Heather Hewett’s December 5th blog post on Girl w/Pen, “What’s a Good Mother?” hit a nerve. My daughter Amy was born in 1970, the same year Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex and Robin Morgan’s anthology, Sisterhood is Powerful were published. Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique had already become part of my daily conversation. I read Firestone, Morgan, Germaine Greer, Our Bodies, Ourselves—everything I could find on ‘women’s liberation’. It all made so much sense. My husband and I agreed; we would share parenting. Our family wouldn’t follow the usual gender patterns, we’d be equal partners and we’d steer our daughter clear of sex stereotyped toys, clothes, and expectations. A huge cultural shift was underway; we’d be part of it.
We have been; but not in the ways I anticipated forty years ago. Children complicate lives in unexpected ways. Amy was born with a variety of disabilities, some immediately evident, others less so. She tested our facile feminism; we chose different answers. I am a single parent.
Parenting a child with physical and developmental challenges is a politicizing activity. Mothering such a child alone is a radicalizing one. Mothering a child with disabilities requires not only the culturally sanctified female roles of caregiving and ‘traditional good mothering’, but aggressive independent action. You must lobby the legislature, pressure the school board, argue with the doctor and defy the teacher. And, oddly, while these ‘unfeminine’ behaviors might, in other contexts, be deemed deviant or too aggressive, performed in the context of mothering a child with special needs they are considered appropriate, even laudable.
But for a single mother, even this culturally permissible deviance is insufficient. My life with Amy is different from the lives of most of my colleagues and friends. I could not provide emotional, physical and financial support for Amy without re-envisioning motherhood. Amy and I have lived with a shifting assortment of male and female students, single women as well as married women with children. Work for me is not possible without round the clock care for Amy. This is true for all mothers and children, but it is a need that is normally outgrown. Not so in our case. Amy fuels my passion for feminist solutions; not simply for childcare, but for policy issues across the board. I know first hand too many of the dilemmas confronting women, from the mostly invisible, predominately female workers who care for others in exchange for poverty level wages to successful business women struggling to be perfect mothers, perfect wives and powerfully perfect CEOs.
While there may be no individual solutions, there are individual decisions. As a mother and a feminist, I long ago made the decision to work toward a society in which power and responsibility as well as independence and dependence are equally available to women and men.
But it’s a lovely winter day, snow is sparkling on the pine trees, and across the street children are sledding. To talk of the challenges of motherhood without sharing the lessons in joy Amy offers is only a part of the story.
My particular good fortune is in Amy’s special way of seeing the world. Oliver Sacks in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat writes about people he calls ‘simple’. “If we are to use single word here, it would have to be ‘concreteness’ — their world is vivid, intense, detailed, yet simple, precisely because it is concrete, nether complicated, diluted nor unified by abstraction.” Amy never misses a sunset, a baby or a bird. She notices and she insists that others notice.
“Mother, come here! Now!”
“Amy, I’m busy, I’ll be there in a minute, OK?”
“No, not OK, red bird will fly away, come NOW!”
I hurry to see red bird. What kind of silly person would think it reasonable to miss a cardinal in the snow?
This is only one of many joys my daughter has taught me.
It’s the Christmas season, a time of hope. Lately life has begun to look bleaker each day as we move further toward a nation of haves and have nots; but today I choose to believe in hope. Someday, not so far away, women and men working together will beat the odds. We will succeed in creating a more just and equal world.
Comments 16
Heather Hewett — December 19, 2013
Susan, What a beautiful post. I love how you so clearly detail some of the challenges in being a "good" mother when raising a child with disabilities.
Sumru Erkut — December 20, 2013
Amen to "Someday, not so far away, women and men working together will beat the odds. We will succeed in creating a more just and equal world."
I feel privileged that Amy's "simple" joys have touched my life now and then. Thank you, Susan; thank you, Amy.
Barcy Fox — December 20, 2013
To know Amy is to love her just as it is to know and love you... for strength, joy, wisdom and fortitude. This helps me to be renewed in energy and conviction for the New Year. Thank you, Dear Susan and Amy. Hope to see you in 2014! Cheers, Barcy
Anne Noonan — December 20, 2013
"What kind of silly person would think it reasonable to miss a cardinal in the snow?" -- Perfect!
Thanks for writing.
Anne
Christine Jacobson — December 20, 2013
Love this. Thank you, Susan. So glad to stay in touch and follow you!
Betsy Tipper — December 20, 2013
Susan, Amy has been a light leading us to greater understanding because she is blessed with a mom who can write the truth so beautifully and taught us all so much. My special needs granddaughter will come alone to be with my husband and me a few days before Christmas so her busy parents can have time to focus on work and other tasks. This post reminds me yet again how our sweet Natalie, who still believes at 14, brings Christmas into our home, through her simple joy. Glad to be, 63!
Carol Langdon Kohankie — December 21, 2013
Hi Susan, Seeing your name on my e-mail list brought back wonderful memories from long ago of happy carefree childhood Christmas' that you and I spent together at church in Mystic. Since we recently reconnected I was not aware that your beloved daughter Amy has special needs. As I sit here in Texas on a cold rainy day your description of her calling to you about the cardinal was spot on. Thank you for sharing her story on your blog. May you both showrred witht he Lord's blessings in 2014. Fondly,
Carol Langdon Kohankie
Letta Page — December 21, 2013
Thanks for this story, particularly the bits on seeing differently. I talk a lot with authors about how fiction lets us envision possibility, get a new perspective, and can push forward change; I forget that the very real alternative viewpoints out there in the world do the same.
Also, I love Oliver Sacks -- it's good to have such an eloquent man in the corner of the face-blind. He helps me point out that it's not that I'm a jerk, nor that I am dumb, but that I see things differently. And I'm grateful for it -- every time I see someone I love, that dopamine fires and I just can't help but think, "Oh, you're so beautiful! I forgot!" It's a pretty cool thing, once you take out the intense social anxiety :)
Jan Putnam — December 22, 2013
This is wonderful, Susan and I would only add that Amy has taught many of us who've had the privilege of knowing her how to be real and in the moment and deeply appreciative. She's a blessing, that one.
Sue Wang — December 22, 2013
I share your hope, and Amy's wonder for life. Always always always stop to look at the red bird in the snow. Nature beckons and I thank the messengers who give us the missive. Love to you and Amy during this holiday season!!
Nora Hussey — December 23, 2013
Susan and Amy
Two extraordinary women from whom I have learned much. Thank you for your spirits and sensibilities. May the season bring many red birds on the landscape.
love
Nora
Jane Lassen Bobruff — December 23, 2013
Susan,
You are a good mother, and you always have been. You and Amy ar incredible women, and I continue to learn things from both of you. It is amazing what we can learn when we step back, take a breath, and let others show us their perspectives.
Debra Schultz — December 24, 2013
Hi Susan, what a beautiful piece and thanks for continuing to tell truths that complicate "received" feminist wisdom about doing and having it all. Happy Holidays to you and Amy.
Elline Lipkin — December 24, 2013
Thank you Susan for this beautiful and insightful piece. Just getting caught up now, but grateful for this thread on mothering in all forms, with often unseen or unspoken challenges, and how necessary to bring them to light. Sending good wishes and sharing your hope!
Barbara Hayes — January 8, 2014
Susan, Thank you so much for this. I am going to think about living vividly, intensely, and simply too. Thank you to both you and Amy for letting me learn a little from your life together...again. Barbara