the postpartum culture crisis as a grandmother crisis

I'm still reading Mothering the New Mother, and I'll admit there are times when the book makes me a little uneasy because it really does put a huge emphasis on supporting mothers in ways that go so far above and beyond the cultural norm. Why does this bother me? Because we've all seen narcissistic, selfish mothers who treat their children more like lifestyle accessories. On some level it feels as though all this nurturing and support and understanding must surely turn into flat out pandering. It can also be hard to see someone else get something that we didn't have - witness my moment of out and out anger when I saw that another postpartum friend's mom was doing her laundry for her. No one was doing our laundry. Why is she so special?

So here's the dilemma. On one hand we have mothers who are so fixated on their experience that they aren't willing to do what's best for their child. They ignore medical advice, spend money on useless designer crap, and in general turn their experience into a true Bridezilla sequel. On the other hand we have mothers who are turned lose into a largely atomized culture and expected to thrive with very little support or encouragement. Both approaches betray a cultural and/or personal ignorance of or indifference to the needs of motherhood.

What we need are the dual expectations that mothers will in fact pour themselves into their children and seek their good combined with the expectation that older women in the community will in turn pour themselves into this younger mother. What I'm seeing from other cultures, from this book, and from the Bible itself is that motherhood is like some vast stream that catches us up and bears us onwards. When the Bible says that older women should teach the younger women to love their kids and husbands and take care of their homes I'll admit I've often thought of it in the sense of older women laying down the law about how these younger women need to step it up and stop complaining and being lazy. Upon reflection though, I think a gentler connotation is warranted. The ESV says "and so train the young women." That's a lot of what this book is talking about - training mothers to be good at being moms. Instead of grandmothers and aunts and cousins skipping a generation to pour all their love and attention into these new babies, they need to step back and take a look at the mom and make sure that she's equipped to be a good mother.

Unfortunately Titus 2 women seem about as rare as snowflakes in Florida, and we find many younger women existing in a state of benign neglect. I say benign neglect because I rather doubt these older women don't care that their friends and daughters are struggling with motherhood, but it's also neglect in that these older women are failing to do what they ought to do. I'll confess that the more I think about it and see evidence of it the less patience I have with even benign neglect. In some ways it's gentle nature almost makes it more virulent - it's harder to complain about someone who brings over a casserole and coos at your baby even if that person leaves you feeling lonely and frustrated at their lack of understanding and support. In my own life I've seen this play out in very similar fashions with two women who could not be more dissimilar in how they otherwise love and care for people. One person is a giver, and the other is a narcissist - they neither of them understand how to mother the new mother.

Grandmothers and great aunts and old cousin and sisters and the like have a crucial role to play in postpartum care, and they fill that role best when they look first to the mom and then to the child. An infant doesn't really "need" a grandmother, but he surely needs a mother who is encouraged and supported and feels capable of loving and nurturing him. In that sense, a grandmother who coos at her granddaughter while ignoring her own daughter's needs is being just as selfish as a mother who "needs" a certain type of birth. I think it's entirely possible that our current postpartum culture is partially the fault of grandmotherly selfishness, but because this selfishness manifests itself in lots of cooing and baby snuggles we either can't or don't see it for what it is. It needs to stop though. These babies do need the love and wisdom of older generations, but the way they most need that love and wisdom initially is poured out through the care their own mothers receive.

Life and Death

This is more of an in between post than a regular blog. My last surviving grandparent died last Thursday due to age and pneumonia. She would have been 91 this coming Thursday. So basically as soon as I started feeling better and thinking about tackling the great Christmas undecorating of 2013 we got the call that my grandmother was failing. By the time I'd called my aunt and talked to my dad and started hustling out of Target it was too late to do anything. Even though I wasn't particularly close to my grandmother (she was a very reserved and undemonstrative woman) just the whole process of attending the funeral and dealing with my family was very draining. She lived about two and a half hour's drive from the cemetery where her husband is buried, so even though the funeral proper is over we still have to gather again for the burial. Not exactly what I wanted to do this week.

Losing someone you love is hard. I got very attached to Allen's grandparents in a pretty short period of time. His grandfather, for instance, was quite a man. Apparently, when Allen told him that he was interested in a girl named Natalie, Granddad said "Oh, I like Natalie." I think he'd met me once or twice at church when he came to visit his family. And then, after Allen and I got engaged, I asked his grandparents what they'd like me to call them. Grandmom sort of hemmed for a moment while she thought about it, but her husband turned around and said "Call me GRANDDAD!" And he was my granddad until the day he died. These were people I didn't have to know very well in order to love them and learn from them and feel that part of my life disappeared when they died. Granny, on the other hand, I don't know. I always loved her, but there were times I didn't know what to make of her of what she made of me. She'd try to shake hands with Allen at Christmas time, but he'd just give her a hug anyway. Christmas is probably when I remember her the best. For years she gave all the grandkids an ornament engraved with our name and the date. Some years we got a beanie baby too. We all loved those ornaments. I probably have a dozen or close to it, and they're some of my favorites every year when we decorate the tree. Beyond that though - I'm not sure. It makes me sad that someone so closely related to me can die and not leave a bigger whole in my life. It's not that I want to be big sobby mess for the next six weeks.  It's just - she's my grandmother. In a sense our mourning is a tribute to the other person's ability to come into our lives and be part of our story. Some people can do that in ten minutes. Other people struggle to do that in twenty-nine years. I know which person I'd rather be.



On an unrelated note I am jotting down ideas for future blog posts, so hopefully I'll be more consistent on this in the future. At any rate, I've got one that should go up by the end of the week.

Legacy

While talking with Allen's great-Aunt Kathy she passed along this gem to me. She said that they were good parents and that "they helped us do what was good and not do what was bad." I wanted to share her remark because it struck me as about the most perfect legacy a person can have in this life - to encourage good and discourage evil. These were hardscrabble farmers who lived on Sand Mountain in rural Alabama before and during the depression years. An after school treat for Aunt Kathy and Mamaw was a baked sweet potato. They didn't have much that anyone would care to covet, but these great-grandparents of Allen raised two of the lovingest, cheerfullest, most alive women I ever met. One of them, the week she died, was out fixing fences on the farm where she'd lived alone for 20 years after her husband died. The other woman is living in a nursing home where most every capacity is failing her - sight, hearing, mobility- but she's content to be there befriending and helping the people around her. These are people whose hearts have never failed. They live to the last moment. Though sometimes sad or confused or lonely or afraid, I've seen them time and time again turn and look for the next task God has assigned -being full of faith that the best way through hard times is also the way through God's heart. After Mamaw's death I've found myself scrambling to remember phrases and stories, but most of what I remember is her saying "I love you," and "That is so good." She loved people completely and was genuinely glad for any good thing. Her love of God and her faith in God's goodness wound themselves together so that you couldn't see one without the other. Gratitude shone from her eyes, and she blessed people.

That also is a legacy worth having.