She’s revered as a trail-blazing feminist and author Alice Walker touched the lives of a generation of women. A champion of women’s rights, she has always argued that motherhood is a form of servitude. But one woman didn’t buy in to Alice’s beliefs – her daughter, Rebecca, 38. Here the writer describes what it was like to grow up as the daughter of a cultural icon, and why she feels so blessed to be the sort of woman 64-year-old Alice despises – a mother.
{This is an article that fits well with StandUpGirl’s collection of stories. It was published online by the Daily Mail of London, England. – Editor}
The other day I was vacuuming when my son came bounding into the room. ‘Mummy, Mummy, let me help,’ he cried. His little hands were grabbing me around the knees and his huge brown eyes were looking up at me. I was overwhelmed by a huge surge of happiness.
I love the way his head nestles in the crook of my neck. I love the way his face falls into a mask of eager concentration when I help him learn the alphabet. But most of all, I simply love hearing his little voice calling: ‘Mummy, Mummy.’
It reminds me of just how blessed I am. The truth is that I very nearly missed out on becoming a mother – thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.
You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.
In fact, having a child has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Far from ‘enslaving’ me, three-and-a-half-year-old Tenzin has opened my world. My only regret is that I discovered the joys of motherhood so late – I have been trying for a second child for two years, but so far with no luck.
I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle. But I strongly feel children need two parents and the thought of raising Tenzin without my partner, Glen, 52, would be terrifying.
As the child of divorced parents, I know only too well the painful consequences of being brought up in those circumstances. Feminism has much to answer for denigrating men and encouraging women to seek independence whatever the cost to their families.
My mother’s feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn’t even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery. Having a career, travelling the world and being independent were what really mattered according to her.
I love my mother very much, but I haven’t seen her or spoken to her since I became pregnant. She has never seen my son – her only grandchild. My crime? Daring to question her ideology.
Well, so be it. My mother may be revered by women around the world – goodness knows, many even have shrines to her. But I honestly believe it’s time to puncture the myth and to reveal what life was really like to grow up as a child of the feminist revolution.
My parents met and fell in love in Mississippi during the civil rights movement. Dad [Mel Leventhal], was the brilliant lawyer son of a Jewish family who had fled the Holocaust. Mum was the impoverished eighth child of sharecroppers from Georgia. When they married in 1967, inter-racial weddings were still illegal in some states.
My early childhood was very happy although my parents were terribly busy, encouraging me to grow up fast. I was only one when I was sent off to nursery school. I’m told they even made me walk down the street to the school.
Alice Walker believed so strongly that children enslaved their mothers she disowned her own daughter
When I was eight, my parents divorced. From then on I was shuttled between two worlds – my father’s very conservative, traditional, wealthy, white suburban community in New York, and my mother’s avant garde multi-racial community in California. I spent two years with each parent – a bizarre way of doing things.
Ironically, my mother regards herself as a hugely maternal woman. Believing that women are suppressed, she has campaigned for their rights around the world and set up organisations to aid women abandoned in Africa – offering herself up as a mother figure.
But, while she has taken care of daughters all over the world and is hugely revered for her public work and service, my childhood tells a very different story. I came very low down in her priorities – after work, political integrity, self-fulfilment, friendships, spiritual life, fame and travel.
My mother would always do what she wanted – for example taking off to Greece for two months in the summer, leaving me with relatives when I was a teenager. Is that independent, or just plain selfish?
I was 16 when I found a now-famous poem she wrote comparing me to various calamities that struck and impeded the lives of other women writers. Virginia Woolf was mentally ill and the Brontes died prematurely. My mother had me – a ‘delightful distraction’, but a calamity nevertheless. I found that a huge shock and very upsetting.
According to the strident feminist ideology of the Seventies, women were sisters first, and my mother chose to see me as a sister rather than a daughter. From the age of 13, I spent days at a time alone while my mother retreated to her writing studio – some 100 miles away. I was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.
A neighbour, not much older than me, was deputised to look after me. I never complained. I saw it as my job to protect my mother and never distract her from her writing. It never crossed my mind to say that I needed some time and attention from her.
