Emily Willingham has A PROBLEM with the NY Times’ op-ed on the lack of sexism in academic science:
I can’t speak to the symmetry of the faces of those who penned the op-ed, but I can certainly highlight their inability to align their own words with their own data, or even their own words with their other own words. Their editorial and their paper are riddled with self-contradictory observations and internal inconsistencies. They seem to be arguing that the problems with gender imbalance in science aren’t the fault of sexism in the academy but instead trace to kindergarten and grade school and to the ‘choices’ that women (actually, girls) make. I’m all good with recognizing the problems with early inculcation in gender stereotypes, but that doesn’t exculpate the academy, and neither do these authors’ data. It’s also unclear to me why they believe the ‘academy’ needs a rousing defense against these valid accusations of sexism–and worse–as though it were a much-beleaguered long-suffering warrior fending off an undeserved piling on.
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I hope you read Ruth Scobie’s weird, delightful meditation on The Ghosts of Anne Lister, because it was both great, and came out on Friday afternoon, when sometimes you’re too busy arguing about candy corn to read things.
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I HAVE never been big on titles. Many people I interact with outside my job don’t even know that I am a professor, or that I have a doctoral degree. When I introduce myself in public, I’m Carlotta Berry.
But when I introduce myself in the classroom, I’m Dr. Berry. And I insist on being Dr. Berry.
Titles in the academy are inconsistent at best. I have colleagues who would prefer to be called by their first name, or nicknames like “Bone Saw.” But they are mostly men, and almost all white, and they have that luxury. As an African-American woman in a mostly Caucasian- and male-dominated field, I don’t.
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Ebola on the maternity ward:
By this formulation, according to Nir Eyal, a bioethicist at Harvard Medical School who has studied disaster triage, pregnant women rank low on the priority list. If something like the Kikwit mortality rate applies to the present Ebola outbreak, then around five per cent of infected pregnant women survive, compared with thirty per cent of the general population. As Eyal put it, “That means what’s needed to justify giving regular priority to a pregnant woman is a willingness to allow six other people to perish to save her.” But if the Kikwit figure is wrong, Eyal added, then the exclusion of pregnant women from Ebola wards is, too.
It’s possible that the perceived high mortality rate is self-perpetuating: health workers believe that pregnant women are likelier to die from Ebola, so these patients receive suboptimal care. Suppose pregnant women were prioritized: Would more aggressive intervention improve their survival rate? No research appears to have addressed that question (though it’s worth noting that the first reported survivor of Ebola in Sierra Leone was a pregnant woman).
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this is beautiful and kind and full of self-awareness and love, which are the two most important things you can bring to being a parent or, like, a person in relation to other people in this fucked-up world:
People say you parent the way you were parented — and to some primal degree, that will always be true. That mimicry is what happens by rote and without intention. I was parented impatiently, spoken to in tones that often made me feel as though I was annoying, as though my presence, my movement, any unfavorable behavior served to make life harder for everyone else. Mine wasn’t an abusive household, just a short-fused one. So many little offenses seemed to set our inner lights flickering. So many irritants threatened to dim our daily joy. I know now that we were all stretched taut with stress. I’ve learned what it is to be a parent nearly drawn and quartered by life’s pressures. It’s the kind of lesson that rewrites the role my mother plays in my memories. I can revisit any one, with the distance of decades and all the wisdom and shame attendant to raising a child, and I’m hard-pressed to decide who was right or wrong, what was fair or unfair.
By the time I’d become a mother at the age of 30, I’d forgotten what it was like to be that child, the one ever striving to make herself smaller, less inconvenient, brighter. It was a curious amnesia, as I still find myself, at nearly 35, actively fighting an impulse to shrink. I see that urge growing in my daughter whenever I lose my temper.
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wanna see my daughter in a costume? okay just this one time:
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One more ghostly link, surely?
“In the first few years of Spiritualism, you had to go see a medium if you wanted to experience spirit rapping,” he says. “You hoped one came to your town, so you could pay 50 cents and sit in at a séance. Our earliest evidence shows that tables and chairs started mysteriously moving in the presence of the Fox sisters. Before long, the Spiritualists were attributing the movement of the tables to the spirits. Then, the information got out there that any family could sit around their kitchen table, clear off the silverware after dinner, and put their hands on it and if they waited long enough, it would start to move on its own. You could ask the table questions, and it would rap out responses. You could do this alphabet-calling thing that the mediums had been doing.”
