Friday, December 16, 2011

review: Mother of All Myths

Aminatta Forna, author of Mother of All Myths: How Society Moulds and Constrains Mothers (1998), is not a mother.


I mention this front and centre because I am willing to bet a substantial sum that it was noted in nearly every review of the book, and her views judged accordingly. Some might think her childlessness is reason enough for her not to write a book about motherhood, because, after all, she doesn’t have the first-hand experience of other writers on the subject. How could she possibly tell us the truth about such a life-changing event?


This leads to the question of who can speak about motherhood: should it only be mothers, the ones who know what it’s really like, or is it the proper concern of all women (and men), particularly those who are avowed feminists? Forna comments on the dearth of feminist literature on motherhood, save for periodic exhortations for the provision of quality childcare. She singles out Naomi Wolf (obviously pre-Misconceptions) as overlooking motherhood in Fire with Fire, which only contains passing references to biology not being destiny, and not giving in to a victim mentality (thanks Naomi!). Writing in the late 1990s, Forna strongly argues that ‘the story of how feminism must tackle the issues surrounding motherhood is only just beginning.’ (11) Post-Misconceptions, which I think left a lot to be desired, I’d say there’s still a lot of work to be done.


Despite her suspect lack of offspring, Forna does have two mothers (of which more later) and, as a feminist, is concerned with the way in which the mythologising of motherhood in Western culture is detrimental to women. Her focus is therefore on myth-busting rather than truth-telling, and I think this book is much the stronger for it. It does not contain the caveats - ‘I love my child really, now let me tell you how bored I am!’ - with which nearly every mother writing on the subject feels obliged to preface any critical comments. It does not focus primarily on women’s own individual experiences of birth and child-rearing. Instead, it locates and critiques the narratives we tell ourselves about motherhood, and traces the ways in which they have become both pervasive and defining. She also sounds a warning about the erosion of feminist gains, particularly in the area of reproductive rights, that could be the cost of this sentimentalised version of motherhood.


Taking aim first at the central plank of the Perfect Mother myth - the exclusivity of the mother-child bond - she critiques the (mostly) male experts who have pronounced on motherhood from Rousseau, to Truby King, to Bowlby to Winnicott. Her conclusion? ‘The relationship between mothers and their children is special because of the work put into it, and not because of a mystical biological impetus.’ (262) That is, mothers are (self-) made, not born. Recognising mothering as work, rather than the result of a natural bond, opens the door for that work to be shared: by partners, families and the wider community.


Where Forna does draw on her own life experience is in her cross-cultural analysis. Born to a Sierra Leonean father and a Scottish mother, who subsequently separated, she was raised alternately in Britain and Sierra Leone. Her father married again, and her second mother helped raise her. Her dual childhood enabled her to experience the different contexts in which children are raised firsthand. Her West African childhood was non-exclusive: she was mothered by parents, cousins and older sons and daughters of family friends. She comments, ‘looking at a subject like motherhood from the vantage point of other cultures does not just help us towards greater international understanding ... it also tells us about our own culture, and moves the debate about motherhood on from its current stalemate by helping to separate what might be ‘natural’ from what is culturally constructed.’ (199-200)


Drawing on her interviews with women from a range of backgrounds and cultures who now live in the West, Forna traces the tensions they experience when they are philosophically - and even linguistically (some, for example, speak languages where ‘mother‘ and ‘aunt‘ are the same word) - at odds with the dominant ideology. Despite this, ‘their experience of coming from one culture while living in another has made them acutely aware of what even the so-called ‘experts’ haven’t grasped: there is more than one script for motherhood.’ (202)


Noting that the Western mother who stays at home with her children is seen, by turns, as living in luxury or being a layabout, she also comments that the conflict between mothering and working outside the home is both a non-issue and a necessity in other contexts. As a result, international feminism, dominated by white, Western middle-class women, has failed to build a consensus on motherhood as a universal, shared experience. Idealising and naturalising the mother as solely and exclusively responsible for her child, not only threatens to crush women under the weight of expectation, but also threatens to cut us off from each other and our different ways of being.


In her strong conclusion, Forna states:


Motherhood is the largest remaining obstacle to women achieving equality in contemporary post-modern society. The problem is not children, having children or the love and care of children, but the framing of Motherhood and the endurance of myths that surround it. For .... all the talk of a new post-feminist generation, women once they have children are every bit as constrained as their own mothers once were. The only difference is in precisely how.

....

Our mothers may have been prisoners in their own homes; mothers today are tangled in a web of responsibilities and conflicting, competing demands and roles. Today’s ‘problem with no name’ is the myth about Motherhood.

...

Far from diminishing, the Motherhood myth is growing more powerful and is enjoying a popular resurgence, propelled by the insistence on linking ideas about Motherhood to every social ailment from crime statistics to personal happiness. (260-61).


She closes with challenges that the whole community must face: women (beware the double-edged sword of idealism - claiming the ‘good’ bits of the motherhood myth does not dispense with the ‘bad’), men (challenge the myth of mother-centric parenting and become more involved with your children), and everyone (recognise that children are not just the individual responsibility of their parents but a community responsibility, and develop policy accordingly - and stop blaming mothers for everything).


As a mother, I couldn’t have put it better myself.