Mar 19, 2023 07:19 PM
How parenting became "optimized" and made mothers miserable
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-t...r-mothers/
EXCERPTS: No coffee. No seafood. No bicycles. No deli meat. No alcohol. Almost as soon as she sees the telling double lines, the pregnant woman in modern America is bombarded with new regulations for her body. The dynamic, ever-changing nature of pregnancy seems to induce a state of risk aversion that demonstrates a key argument of our book “Optimal Motherhood and Other Lies Facebook Told Us” quite well: In spaces where scientific evidence is incomplete or unclear, the default is to subject women to more — not fewer — restrictions.
This dynamic is the result of a complex braid of U.S. risk aversion, the legacy of the Victorian Cult of True Womanhood (more on that in a bit), and a neoliberal culture that reveres a reductive version of science that does not make room for complex, nuanced answers. Like the Cult of True Womanhood and its new transfiguration, what we call Optimal Motherhood, these restrictions have a history.
Beginning with the development of germ theory and bacteriology in the 1880s, Western society increasingly believed that if risks could be identified, they could by definition be avoided.
[...] As the theoretical availability of a risk-free life seemed increasingly possible (in this example, the hope of cures for disease seemed just around the corner), a funny thing happened: Society became generally more paranoid about risk because they felt it was avoidable. To put it another way, the more that perfect safety and health seemed within Western society’s grasp, the more people began to feel a pressure to maintain vigilance and avoid these risks.
If disease were theoretically avoidable, it also seemed that everyone ought to do everything they could to avoid it. Thus, the moment disease was no longer seen as an inevitability, neoliberalism swooped in to make it seem like good, responsible people would obviously find ways to successfully avoid such risks.
Hypervigilance itself became nonnegotiable as well. Good, responsible people were always on guard against risk — always watching, always aware — and their careful vigil, like that of an ever-wakeful night watchperson, would ensure that no harm would come. If it did, then it must be the victim’s own fault.
To keep with the disease and hygiene examples, as early as 1910, if a child died, a woman might be blamed for neglecting to keep a house clean enough to keep a child safe from disease. Today, your downfall might be your choice of food for your baby or the way your baby sleeps.
If something happens to your baby — catastrophic death, or something less serious, like a milestone delay or a tendency toward tantrums — a complex cocktail of historical demands on women, neoliberalism, and Western risk aversion point the accusing finger straight at the mother. She should have tried harder, remained more vigilant, cared more, and enjoyed parenting more... (MORE - missing details)
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-t...r-mothers/
EXCERPTS: No coffee. No seafood. No bicycles. No deli meat. No alcohol. Almost as soon as she sees the telling double lines, the pregnant woman in modern America is bombarded with new regulations for her body. The dynamic, ever-changing nature of pregnancy seems to induce a state of risk aversion that demonstrates a key argument of our book “Optimal Motherhood and Other Lies Facebook Told Us” quite well: In spaces where scientific evidence is incomplete or unclear, the default is to subject women to more — not fewer — restrictions.
This dynamic is the result of a complex braid of U.S. risk aversion, the legacy of the Victorian Cult of True Womanhood (more on that in a bit), and a neoliberal culture that reveres a reductive version of science that does not make room for complex, nuanced answers. Like the Cult of True Womanhood and its new transfiguration, what we call Optimal Motherhood, these restrictions have a history.
Beginning with the development of germ theory and bacteriology in the 1880s, Western society increasingly believed that if risks could be identified, they could by definition be avoided.
[...] As the theoretical availability of a risk-free life seemed increasingly possible (in this example, the hope of cures for disease seemed just around the corner), a funny thing happened: Society became generally more paranoid about risk because they felt it was avoidable. To put it another way, the more that perfect safety and health seemed within Western society’s grasp, the more people began to feel a pressure to maintain vigilance and avoid these risks.
If disease were theoretically avoidable, it also seemed that everyone ought to do everything they could to avoid it. Thus, the moment disease was no longer seen as an inevitability, neoliberalism swooped in to make it seem like good, responsible people would obviously find ways to successfully avoid such risks.
Hypervigilance itself became nonnegotiable as well. Good, responsible people were always on guard against risk — always watching, always aware — and their careful vigil, like that of an ever-wakeful night watchperson, would ensure that no harm would come. If it did, then it must be the victim’s own fault.
To keep with the disease and hygiene examples, as early as 1910, if a child died, a woman might be blamed for neglecting to keep a house clean enough to keep a child safe from disease. Today, your downfall might be your choice of food for your baby or the way your baby sleeps.
If something happens to your baby — catastrophic death, or something less serious, like a milestone delay or a tendency toward tantrums — a complex cocktail of historical demands on women, neoliberalism, and Western risk aversion point the accusing finger straight at the mother. She should have tried harder, remained more vigilant, cared more, and enjoyed parenting more... (MORE - missing details)