother.
And I agree with commenter Slim, above, who said "I don't assume my shortcomings are everyone's shortcomings."
This is ONE woman who is talking about her own limitations. I don't judge her for them. We can't control who we love, and not everyone bonds with their children fully, for a myriad of reasons. Most do, fortunately, and many women I know could fall eternally in love with a baby after holding him/her for two minutes and be ready to love that child for life.
I mean, I'm already triggered to love that 14 year old boy and save him from a burning building right now, just knowing that his stepmother stated publicly that she might not. Not everyone is wired that way, but there should be a greater love in one's heart to spare children the knowledge of your limitations in loving them.
Posted by: stephanie at Mar 22, 2007 10:42:23 AM
I was bothered because Walker's statements feed into a culture that labels some kids "your own" and some kids, "not." She seems to reinforce notions that other mothers and stepmothers and adoptive mothers all fight against, to greater or lesser degrees.
I was especially bothered because, in this case, the child might NOT have thought of Walker as a "stepmother," because she was his mother's partner -- in the child's eyes, Walker might have been his mother, no steps involved. In that case, Walker's move to label him her "step kid" seems caught up in Walker's breakup with her former partner, and her decision to marry a man (she's avowedly bisexual), and that's all well and good, but decent people leave the kids out of it. At least in public.
I don't think my stepmother feels especially maternal to me, and she and my father briefly discussed adoption in the early years of her marriage, and if that had worked out, I think she would have admitted that her own child felt different to her than her stepchild. I think my uncle has always felt that way about his two stepsons and his own daughter, who was also adopted by my aunt and uncle. So in our own family, there is a difference between stepkids and not, but the difference doesn't extend to adoption, not by a long shot, not even close.
I'm always torn between thinking it's fantastic and wonderful that people like Sandra Bullock and Jada Pinkett Smith embrace their stepchildren as "their own" and feeling a little, as the child of divorce, irritated at the public obliteration of the other mother in that equation. Negotiating the bonds when there are two active, day-to-day mothers or fathers, and a divorce in the family history, is exceedingly complicated.
Does anyone know if that was Walker's past situation? Because I thought of her as her son's "other mother" and if that's the case, then I think her public renunciation of that role is just plain cruel. Although, let's face it, if you're telling the New York Times, your kid already knows how you feel.
I think it's a sign of high idiocy to base your understanding of the universe purely on what you yourself have experienced. To lack the imagination or foresight to consider that one's own childhood might shape one's response to one's children, for example, rendering one's ideas about the ties that bind particular to oneself, strikes me as particularly un-informed. If that's what Walker does in the book (the Times reporter makes the universalizing move in the article; maybe Walker was only uncouthly and hurtfully talking about her own experience), then she lacks basic intelligence.
Too bad she's got a public platform for reinforcing all those pernicious ideas about children "of one's own." Because heaven knows the culture doesn't have enough of that going on.
Posted by: Jody at Mar 22, 2007 10:51:48 AM
>>>I think it's a sign of high idiocy to base your understanding of the universe purely on what you yourself have experienced.
So well said!
Posted by: stephanie at Mar 22, 2007 10:54:23 AM
Just because I rambled, and lost my point: I think it's the "other mothers" in lesbian relationships who have to be the most outraged here. And given the politicization of their marriages (or lack thereof), Walker is being especially incendiary.
Imagine if Melissa Etheridge disavowed the children from her first relationship, because she wasn't their biological mother.
The lack of legal protection for gay marriage and gay parenthood of course makes it possible for people to make the move that Walker does, to call one kind of parenthood better or more intense than another. Maybe the law even fosters that distancing during the partnership -- it's probably easier to separate yourself from a child if the law tells you, over and over, that you're not REALLY his mother. One more reason why the laws need to change.
Posted by: Jody at Mar 22, 2007 10:57:44 AM
I think what bothers me is she is talking about a kid who is actually here, whom she has (had?) a relationship with. I accept that people wonder if they will love a potential child as much, although Julie, I think you have made it clear from your experiences in the NICU that isn't what worries you.
Posted by: Jill at Mar 22, 2007 10:58:40 AM
Dear Ms. Walker,
There are tens of thousands of people in this country who would be willing to die for you right now. Firefighers, military members, Search and Rescue, and on and on.
That you are unsure about your willingness to die for a child you co-parented for a number of years is a sad statement. That you would make it publically where that child will surely read it someday is just cruel.
A Former Admirer
Posted by: Kathleen at Mar 22, 2007 11:01:03 AM
Dear Ms. Walker,
There are tens of thousands of people in this country who would be willing to die for you right now. Firefighers, military members, Search and Rescue, and on and on.
