'Opting In' to Progressive Parenthood: A Personal Challenge to Modern Mothers

By Courtney E. Martin, AlterNet. Posted May 21, 2008.

No doubt you've heard of the so-called "Opt Out Revolution" -- as reported by Lisa Belkin in the New York Times in 2003 -- of young Ivy League-educated women with big plans to grab those diplomas, frame them, and then hang them on nursery walls instead of corporate offices. Neither accurate nor revolutionary, Belkin's book caused quite a stir; every Cambridge tea and Williamsburg brunch was buzzing with the controversy.

A few years later, third-wave feminist icon Amy Richards is trying to bend the buzz toward a more truly radical revolution: opting in -- to whole, authentic, feminist mothering, that is. In her new book, Opting In: Having a Child Without Losing Yourself, she challenges contemporary mothers to remake their lives to match their feminist philosophies and not get caught up in competition and control. In some ways, it is as simple as that old adage, "Don't sweat the small stuff." In others, it is as complex as the feminism Richards helped relaunch into public consciousness with her co-written first book, Manifesta (2000). AlterNet managed to catch up with her and ask some questions about the next feminist installment in our long legacy (Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Betty Friedan, Adrienne Rich, and more recently the work of Judith Warner, Leslie Bennetts and Linda Hirshman) of politicizing the personal.

Courtney E. Martin: There is an interesting duality in this book. On the one hand, you begin it with a central question: "What is feminism's relationship to motherhood?" On the other hand, it seems that much of Opting In is less about the feminist movement and more about looking at all the little, important individual choices that mothers make. Were you surprised by your own shift in focus from the collective to the individual?

Amy Richards: I actually think the small, personal choices that I detail in Opting In are feminism. As with my past two books, I think I am very deliberately trying to bring feminism down to a very local, very personal level. Yes, it's the grand things, too -- such as marching down Fifth Avenue and passing legislation, but it's also the very mundane things that we do in our lives. And I think I am trying to get them not to be considered mundane, but re-spun as political. When it comes to parenting, that means where do we send our kids to school? And are those environments open to others? If you have help with child-rearing, how much do you pay your babysitter? Those might seem like little things, but using those examples collectively, it means fighting for equality and fair labor practices.

That said, I did think I was going to write a much more conventionally political book -- helping moms figure out how to run for office or organize for paid maternity leave. And while I still think both of those things are important, I realize that it's better to build toward those things. I've also learned that sometimes women can be more effective not being a part of the system, and likewise, that sometimes the problem isn't the availability of paid maternity leave, but a problem of diminished confidence that makes them not take advantage of what is already there.

That makes a lot of sense. I was thinking of movement as opposed to individual, and you disrupt that dichotomy. You also constantly drive home the point that being self-aware and making educated, authentic choices is the key to feminist mothering -- whether about what kind of birth you want or whether you allow Barbie in the house, etc. You're obviously anti-litmus test here, but isn't it a bit too inclusive? In reality, aren't there more and less feminist choices sometimes?

Absolutely, there is a feminist litmus test. For me, the best way to explain it is that it has to be about more than you. It's great if you want to have and can have a home birth, but can others? It's great that you and your partner can start a chore wheel to have a more equitable household -- but what if you don't even have time to start a chore wheel? Feminism isn't about securing rights just for yourself as a mother, it's about ensuring that others can have that confidence and freedom, too.

Yet it seems so hard for us to really close the gap between our ideology and our day-to-day lives. On Page 9 you write, really beautifully, I might add, "Feminism's crusade remains unfinished because examining the 'personal' is far more threatening than condemning the political." Can you talk more about that? Why is the personal so threatening?

See more stories tagged with: feminism, amy richards, parenthood, reproductive justice

Courtney E. Martin is the author of Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body. You can read more about her work at www.courtneyemartin.com.

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