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AfterEllen has made some VIDEOS:
As women of the LGBT persuasion know, there are many terms, phrases and shorthands we use to describe things that are unique to our community. This can be as tame as “equality” and as offensive as “carpet muncher”; as sexy as “androgynous” and as confounding as “futch.” So we brought in some experts (comics, writers and actors) who were quizzed on some choice words that are supposedly part of our lexicon. (Like, does anyone actually say “wusband”?) We’re calling this The Lphabet.
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Why innocent people plead guilty (make some tea first, settle in for a meaty read.)
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breaking: all missing white dudes from street harassment video found in comments section
— Splatterhouse (@Matterless) November 1, 2014
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Oh my god that sexism-in-academia article made my blood boil. Glad to see someone’s written a response.
This is the kind of op-ed I think it is irresponsible of a paper of the stature of the NYT to publish. Laypeople who don’t know the field will skim the article, see that it was written by academics, and start using the vague and frankly inaccurate data referenced therein when discussing the issue.
I also HATED how the authors used “anecdotal data” as a way of labeling and dismissing the frequent and constant violations described by women in academia.
And, of course, the op-ed didn’t even touch on the racism, homophobia, and transphobia in academia. While to be fair, there is less published research in these areas, they are still SO IMPORTANT to talk about.
/end rant
That’s part of the problem, too! Since it was an op-ed, there’s always going to be that segment claiming that hey, it’s just an opinion, right? AND because it’s in the NYT, there’s a whole other segment that’ll completely miss the fact that it’s an op-ed and start claiming it as gospel truth. SO frustrating.
How the NYT decides to publish both this ridiculous article AND the one by Dr. Berry, I have no idea.
“Gotta hear both sides, bro.”
I haven’t been able to stomach reading that op-ed (I’m not in academia, but I work in tech, and I just can’t read that kind of shit anymore.)
I think my favorite quote from the response is this: “So sure, there’s a root to this problem that starts early on. But women aren’t being hindered only from kindergarten and only outside of the ivory tower. It’s silly to argue that society inflicts these biases on girls from an early age but that somehow, those biases stop at the doors of the august, gender-blind academy. They don’t, and as many women can and have and will continue to attest, the manifestations of these biases range from daily microaggressions to unconcealed contempt and misogyny.”
The same problem happens when we talk about women or other underrepresented minorities in tech: people seem to have difficulty acknowledging both that the biases didn’t start at the doors of the academy, or the tech sector, and that they don’t stop there either. When people acknowledge it at all, they have difficulty acknowledging that it’s both a pipeline problem and a retention problem (which doesn’t even begin to get into the problems of promotion, although you could argue that that is a retention problem in its own way.) The sheer scale of the problem is hard to acknowledge.
THIS. I think part of it is that people tend to be myopic in general, and so their focus is very rarely on the hugely major structural issues that lead to underrepresentation in academia/tech/etc. These same people are, by nature of their jobs, analytical and data-driven, and so they turn to numbers and statistics to figure out whether this underrepresentation is real and why it is happening… But the numbers and statistics they’re generally looking at tell nowhere near the whole story.
The only silver lining to that turd of an op-ed was that a gentleman scientist I am friends with on social media did a thorough and angry debunking, thus saving me and his other female friends the time and energy. Progress?
(Oh wait, this is just an anecdote, I forgot that it therefore has no truth value.)
I’m not going to read that article; definitely don’t need the stress. Spending the morning/day with another science gal doing awesome plants stuff instead.
This is the best thing I saw all weekend from the neighborhood board here in Austin:
First – “Thieves really hit the Deepwoods/ Greystone area last night, where they have the big Halloween gathering every year. It was suggested that the fraternities took them for their big parties tonight. A group of NWHills moms have gone down to campus to look for their decorations.”
Then later – “I must say I’m shocked, but the rogue Moms who went to campus found their decorations at the frat houses! The students were made to return all said decorations and they were back in business by trick or treat time. I love this recovery story so much!”
Moms!
And ugh, frats are the worst. They should have to seek a chaperone before they wander off of a designated zone of campus.
Today’s enemy: the fuckwit who offered Dr. Berry NOTES and TIPS on how to “improve.” WTAF.
There are some days when the confidence of white men truly boggles my mind; when it seems almost supernatural, bending all reasonable laws of what should be possible.
yeah. It is amazing.
I also had a muscular 200lb. young white man explain to me that he needed me to be more “nurturing”, and that my (consciously grade-inflated) grading was (and I quote) “hurting his self esteem”! He seemed a little surprised when this did not translate into the reaction he had wanted. Actually it translated into my looking at him as though he were insane, before saying something polite that meant “no.”