That you are unsure about your willingness to die for a child you co-parented for a number of years is a sad statement. That you would make it publically where that child will surely read it someday is just cruel.
A Former Admirer
Posted by: Kathleen at Mar 22, 2007 11:01:51 AM
I have a stepson, that I love. I'd rescue him out of a burning building in a flash. But I don't love him as a mother. He has a mother, and a pretty good one at that. I love him as part of my husband, and as the person he is, but I don't feel "motherly" towards him. This is not a reflection of the "amount" of love I feel, just the "kind" of love. I don't know if that makes any sense. I love my husband and my brother and my daughter and my mother too, all in a different kind of love.
Posted by: Jessica at Mar 22, 2007 11:10:12 AM
PS: I have no doubt I'd be able to feel the "motherly" kind of love towards an adopted child. Just wanted to clarify that.
Posted by: Jessica at Mar 22, 2007 11:11:15 AM
I was also quite ticked off by her comment. I think people should shut the hell up when tempted to expound on topics they have not experienced. And yes, being a stepparent is not the same as being an adoptive parent.
Posted by: Liana at Mar 22, 2007 11:38:04 AM
I find Ms. Walker's words to be completely reprehensible and she seems like a rather shitty human being to me.
But it's her truth, I guess. I'm torn over feeling any kind of respect towards her for having the ... I REALLY don't want to use the word courage, but I can't find another ... courage to say something so obviously politically incorrect.
It may be her truth and I have to respect that, but it is not MY truth and I pray that it's not the truth of the majority of humanity or we're all well and truly fucked.
Posted by: BB at Mar 22, 2007 11:41:39 AM
Side note to Victoria: That broke my heart, and I hope you are a positive female role model in your niece's life. She needs all she can get.
About your sil, since you brought it up,
I think "terrorizing" a child that you never wanted and don't love isn't quite "struggling heroically". It's more like failing miserably. Let's reserve that description for those that, for the reasons you gave, don't cave in to outside pressure and instead make the excruciating decisions that come with terminating a pregnancy or giving up a child to adoptive families.
Posted by: Sally at Mar 22, 2007 11:52:24 AM
I read both NY times articles (book review also), and though I haven't read any of Walker's material, the two articles seemed to convey that she is very shallow, and perhaps a poor writer. Her first book was controversial as well, also filled with myopic and prejudicial opinions.
Trash, I say. Not worthy of the Walker name.
Posted by: Penny at Mar 22, 2007 12:01:22 PM
Yes yes yes. This is the crystal moment for me. Your followup comment summed up my discomfort exactly. Not that your initial post didn;t enlighten and expand my own intrepretation, but this is the nub for me.
Pink
Indubitably. No one's suggesting Rebecca Walker should adopt, for example, if she has such reservations. No one should. I am still hung up on her implication that now that she knows real love, she sees that her earlier love — for her stepson — wasn't as powerful as she'd thought.
Which, wow. What a thing to say.
Posted by: PinkPoppies at Mar 22, 2007 12:02:33 PM
I read the article. I haven't read the book.
I didn't like her comments. Her words were unkind; I couldn't relate to how she feels; but ... Surely, she has a right to her own opinion, feelings, world view etc?
The fact that she lacks the common sense to know how cruel it is to say such things about her former partner's child is enormously sad.
But what I find saddest, frankly, is not that she feels this way, but that she is not alone in feeling as she does in regards to step-children, and adopted children. Too many in our culture express a similar sentiment.
Posted by: Beth at Mar 22, 2007 12:07:10 PM
I have no idea what her stepparent relationship was like (I haven't read her books even though because I have a black, Jewish daughter everyone has been telling me I should but hey, I'm not Alice Walker and I can guarantee that Madison's experience will be pretty different). I would not be hurt if *my* stepmom found out she loved us less when she gave birth to my little sisters. There are so so so so so many ways to be a stepparent that there ought to be a million names for all of them.
But I don't care how she feels -- she can feel however she wants to feel. How she airs it is between her and her family (we bloggers all wrestle with it but we usually don't have such a huge public platform to do it). I don't like that she extrapolates her experience to everyone but heck, don't we all?
I mean, I hear this kind of thing pretty much all the time from regular old people so I'm not surprised to find it in someone being quoted in the NYT. Such is the lot of the adoptive family. But happily, there are opportunities for adoptive families to speak from experience, including Peggy Orenstein's book reviewed in that same issue.
Really I think it's more fun to bitch about what Ayelet said to her, eh? (About having her stand next to her incredibly fertile husband to see if that would help Peggy get pregnant.)
