January 2012: Motherhood, Parenting and “White Moms”

Dialogue Description:

Relationships with white moms, parenting identities, social scripts and subversion.

Dialogue Notes:

These are rough, uncut, unfiltered, and anonymous notes taken at the dialogue. We get that these may not be very readable to those who were not in attendance at the dialogue, and, honestly, sometimes even to those of us who were. We still feel it is important to keep them available as part of our accountability process and for archiving and reference purposes. Some of these notes have been digested/transformed into blogs.

Big list of questions/topics of interest:
- White offspring:
  - Can I raise a conscious white person?
  - What are the ethics of bringing a white person into the world?
  - How to raise a white child in a context different than the one in which you grew up: class, geographic location, demographics
- White mothers as role models?
  - How to embrace the hard work that goes into being a good mom, owning some of that good work
    - How does dominant white culture control what we say is a good mom?
- Mothering in the context of having school-aged kids: question of education/public education
- Important to name:
  - Role of eugenics historically and state investment in white womb
- Whole concept of “choice” in all of these discussions
- POC invisibilized labor + women’s invisibilized labor
- Bi-racial kids
White privilege in maternity
- Recent study showing recent immigrants from Africa had increasing infant mortality after more time in USstress of being a black woman in the US
Micro-aggressions: things people who don’t have kids say to people who do have kids and vice versa
Homo-normativity: queer/LGBT partners get sucked into white dominant norms as a way to prove they are “normal”: get married and have kids
- Recent youtube video of straight, white, conventionally “successful” male raised by lesbian mothers: white, male voice of legitimization offering support to lesbian mothers
Public Education:
- Really hard conversations in the household when looking at the facts of sending a child to Oakland Public Schools
- Stereotype of white, female teacher
- Don’t want to make the decision out of shame, guilt, exercising politics, especially when the child might pay the price
- Often in the white caucus space questions come up of what are our points of solidarity? What are the costs of racism to white people? How to get whites invested in ending racism?
  - Public education and the decisions around this are one of the costs of racism to white people
  - That are choices are so narrow: we can be the hero activist mom that becomes active on every school board and tries to change everything!
Box Activity:
- Expectations of a white mother (inside-box):
  - Happy
  - Fine: “I’m fine, how are you?”
  - To be a mom, that somehow motherhood is the actualization of the meaning of life
  - Book: Caliban and the Witch
  - You are a vessel: you carry on the male lineage
  - Large families get looked at very differently depending on what race they are
  - Overpopulation is problem of brown women
  - Should be married to a white male
  - Be financially stable
  - Home-owner
  - All-knowing
  - Prepared
  - Firm but loving
  - Selfless
  - Giving
  - Have it all together
  - Laid-back and easygoing
  - Great cook
  - Nice active
  - Short hair
  - Middle-upper class
  - Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
  - Well-dressed
  - Object
  - Dependent
  - Pillar
  - Vessel
  - Void of intuitive knowing
  - MILF
  - Dedicated
  - Ablet o do it all
  - Femme
  - Emotionally available
  - Work 9-5, cook dinner, and then be sexual
  - Intuitive
  - Organized
  - Clean
  - Neat
  - Perfect
  - Loving but not too muchappropriate distance
  - Prim and proper
  - Playdates
  - “values”
  - Accepting
  - Happy to be mom
  - Beautiful
  - Sexy
  - Everyone else is first (especially kids)
  - Involved in kids’ school
  - Attentive
  - Selfless
  - Calm/patient
  - Mom
  - Ironed
  - Cookies!
  - Content
  - Clean
  - Perky
  - Organized
  - Always available
  - Can get pregnant
  - Best birthday parties
  - Goddess
  - Organic
  - Involved in school, church, other institutions
  - Keeps house and family together
- Outside of Box (not expected to be):
  - Drunk
  - High
  - Stoned
  - Promiscuous
  - Fat
  - Negligent
  - Slob
  - Depressed
  - Complainy
  - Selfish (including self-care_
  - Controlling
  - Self-absorbed
  - “Let herself go”
  - Unhappy/not excited about motherhood
  - Angry
  - In a hurry
  - Frustrated
  - Drinker
  - Potsmoker
  - Spanker
  - Selfish
  - Sexy
  - Loud
  - Child-free
  - Moving, grunting, feeling, expressing
  - Sexual
  - Powerful
  - Not interested
  - Scared
  - Pissed off
  - Poor/working class
  - Do all the work herself
  - Put child in school where they will be a minority
  - Sexy
  - Warrior
  - Athlete
  - Have choices
  - Long hair
  - Messy
  - Disorganized
  - Receiving government aid
  - Have personal time
  - More invested in community than family unit
  - Confused
  - Politically active
  - Focused outside the home
  - Emotionally needy
These societal expectations are a blanket of security
- So many components of that security are things we can only access through money
- How can we create societal structures that provide this security without requiring financial access?
What do we want to claim?
- Partial list of things inside and outside the box
- Value doesn’t come from only rejecting the norm
- Grappling with the guilt of wanting “me” time as a mom
  - Dads never get called selfish
- What does it look like to embrace what you want?
- Co-parenting
- Something so individual about motherhood in our culture, in other cultures everyone is called mom or auntie
  - Liberation from some of these pressures on individual by having multiple “mommies”community invested in supporting mother to make guilt-free choices
White nuclear family phenomenon
- Is it a cultural thing?
  - Rugged individualism is part of white culture
- With more shared responsibility motherhood is not as elevated
Child-care: the nanny phenomenon
Judgment: From/amongst new mothers/families
- Internalized (and real) surveillance
- Judgment “in the best interest” of kids
- Need to feel like you are doing it right
- Judgment gets layered when you add on racism
  - Complexity of overlapping white privilege and sexism
  - Judgment if you are poor and black or brown can mean losing your child: foster system
- Judgments against white mothers are not backed up by institutional racism and classism because of our white privilege
Creating another white person in a crazy world climate change, resource inequality
- Mantra: “I’m creating a resilient child”
- When I want something of privilege for my white daughter I check my guilt by acknowledging that I want this for everyone
Adoption:
- White people adopting children of color: how this can be connected to our collective guilt
Ability/able-ism:
- Assumption that white offspring will be able
J Smooth: TEDx talk: “How I learned to stop worrying and love talking about racism”:
- Moving from tonsils paradigm (racism as something that needs to be removed) to dental hygiene paradigm (racism as something that always needs to be kept in check)
Both/And:
- Opportunities to heal the planet are exciting
- Raising a race conscious child is not just about that individual child but also about the collective community created through that process
Claiming:
- Resource-sharing
- Nurturing the self: selfish, self-absorbed
- Diverse perspectives
- Emotional: its fine to have and express whatever emotions you have
- Community resistance to possessiveness and individuality of motherhood
- Joy in the process
- Resiliency
- Fear
- Full expression of self
- Womb: mine, not the state’s!
  - Rilke: womb as a vessel that can be used to birth many things
- Dadly moms and motherly dads and mapas!
- Solidarity!
- Wide range of mothering and mapahood
- Desegregation of schools
- Positive anti-racist white identity
- Empowered and conscious kids!