Having It All Is Indeed A Drag

I have a loud snoring five year old pressed against my arm so it’s kind of hard to think about anything expect how much I hope I don’t get her cold. She, like so many, is pathetic in her sickness. Yesterday, whilst holding a crisp, bright, ten dollar bill her her moist fist, she let forth an incredible wail and kept on wailing, with tears, so that it devolved into true, from the depths of her soul, weeping. Whence the sorrow? Her sister had a ten dollar bill of strikingly similar appearance, and little Ermentrude here (is that what I’m calling her? Oh shoot, I cannot remember what I landed on for a name) believed that she had the wrong bill in her own hand. And. She. Would. Not. Stop. Crying. Was pretty sure it was the perfect metaphor for something, but haven’t discovered what yet.

Anyway, as I sit here and listen to her violent snoring, I thought I’d say some things about this pretty funny and basically sensible (as far as total secularism can be sensible) article that never the less demands more than reality can deliver. [language warning]

I’m pretty sure I said some similar stuff as this some months ago, which is probably why I think she’s so clever. Here’s a few right on bits.

“No woman (or man, for that matter) ever said, hey, you know what would be great? If I could get up at 5 a.m., make breakfast for everyone, then get dressed (with heels, natch), drop my kids off at daycare, go to work for 10 hours, pick the kids up, come home, cook dinner, clean up, put the kids to bed, work in bed ’til midnight so I don’t get behind at work, then do it all again tomorrow on 5 hours sleep.”

Amen. Amen.

“It’s like we all said hey, let’s change the narrative for women, but not change anything else. And then expected women to be so grateful that we’re allowed to have casual sex and work now that we wouldn’t notice that we’re being pushed toward an ever less attainable and less desirable goal.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

“I do think, though, that we should cut it out with the fairy tales already. Stop telling women they can have everything without sacrificing anything. Here’s the truth: You want to have a career and kids? You totally can, but both will suffer. You will never feel like you are devoting enough time to either. You will never feel like you are good enough at either.”

Amen again. So, what should we do? She has some ideas. Basically it would require adjusting all of modern society to make it possible for women to do whatever they want (and not in a lewd weird way) without shame. So, if you want to work and never have children, that should be fine. If you want to have children and stay home, that should be fine. If you want to do both but not at the same time, that should be fine. And the state should come along side with better and more robust maternity leave. In other words, as far as I can see, utopia.

I guess I don’t think that can really happen, because sin, and, well, reality. And I don’t believe in utopia. And I think that what she is complaining about, and all of us are feeling, is there because we deliberately broke something that we don’t have the power to fix. We can try to fix it, but it’s out of our hands, societally and culturally. What she is really looking for is to be valued equally in her career and in her mothering. That would be so great. But motherhood has been reduced to a basically selfish body urge. It isn’t a civilizational good. It isn’t something that the whole American family thinks is necessary for humanity to carry on into the future. It’s a choice, and the more boring one.

If a civilization purposes to destroy itself by not having children and not taking care of the ones they have, and not dignifying the people who can have the most and greatest impact on their lives–that would be the mothers–then you can’t really expect to have more than we have.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with choice, with getting to choose whatever you want, except that we don’t really choose, none of us. We really just follow in the footsteps of generational sin and brokenness. It’s depressing, but pretending that’s not true isn’t getting us anywhere. If we really thought humanity, and the next generation of humanity, was worth it, we wouldn’t be doing any of the things that we’re doing now.

I don’t really know how to walk back from that ledge. When I wrote about it before I think I fussed about what the church ought to be doing, but I think the church has given up too, and settled for roiling about gender roles and how women should live within certain domains. Maybe ya’ll can suggest some stuff in the comments. Or maybe it really all does come down to Be Better and Stop Sinning, although I’m pretty sure that’s not the answer. Maybe someone can think of a bible verse or something.

Well, the snoring has ceased and the crying has commenced, so I guess I’ll rise up and go do the mothering part. Pip pip.