When I was beaten up at school – accused of being a snob because I had lighter skin than my black classmates – I always told my mother that everything was fine, that I had won the fight. I didn’t want to worry her.
But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother’s knowledge, started having sex at 13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.
Now I simply cannot understand how she could have been so permissive. I barely want my son to leave the house on a play-date, let alone start sleeping around while barely out of junior school.
A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.
Although I was on the Pill – something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best friend – I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory. I was only a little girl. I don’t remember my mother being shocked or upset. She tried to be supportive, accompanying me with her boyfriend.
…the aftermath haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I’d never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.
As a child, I was terribly confused, because while I was being fed a strong feminist message, I actually yearned for a traditional mother. My father’s second wife, Judy, was a loving, maternal homemaker with five children she doted on.
There was always food in the fridge and she did all the things my mother didn’t, such as attending their school events, taking endless photos and telling her children at every opportunity how wonderful they were.
My mother was the polar opposite. She never came to a single school event, she didn’t buy me any clothes, she didn’t even help me buy my first bra – a friend was paid to go shopping with me. If I needed help with homework I asked my boyfriend’s mother.
Moving between the two homes was terrible. At my father’s home I felt much more taken care of. But, if I told my mother that I’d had a good time with Judy, she’d look bereft – making me feel I was choosing this white, privileged woman above her. I was made to feel that I had to choose one set of ideals above the other.
When I hit my 20s and first felt a longing to be a mother, I was totally confused. I could feel my biological clock ticking, but I felt if I listened to it, I would be betraying my mother and all she had taught me.
I tried to push it to the back of my mind, but over the next ten years the longing became more intense, and when I met Glen, a teacher, at a seminar five years ago, I knew I had found the man I wanted to have a baby with. Gentle, kind and hugely supportive, he is, as I knew he would be, the most wonderful father.
Although I knew what my mother felt about babies, I still hoped that when I told her I was pregnant, she would be excited for me.
Instead, when I called her one morning in the spring of 2004, while I was at one of her homes housesitting, and told her my news and that I’d never been happier, she went very quiet. All she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden. I put the phone down and sobbed – she had deliberately withheld her approval with the intention of hurting me. What loving mother would do that?
Worse was to follow. My mother took umbrage at an interview in which I’d mentioned that my parents didn’t protect or look out for me. She sent me an e-mail, threatening to undermine my reputation as a writer. I couldn’t believe she could be so hurtful – particularly when I was pregnant.
Devastated, I asked her to apologise and acknowledge how much she’d hurt me over the years with neglect, withholding affection and resenting me for things I had no control over – the fact that I am mixed-race, that I have a wealthy, white, professional father and that I was born at all.
But she wouldn’t back down. Instead, she wrote me a letter saying that our relationship had been inconsequential for years and that she was no longer interested in being my mother. She even signed the letter with her first name, rather than ‘Mom’.
That was a month before Tenzin’s birth in December 2004, and I have had no contact with my mother since. She didn’t even get in touch when he was rushed into the special care baby unit after he was born suffering breathing difficulties.
And I have since heard that my mother has cut me out of her will in favour of one of my cousins. I feel terribly sad – my mother is missing such a great opportunity to be close to her family. But I’m also relieved. Unlike most mothers, mine has never taken any pride in my achievements. She has always had a strange competitiveness that led her to undermine me at almost every turn.
When I got into Yale – a huge achievement – she asked why on earth I wanted to be educated at such a male bastion. Whenever I published anything, she wanted to write her version – trying to eclipse mine. When I wrote my memoir, Black, White And Jewish, my mother insisted on publishing her version. She finds it impossible to step out of the limelight, which is extremely ironic in light of her view that all women are sisters and should support one another.
It’s been almost four years since I have had any contact with my mother, but it’s for the best – not only for my self-protection but for my son’s well-being. I’ve done all I can to be a loyal, loving daughter, but I can no longer have this poisonous relationship destroy my life.
