Salon, Walsh Jennings, and the Shame of Motherhood

Ah the olympics. Still not watching them. Haven’t regretted it for a moment. Did fall into a Twitter hole last night, though, before sleep overtook me. It’s actually a remarkably good way to go to sleep, I’ve found. Click that blue bird, scroll with your finger for about thirty seconds, realize there really is nothing of consequence, and go happily to sleep.

But I did find this before my eyes shut, and then this, and this.
Ha ha ha. Poor modern woman. Unable to cope either way. Victimized at every turn. And I’m not talking about the Olympians. I’m talking about the poor young people sitting around on Twitter, angry about everything, most especially about the feelings and concerns of other women.

So, of course, as you expected, I do have some thoughts. Let’s take the stupid Salon piece first, and then we’ll tie it up with a bow of Kerri Walsh Jennings who is, and I might break my rule to watch just her, #awesome.

The Salon piece is written by one Mary Elizabeth Williams, who, I am pretty sure, we have had some things to say about before. She has had her Let Us Not Victimize the Women radar turned to hyper for some time now. (Although, I can’t help but notice, I’ve never seen her write about situations where women are actually being victimized, like in Syria, but maybe she has and I’ve missed it) I can’t imagine how she gets through the day having to keep all mention of men driven far from her.

I won’t trouble you by quoting her all the way through. Let’s skip to the end where she says, “It’s crazy but, what if the default mode for reporting about female Olympics athletes wasn’t about their roles as wives and moms? What if the commentary around them didn’t scrutinize their bodies in such weird ways? Because the games are still just getting under way, and plenty of us just want to cheer for the women — and their incredible accomplishments — themselves.”
If you feel like facing it down, read the whole thing. I would like to make a general and offensive observation, and then offer some advice to Ms. Williams.

First of all, independence is a little bit of a lie. I don’t want to get all Obama ‘you didn’t build that’ on us, but there is a fundamental connection between human people that no matter how hard we try to deny that it’s there, we smack into nevertheless. One of the things about motherhood is that you let another person come out of your body and then you are primordially and essentially connected to that person for the rest of your life, even if you had the infant off to someone else, or you decide not to let the person come forth alive at all. The connection of one person to another, in such a deep basic way that we barely have adequate language to describe it, seems to be something that Ms. Williams cannot deal with. It shouldn’t be there. For the mother and child, but neither for the husband and wife.

For a female athlete to arrive in Rio, compete with the totality of her personhood, and then, when talking about it afterward, immediately mention her husband and children–or, for other people to look at her and think of them–that’s not bigoted or lame. It’s actually the basic fact of human existence. We tie ourselves inextricably to other people. The man and the woman are so joined, so married together that the one cannot really be separated from the other, even by distance and time. It’s one reason why divorce is so distressing and painful. Because two people have been joined together, and then you rip them apart. And the reverberations of that tear are felt all up and down the street and in every heart and mind. That you would be far away, and still thinking of your family, is not A Bad Thing. Nor that other people would think of it either.

My advice to Ms. Williams, who, if you read the article, is hypocritically worried about her daughter, is to stop for a minute and consider with gratitude the connections she has to people, maybe even men, around her. Does she have a family? That’s great. She is not a victim for having them.

But what of the fact that men athletes are not scrutinized or spoken of in the same way? To answer that question let’s look at the awesome Kerri Walsh Jennings. She was asked some questions by a reporter and she said, because she hates humanity I guess, “I feel like I was born to have babies and play volleyball.”

Oh my word! So many problems! Her first bad move was adding the name of her husband to her own. Then, to make mattsrs worse, she had three children, one of whom was being carried along in her own body when she played the last Olympic Games. And now, oh goodness, she feels like she was made to have these little people, along with playing volleyball.

How dare she notice something so obvious–that she (and we might actually include all women everywhere) was made to have babies. Her body, and indeed her inclinations, are designed to produce life. And because that’s so, when she does something spectacular like also winning a gold medal, the whole world is completely charmed. Look at her! She has a husband and children–which is wonderful and very hard–and she is playing in these tough physical competitions. The reason no one says that about the man is because his body is just there to play the games, and also die in war. His body is not nearly so miraculously complex that he can sustain the very life and being of another. He can do it sacrificially by the exercising of his hands and mind, but he can’t do it in his very self.

I’m going to say this slower and louder because I know it’s really hard to understand. Ready? It’s Not Offensive To Rejoice Over A Woman Giving Life, Holding Her Family Together, And Then Competing In The Olympics. You don’t need to leave off the wife and mother bit as a by-word. Getting married and having children is not something to hide under the rug. It is very hard work. And so people notice with wonder and awe when women, who are already working very hard, then excel at another hard thing. They are not being reduced to something shameful. They are doing what they are designed to do and then some.

I feel for Ms. Williams. The contrast between her and Kerri Walsh Jennings is glorious. On the one hand, pinched bitterness. On the other hand, joy. That publicly acknowledging with gratitude the challenge of bringing life into the world would be maligned by anyone, let alone any other woman, is shameful. That someone like Mary Elizabeth Williams, who enjoys the privilege and comfort brought about by the sacrificial hard work of all her mothers and grandmothers before her, would think that it is offensive to leave that bit in the picture is also shameful. Motherhood and Marriage are honorable, cause for celebration, worthy of mention.

And on that note I will retreat from my soap box and go shuttle my children somewhere. Someone’s gotta do it.