But you know, the truth is you're infertile? People will judge. Have an "only" child? Judge. Adopt? Judge. Divorce? Judge. There's nothing new about that and it ain't gonna stop happening. My thing is how will I help my family cope with all that judgment, particularly my kids. It's Madison's reality that people will question her and question me and question her first mom. We all have to learn how to deal with it and not let it doubt our love for each other.
Posted by: dawn at Mar 22, 2007 12:27:41 PM
Of course she has the right to an opinion, just as we all have the right to find the substance of it...disappointing.
And, yes, BB, I believe that's her truth. But it raises what is, to me, an interesting question: what provoked her to tell it? Because it looks to me — admittedly with no further knowledge than the story provides — gratuitously cruel, almost.
Posted by: Julie at Mar 22, 2007 12:31:43 PM
Dawn slipped in and just gave a spoiler for my next post! This morning's messages with Julia, about one Michael Chabon:
julia: SPERMINATOR
julie: SUPERJISM
Posted by: Julie at Mar 22, 2007 12:44:05 PM
Julie,
I found myself taken aback by this as well. I think it's the flippant tone of the statement that really bothers me. It sounds joking and makes light of a very serious thing for that child. I think some people can only (barely) love their biological children, some people can't love any children, and most people can love non-bio, bio, step, whatever. I know my husband's mother (biological) told him she would have aborted him if she hadn't been so far along and other such comments (his parents used him as a reason to fight, etc.) which has had a profound affect on him throughout his life. So, yes, SOME people shouldn't have children, SOME people shouldn't adopt and it's good to have the self awareness to know that before you bring in a child to the mix. However, any comment like this will have a profound affect on the child, and it sounds more like she was trying to hurt her former partner through her child, which I do find deplorable.
Posted by: JessicaT at Mar 22, 2007 12:56:40 PM
I think it's unfair to lump stepmothers and adoptive mothers together. In the interest of full disclosure, I'm speaking as a stepmom here who also has a biological child . . . I have no first hand experience with adoption. As a stepmother I have struggled with the expectation my husband and others have of me to fully love and embrace his children as if they were my children, as if I were actually their mother. At the same time, there's another expectation that I shouldn't actually get too close, I shouldn't actually try to replace their mother. So it's a fine line I walk: I am permitted to do mother-type things for them as long as I remember my place and at all times show no intention of trying to usurp their biological mother's place (aka the “real” mom). It is this fact of stepmothering life that has kept me from truly bonding with my stepchildren . . . after many years of guilt and shame I have finally come to a place where I realize that no, I don't love them like I love my biological child and that's ok. They really aren't my children, after all. They have a mom who is very much in the picture who actually has the legal and moral right to make all of those mom-type decisions for her children, including whether or not she'd throw herself in front of a bus for them. If I think of Walker's comment in the context of my own stepmothering experience, I get what she's saying. And I don't think it's such an awful thing to say.
However, if my stepchildren were my adopted children and if I had the full legal right to BE their mother, I think I'd feel differently. I don't think I'd feel the same ambivalence about loving them if I knew that I could fully embrace my role as mother. I guess what I'm saying is that I feel that when it comes to mothering there is essentially no difference between biological and adopted children. But between mothering adopted and stepchildren? The only thing they have in common is that in both cases the children are not biologically related to the mother. Stepmoms and adoptive moms have totally different rights and responsibilities and because of this I think it is only normal to expect that a stepmother may not be able to embrace a stepchild as she would her adopted child.
Posted by: Stacey at Mar 22, 2007 12:57:18 PM
An important distinction. What I don't know is exactly what Walker's relationship with the 14-year-old is. The article says she "helped rear a female partner’s biological son," which sounds more like a stepparent role than a co-parent.
Posted by: Julie at Mar 22, 2007 1:01:31 PM
I don't even know where to start here other than to reiterate what nearly everyone else said. (I'm surprised to see so much consensus from your readers Julie. That's rare.) Stepparenting does not equal adoptive parenting, so the leap of judgment is too big.
She obviously has a right to the way she feels. I guess my big issues are a) how could you say that publicly about a specific child b) how could universalize such a negative emotiion(even if it she didn't mean it to be, she's using her book as a platform and it makes me question her motives (look at me, I'm Alice Walker's daughter, pay attention to me)) and c)it only feeds that assumption that anything less that full bioligical connection conceived without intervention is not as "worthy" a love or relationship. And God knows we have enough of that kind of crap.
Posted by: Leggy at Mar 22, 2007 1:50:56 PM
She just clarified things on her blog:
http://www.rebeccawalker.com/blog/2007/03/new-york-times-clarification.html
Not sure if this changes anyone's feelings about it or not (it doesn't change mine).