Wow. I would have spluttered incoherently before shrieking “I am not your mother, thank god!!!” and running away.
Seriously, SO MANY MEN are actually just the baby bird from “Are You My Mother?” It’s unbelievable.
Jesus Christ. White men seem like they’re the tiniest most precious delicate flowers in their deepest hearts – they just seem to fall to pieces every time the world doesn’t bend to their desires and/or expectations. Privilege is a hell of a thing. Even as someone with every kind of privilege other than being male, I cannot imagine going through the world so safe and insulated and completely undisturbed as to continue to exist into adulthood and beyond with that kind of mindset.
It’s quite inspiring actually. I try to emulate it. The days I succeed are wonderful.
I know this isn’t open thread but I’m putting in my notice at my job today so I can write…
Okay onto reading why innocent people plead guilty.
MAZEL TOV, JAYA!!!
GET READY FOR A MILLION PITCHES
hits refresh excitedly (no i think this is such a good move for you, and bravo!)
you are a butterfly, about to break out of your cocoon! you’re gonna flyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!
congrats!
Good luck!
WAY TO GO, JAYA!
Go, Jaya! Looking forward to reading more of your stuff all over The Entire Internet.
I applaud that tweet. Twitter is great, I learned a new immature comeback this morning: “who put 50p in the dickhead?”. Much satisfying.
Whoah, Stacia Brown’s description of how it feels to be raised by an irritable mother is just… hitting a bit too close to the bullseye this morning. The whole article is fantastic, but I found myself reading the excerpt you guys pulled over and over because it spoke so much to me. I feel like I’ve tried to put this into words my whole life, unsuccessfully.
Yeah, that was/was not what I needed today after a rough weekend with a 3 year old fueled by Halloween candy.
I need to work on figuring out a way to be better when my fuse is short.
THANK YOU for the first link, I read the article it’s discussing on Saturday and it was INFURIATING. “There’s no sexism in STEM, it’s just that women are drawn to nurturing professions, like being vets! So many women are nurturing vets.” There’s the sexism! You’ve identified the sexism! It’s the part where you said that women are told all their lives to leave the hard computer science to someone else and instead just go nurture animals!
Or . . . the women got so sick of the sexism they said OH FFS I quit, I’m just going to look after animals, because dogs and cats aren’t sexist assholes? I can sorta see that happening, a lot.
Ha, my friend says “wasband.” She feels like “ex-husband” implies an acrimonious divorce, whereas theirs was more an amicable parting as they realized that she was lesbian and they had sort-of always known that and admitted it wasn’t going to change. She fells like calling him her “Wasband” acknowledges that he was her husband back when she had things like husbands, but he’s not an “ex” part of her life … he’s the father of her children and a very good friend to both her and her new wife. So he’s the “wasband.” He thinks it’s hilarious.
Just among friends, though. When she’s talking to random people, she usually says “my children’s father,” I guess because it invites less commentary from randos than “ex-husband” or “wasband.”
The google algorithm is mysterious – I wonder what google ads has figured out about me that I don’t know myself.
Currently getting Toyota Prius ads in Spanish on The Toast website (¡Prius baja las emisiones! Pequeños actos ayudan al cambio). Itf there has to be an ad, this is one quite nice!
Suggestion for the pro-life movement: Give all of your picketers midwifery training, hire doctors instead of shooting them, and use your donations to build and staff an Ebola maternity ward.
That parenting article hit me. My own mother could occasionally have a short fuse, but I see a lot of this behavior in my mother-in-law, when she speaks to and reacts to my daughter. It makes my blood boil, because she always sounds like my daughter is “too much to handle” and such a “burden” (and she’s used those words/phrases before). I wonder now what her experience was like as a child. It doesn’t excuse it, because it still has a deep effect (MiniWren doesn’t really like even going to her grandmother for a hug. Toddlers are whip-smart, y’all), but it makes me curious. I’m going to go re-read that now and see if I can glean some way of dealing with her behavior in a quasi-mature manner, rather than seething.
BRB, re-learning in-law relationships…
An unsolicited suggestion from an internet stranger: Aside from talking to mother-in-law, also reassure MiniWren when her grandmother is nasty to her. It can really hurt a child to be mistreated by one adult and then have all the other adults minimize the situation and not validate the child’s feelings.
I’m pulling together some articles for work, and just came across this NPR article on reparations for victims of North Carolina’s eugenic program in the 20th century, namely that some of them won’t get payments.