I know many women are shocked by my views. They expect the daughter of Alice Walker to deliver a very different message. Yes, feminism has undoubtedly given women opportunities. It’s helped open the doors for us at schools, universities and in the workplace. But what about the problems it’s caused for my contemporaries?
What about the children?
The ease with which people can get divorced these days doesn’t take into account the toll on children. That’s all part of the unfinished business of feminism.
Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: ‘I’d like a child. If it happens, it happens.’ I tell them: ‘Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is very small.’ As I know only too well.
Then I meet women in their 40s who are devastated because they spent two decades working on a PhD or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family. Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They’ve missed the opportunity and they’re bereft.
Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.
But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women’s movement close ranks against anyone who dares to question them – as I have learned to my cost. I don’t want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.
I hope that my mother and I will be reconciled one day. Tenzin deserves to have a grandmother. But I am just so relieved that my viewpoint is no longer so utterly coloured by my mother’s.
I am my own woman and I have discovered what really matters – a happy family.
Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After A Lifetime Of Ambivalence by Rebecca Walker was published by Souvenir Press on May 8, £15.
Interview by Tessa Cunningham
Your Blog is very good, I like it! Thank you for you sharing!
The pressure of being out of the home either working or studying is so huge…and for years I have felt that if I stay home and be JUST a mum than I must just be a no one…and lazy. Having been divorced for almost 11 years and for 9 of those years raising 4 children alone I admit…I let my maternal side take a break…but since I have had my baby girl who is 17 months now…I have finally accepted that I want to be at home with and for my children…its something I've always wanted…but I've always either studied or worked…and I can't believe how allowing myself to accept that its ok to stay home and be a mum just sits so right with me…and I really don't care what people think anymore. I remember the turning point. I had been accepted onto a course that I had to really work at getting into…I remember getting up early the first morning of the course, I had a shower, got dressed, had breakfast and was about to get baby ready to drop at the babysitters…she was still asleep and I sat there looking at her and just knew in my heart that there was no where else I wanted to be than with her and my other babies…I said to myself “what is more important”…I ended jumping back into bed by her and cuddling her until she woke up…later on that day I rang and cancelled my enrollment…I love being a mother…there is nothing more rewarding…I wish I had made this decision a lot earlier with my other babies….
Thanks for sharing your story
WOW! is all i can say. i've read rebecca walker's bio. and am very familiar with her mother's works. i can totally relate to your story and how a mother's “ideology” can separate family. in my case my mother's ideology is her religion. she is so blinded by her religion that she would rather see her grandchild die than to take me in her home and help me because i was “fornicating.” its just plain sad. and yet she claims to love children. but no matter what type of pain she has put my family through, she will never give in, and just admit she's wrong, and that her selfishness has not only destroyed our family, but even future generations of our family.
i applaud and admire you, rebecca. i feel that i will have to soon be strong enough to strike out on my own path, without my mother's approval. i am entering my late twenties, and have felt my biological clock ticking for awhile now, even more so since i had my abortion in may of 07'. i value education but for once i just want to follow my heart and have enough faith to know that i will make it, come hell or highwater. within the next two year or sooner i plan on conceiving a child, regardless of my mother's or anyone else's stance on premarital sex. i know what love is, it is unconditional. i won't have unreasonable parameters for my baby. but i digress. i'll write more about my future plans in another blog.
in sum, i enjoy reading articles about other women who have had abortions and who also have to deal with difficult, unsupportive mothers, yet still fight against it and succeed. god bless you.
I am sorry for what you went through. I wouldn't have guessed. I feel very hurt by my mother, not because of feminism, but because she didn't protect me and wouldn't listen to me (and still really doesn't listen). But I wonder if your mother has her own hurts deep inside? Maybe she is hurt by the situation, too. But on the other hand, I've come to the conclusion that in some ways my mother is rather self-centred as a person and there's nothing much I can do about that.
I think part of the problem is that there was or is not enough
support for mothers and not enough appreciation for motherhood, so it's still difficult for women to find self-fulfillment or have a career as well as being a mother. I don't think all the ills in the world can be blamed on feminism and there is not one type of feminism. Many things wrong with the world are due to misogyny, greed and selfish behaviour.