Posted by: dawn at Mar 22, 2007 2:03:31 PM
I think that Walker's implication was that once upon a time she thought she felt a great deal of love for her "female partner's biological son" -- only now does she realize it's not the great love she's experiencing now. Melding families is always difficult and everyone is doing it their own way. I have never found Walker to be particularly impressive, and I certainly don't take her statements as anything but her experience. Like most people here, it just sounds painful for the child she helped raise, but maybe the child already knew this truth.
Posted by: the grendler at Mar 22, 2007 2:16:46 PM
From what I've read about Rebecca Walker, she is an extremely troubled woman who has lead a very complicated life. She felt that her mother was completely ambivalent about her. Had an abortion at 14. Was a lesbian for a while. Now she's with a male partner. She confronted her mother about the ambivalence she felt from her growing up and was prompty cut out of Alice's will.
Why on earth should we expect this woman to have a healthy perspective on love or the parent/child relationship?
Would you take your car to a mechanic that has never worked on one?
Posted by: LMM at Mar 22, 2007 2:28:01 PM
I've been thinking about this some more and I think what she's getting at is bonding. And that she never felt entirely bonded to her partner's child.
What gets my goat is the assumption (a big one in my mind) that the biological bond is always greater than the non-biological (step-parenting, adoptive parenting, donor parenting) bond. Because as other commenters have pointed out, some bio parents never really feel bonded to their kids, but they aren't allowed to admit this. But somehow if you admit it and you aren't the bio parent then its okay, because hey, it wasn't your "real" kid after all. And THAT is what infuriates the friggin hell out of me. That she's feeding into that stereotype when the real issue is around bonding and what does it take to fully bond as a family?
Posted by: Leggy at Mar 22, 2007 2:28:46 PM
Perhaps we are judging too harshly here. She is perfectly entitled to her opinion. Maybe she is disappointed how things worked out with her partner and is transferring that frustration to the child....heck, maybe the kid is a royal pain in the ass and she's reacting to it. I am surprised she'd say that knowing full well it's going to hurt someone---but maybe she's trying to enlighten the rest of us that we all don't have to be 'perfect' in our feelings. There are times I don't want to see my 23 year old. It doesn't mean I don't love her--it means she's simply worn me out.
Nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors.
Nobody.
Posted by: Tammy at Mar 22, 2007 2:43:33 PM
It's a shock-jock mothering comment. It's announcing in advance whose life is worth saving. As an adoptee, it fits like a key into a lock of my worst fears about whether my mother's love was "real" enough. And when you're adopted, you can't help but feel that the woman who gave birth to you didn't love you enough either. *Of course* she has a right to her feelings, and to expressing them. But it's not "brave." As a matter of fact, a line like that in a book or an interview is an Ayelet Waldman-style publicity hook, a way to generate a tempest of controversy and attention. And, of course, in Walker's case, it's a way to say to her mother "Look at me. I'm a better mother than you ever were, ever could be."
Posted by: Kathy W. at Mar 22, 2007 2:54:47 PM
Until my daughter (biological) was born, I couldn't even have imagined how ready I'd be to lay down my life for her. I knew I'd love her, but the actual depth that love would take was unimaginable to me until she was here and I felt it. So, I think I understand Walker's position -- as Dawn implies, to be sure of anything you haven't experienced might be pure hubris. As much as I love my child -- and children in general -- and as much as I'd like to believe I would rush headlong into a fire to save the life of any endangered child, even a total stranger, I cannot be sure I'd be so brave and so heroic.
Loving a child as your own (even when it is your own) is a heroic thing, because it requires that every day, you put someone else's needs well above your own. I'm 48, my daughter is nearly 19, and if I (through some miracle) got pregnant again today, at this stage of my life, I'm not sure I'd be willing to go back to that place where I was willingly and joyfully so unselfish. Even for another of my biological childred. Time and age make us ready and able for different things at different times.
A terrible thing to say, indeed. But sometimes the truth is terrible to say and terrible to hear. Better to speak a terrible truth than to tell some pretty lie.
~C~
Posted by: Catharine at Mar 22, 2007 2:58:13 PM
I wonder why Walker even chooses to go there. I mean, Sophie's Choice is a fine work, but it ain't exactly a fun read. I'm sure that we would all choose one than forfeit both if we were literally held at gunpoint (unless we could choose death for all of us, which may be the preferred choice for some). But why even think of such things? It's worse than sticking pins in your eyes.
Posted by: amyh at Mar 22, 2007 2:58:24 PM
