In the six weeks since my baby was born, I seem to have lost all worldly ambition. I can think about September, when I am supposed to go back to work, only with dread. I have a class to teach. I have to start writing again. But the idea of talking about ideas in front of students or typing a coherent sentence (i.e., my normal life) seems totally implausible. Even now, the prospect of writing a few paragraphs about this problem seems almost out of reach. Taking care of the baby—physical, draining, exhilarating—is more like farming: following the rhythms of the earth, getting up at dawn, watching the corn flush in the sunrise. It is not at all like writing. [...]Must be society's expectations that did this to her. Or maybe her sense that God wants her to take care of her baby. Or because she loves her husband so much that she wants to devote full time to his child?
I imagine a better metaphor would be addiction. There is an opium-den quality to maternity leave. The high of a love that obliterates everything. A need so consuming that it is threatening to everything you are and care about. Where did your day go? Did you stare blankly at the baby for hours? And was that staring blankly more fiercely pleasurable, more compelling than nearly anything you have ever done?
By the way, in this day of easy divorce, Roiphe's article illustrates one danger to modern marriages: the wife and mother will always love her children more than she does her husband, and if push comes to shove, will always choose them over him.
Women have always loved their children more than their husbands. The only thing in this life that caused women to stop being so self consumed is their own child.
ReplyDelete"the wife and mother will always love her children more than she does her husband, and if push comes to shove, will always choose them over him."
ReplyDeleteAs it should be.
They are genetically half of her, he isn't.
I would be more worried about the opposite. I view women who are not maternal to their children with a suspicious eye.
She describes a 2-3 month period of time. The child will be with her for 18+ years, and her priorities will change.
ReplyDeleteIt is counterintuitive, but children thrive better when the marriage trumps the children. The father must gradually pull the mother to prioritize the marriage in long-term planning, because the children will such the short-term plans.
Yet, for the mothers that get divorced, quite often it is the male suitor that trumps the children. Repeatedly.
ReplyDeleteMale Suitor > children > husband.
Yet, despite this truism, left-wingers cling to the idea that abortion doesn't do *ANYTHING* to a woman's psyhcological well-being.
ReplyDeleteVery true, Dennis. And as you point out, it's only a problem really because of the current legal system which allows women who fall out of love with their husbands to hit the eject button for no reason at all.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main reasons why the arrival of children often predates the arrival of divorce by only 2-3 years.
"the wife and mother will always love her children more than she does her husband, and if push comes to shove, will always choose them over him"
ReplyDeleteThis is why default father custody makes sense as a good insurance policy for men vis a vis male marital investment.
The current state of default mother custody leads to women using children as decoys to leech money out of ex-husbands. This occurs because, relative to men, women feel entitled to do 80% of the consumer spending but don't feel the responsibility to earn 80% of the income.
Unless the husband is some sort of child-abusing freak, why in the world would a woman have to choose between him and her children?
ReplyDeleteWell duh, infants are like opium. It shows how out of touch people are with reality that they could even be surprised by such typically normal ideas. How could a species survive without some sort of chemical/hormone causing devotion to a kid? Why do you think those La Leche League ladies are so into nursing? Oh yeah, nursing a baby releases oxytocin. Psychology is caused by biology.
ReplyDeleteIn our train-wreck-is-normal society, we are shocked by free flowing traffic.
Did anybody know that some women orgasm while nursing?
ReplyDeleteMiles here,
ReplyDeleteSilly girl, great point.
There is nothing for sale at the mall, even the puppies, that are as cute and precious as a baby. A beautiful baby is about the prettiest thing one will ever see, inspiring the love of a whole family towards it.
Anonymous at 12:42, some women climax, believe it or not, during giving birth. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6120045&page=1
The first mention in literature of "orgasmic birth"---Genesis. Abraham's wife Sarah asked an angel, "will I have pleasure?" in response to the news that she was going to have a baby (Isaac) at roughly 90 years of age. I think everybody knew what she was referring to.
Lion female/mothers watch in a group as the new AlphaMale methodically kills all of the young lion pups out of the former alpha - whose fresh corpse is slowly cooling off a few yards away.
ReplyDeleteFemale lions hunt in well organized way and have no fear of anything and do not have any reason to be bossed by a single male lion.
This ritual teaches a simple fact, one that PC scientists have trouble grasping.
In the depths of the female hind-brain they would rather fuck a new top alpha than protect their offspring from the old one.
Ever notice the pattern of mothers with new violent boyfriends often end up being complicit with the abuse of their kids? So many blather on about how they "cannot understand" how this could happen.
Divorce is more about a woman's (or man's) selfishness than her maternal love for her children.
ReplyDelete