I enjoyed your article very much. This pretty much sums up the hedonism and intellectual bankruptcy of the postmodern feminist movement. While women are still dying from lack of proper medical care in many countries , while women are executed for showing their ankles or punished for being raped in other areas of the globe, while women are not treated seriously when they worry about breast cancer and consult their physicians, while rape and domestic violence is on the rise, while women and girls are exploited in sex trade, while pornography turns women into objects no different than cigarettes or heroin, while women are expected to starve themselves to look pretty for their men, while women are expected to be supermodel-neurosurgeon-power-wives/soccer moms as men drink beer and watch football, the feminists are more concerned with making their children’s lives miserable and behaving like whining divas in order to get more attention. It disgusts me, as I am, in fact, a feminist (of the classical variety). I admire you for speaking out and dismantling the lies promulgated by this party. It is very brave of you, as every time a woman does such a thing there seems to be countless people (usually male internet users) who charge for the attack. My mother took women’s studies in college, and was also spoon-fed anti-motherhood ideologies. Old women, still angry about issues long rectified, ranted against the horrors of evil, soul-sucking children. But, my mother had me in college, and even chose to home-school me, and the three other children she chose to have, due to the –erm– abysmal (anyone know of a stronger word) education in America. I hope that I am able to be a feminist who can sacrifice and live nobly, too.
Thank you for your work! I’ll tell my friends to read your article!
I really love this story. I too feel that the reason there is so much divorce these days is because women hve forgotten that they are the mothers of the earth. Family is everything, and a woman who doesn't bless this earth with the magic that is a Mother's love is almost evil. Certificates, Money etc etc are all man made superficial things that although important should never take a woman away from her God given duty and blessing to bring children into this world, raise them love them and nurture her family. I admire this lady's strength and am really touched and glad that someone has spoken up from the 'inside' of the feminist movement that seems to have crippled generations of women.
xx
Dear Rebecca,
First off, sincere congratulations to you for birthing a promising new life (Tenzin) into the world – who knows what beautiful things he will contribute and has, in fact already contributed to society.
I am truly touched by your story. For one, I read the book that you wrote “Black, White and Jewish” when I was contemplating marrying my husband (who is “white” – I am “black”). I apparently misunderstood you because I thought that you had adopted your mother's views and renounced your “whiteness”. I was actually afraid to marry for fear that my children would have identity problems. But I did anyway and am glad. I have since birthed two children and am pregnant with a third and they are very comfortable with themselves. And the reason why is because, like you, I decided that motherhood would be a priority for me. When a mother affirms that importance of a child's existence, when she recognizes and celebrates a child's accomplishments and when she supports the child through life's struggles, identity issues usually take care of themselves. Your sincere enjoyment of your child and your mothering experience comes across so clearly in your writing – and I absolutely relate.
I, too, am sad for women who think that motherhood is all about checking something off their list – some arbitrary and insignificant accomplishment to be made after they get all the “important” stuff done.
I wish that I was an eloquent writer so that I could effectively express my gratitude for your candid and bold story. If you ever write a book about your mothering experience, I'll be interested in reading that too.
Thanks!
REBECCA,
I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL I TOO, GREW UP IN HOME WERE MY MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER WORKED ALL OF MY UPBRINGING AND JUSTIFIED THIER LIFESTYLE WITH THIER WOMEN´S LIB CRAP. I ALWAYS WAS WAY DOWN ON THIER PRIORITY LIST, THAT PUT ME THOUGH DIFFERENT KINDS OF HELL . I TOO HAVE ASKED MYSELF? WHY DID THE WOMEN´S MOVEMENT HAVE TO BE SUCH A SELFISH ONE? HOW DID NO ONE THINK HOW THIER BEING GONE FROM THE HOME WOULD SHATTER THE CHILDREN. I GREW UP IN THE 70¨S I´M 38. BACK THEN I WAS ALWAYS ´THE” DAUGHTER OF THE SINGLE MOTHER. I ENVIED MY FRIENDS THAT HAD A FATHER AND THIER MOTHER´S WERE WITH THEM ALL DAY DAY. I GREW UP DESPERATELY LONELY , ONLY TO BECOME AN INSECURE AND NEEDY TEENAGER. ANY STUPID MALE THAT PASSED BY AND SAID “I LOVE YOU ” AND I WAS THIER´S. I WAS LEFT A THOUSAND TIMES. WITH ALL THAT PAIN I BECAME ANOREXIC AND BULIMIC. IT KILLS ME TOO SEE THAT, TODAY , THE WAY I GREW UP IS THE NORM. THREE GENERATIONS OF LOST CHILDREN. AND PEOPLE ASK THEMSELVES WHY THIS WORLD IS SO FULL OF VIOLENCE? THERES NO ONE HOME TO INSTILL VALUES. NO DAYCARE CHILDCARE PROVIDER, BABYSITTER OR AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM CAN GIVE THAT TO A CHILD. IT´S IMPOSIBLE! THANKFULLY I FOUND A NEW LIFE WITH THE HELP AND GUIDANCE OF GOD, AFTERWARDS I MET MY HUSBAND. HE TOO GREW UP THE SAME WAY. WE HAVE BEEN TOGETHER FOR 18 YEARS AND HAVE STRUGGLED WITH THE ERRONEOUS WAY WE WERE RAISED. WE NOW HAVE A BEAUTIFUL FAMILY. WE ARE RAISING 4 BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN. I STAY HOME WITH THEM, DO HOMEWORK, GO TO THE DOCTOR´S, BALLET, SOCCER, THE WORKS. THEY SEEM SO HAPPY AND CONFIDENT, THAT IT FILLS MY HEART WITH OVERWHELMING JOY. OF COURSE I WAS CRITIZED FOR MY LIFE CHOICE. EVERYBODY THINKS SOMEONE ATE MY BRAIN! BUT I COULD CARE LESS. WE ARE SOOOOOO HAPPY AND THAT´S WHAT COUNTS. TRULY HAPPY, NOT THE KIND OF HAPPY MY MOTHER USED TO SAY I WAS WHEN I WAS GROWING UP. ANYTIME ANYONE QUESTIONED HER ABOUT US, SHE´D ALWAYS SAY WE WERE HAPPY CHILDREN. THAT´S WHAT SHE WANTED TO BELIEVE. EVEN TOUGH MY LITTLE BROTHER HAD TO TAKE ANTIDEPRESSANTS BY AGE 5, SHE THOUGHT WE WERE HAPPY. SHE LIED TO HERSLEF AND STILL LIES TO HERSELF. EVEN NOW, HOW DARE I MENTION THE SEXUAL ABUSE. TO HER ALL THAT WAS MY FAULT BECAUSE I NEVER TOLD HER ABOUT IT. ANYWAY, SOMEHOW I MADE IT. BUT MY GOAL WHEN MY CHILDREN ARE OLDER IS TO WRITE A BOOK ON THIS SUBJECT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR STORY. I COULDN´T BELIEVE I WAS THE ONLY ONE THAT FELT THIS WAY.
i like this story because it speaks her mind
I read your letter. All I can say is that Mothers and other people who are supposed to be protecting us aren't always right in their beliefs and practices nor do they have our best interests at heart.
However, as one who just watched my Mom die this last summer (she was 79 years old and stroke survivor of 14-1/2 years, it is better to be reconciled to someone as important as a parent before they die.
My encouragement to you would be to look at her like God sees her and find the courage to forgive her for being selfish. You sound like an intelligent and thoughtful woman, and you probably inherited some of those good qualities from your Mom.
All I know from growing up with a woman who was an active alcoholic and someone who never once said “I love you” to my face when I was growing up, did the best she could. Going to counseling, or 12 step groups was not an acceptable thing to do when she was raising us, and she really did not have the awareness to get help. My Dad did not have the courage to get her into treatment. He was an enabler of her drinking.
I really felt like God let me see my Mom as He saw her, and I was sorry to see her die at a time when I felt like I finally loved her. I wished I would have seen her God's way before her six week dying process started. Just something for you to ponder.