Some of you have probably heard about this already, but it just floated across my eyeballs and wanted to share. For those of you unfamilair with the story, here’s a good series of articles.
I’m a beacon of fucking sunshine today!
I live in central NC, and our local indy paper has done a good job covering this topic.
http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/the-american-eug…
The whole situation is infuriating, from the program itself to the delayed and inadequate response.
It goes without saying, but do not read the comments on the NPR article if you don’t want your blood to explode out of your eyeballs.
I should know better, but somehow I always think to myself “It’s NPR, how bad can it be?”
Holy fuck.
God, that’s fucking depressing.
Laughing really hard at all the poor little gamergates who are so terrible at social interaction/desperate for (female) attention that they fail the reverse Turing test and can’t tell they’re talking to a bot.
Additionally, Eliza software has been around for literally decades, available on personal computers since I was a kid, and online since goodness knows when.
A true gamer would have recognized her. #notruegamer
Toasties, I know this is not the open thread, but I am SO DISPIRITED. I went to see Evil Dead The Musical over the weekend because I thought it would be a fun, good-spirited sendup of classic camp horror and instead it was two hours of actors shouting “you’re a STUPID BITCH! why are you such a STUPID BITCH!” to raucous laughter and women getting brutalized and a whole song entitled “I Tore That Bitch Apart” and basically not only did I not enjoy it like I thought I would, I ended up just feeling very sad about the horror genre as a whole. :/
I was kept awake on Saturday by some guy (likely homeless and mentally ill) shouting “Dumb bitch! Fuck you, I’ll kill you! Dumb bitch!” somewhere outside on the sidewalk. It was clear that he wasn’t talking directly to anyone there or I would have called the cops, but I debated calling them anyway. Oddly enough it was the “dumb bitch” part that got to me, probably because there was no one around in any imminent danger. City living, so fun.
Different note: the parenting article makes me nervous to have children at all, for fear of scarring them! I am also remarkably touched how self-aware she is when it comes to her behavior with her kids. Sometimes I think I show my worst sides to those who love me the most–family, significant other–but it’s worse when the person on the receiving end is a kid who still understands very little of what’s going on in their world.
I think all parents scar their kids. The goal is to minimize it as much as possible. Even those of us who had great parents still have baggage from childhood
It definitely seems that way from talking to friends and acquaintances over the years, and meeting their parents. I’m not sure if it is oh-so-precious and delicate of me to be a little anxious about and consider avoiding parenthood out of fear of giving psych baggage to another autonomous individual in the world though.
No, I don’t think it’s precious or delicate. I think the parents who manage to fuck up the least are the ones who are self-aware about their own baggage and on guard for the ways it seeps into their parenting.
Just because all parents scar their kids at least a little doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try not to, and it doesn’t mean it’s irrational to shy away from parenting because you think you would scar a kid. I think that’s a perfectly common and rational reaction.
People would be very boring if they didn’t have a few scars. Every relationship informs the next one.
I talked about this a bit with my therapist when I was pregnant. His advice was very reassuring– “Every parent screws up but not every parent apologizes and does the repair work afterwards.” It’s helped me focus less on being perfect and more on being humble and open.
Both my parents came from fucked up, abusive family situations but created a (mostly) supportive and nurturing childhood for my siblings and me. I’ve only recently begun to realize how much hard work and willpower that must have taken them.
I didn’t read the NYT yesterday, so I managed to miss that op-ed. Which is probably good, because it likely saved my mother from having to sit through a two hour plus rant.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, NEW YORK TIMES.
It takes a very special kind of stupidity to blatantly ignore and misrepresent the very stark and obvious statistics that are saying that women are beyond underrepresented in STEM fields. I would also like to know where the fuck they get the stat that “45-65%” of psychology and biology professors are women. Because that is horseshit. And one of the articles they cite in the damn op-ed shows it. So stop saying it’s okay that our field is “leakier”, because there’s so many more women to lose.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. Can I please just send them a copy of my Gal Science column with a giant “FUCK YOU” written in red ink across it?
You should! In the meantime, let me pat your hand and tell you about anecdotal evidence.
Amazing how almost every woman in science has anecdotal evidence of sexism! It’s almost like…sexism might be a thing? WHO KNEW.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” –Upton Sinclair
ugh
Thanks for sharing this!
New rage this morning from evidence institutions knew about Jian for years but chose to put women at risk rather than deal with the ONE PERSON who is the source of the problem. RAGE RAGE RAGE.
I know it’s not a new thing but I have chosen this to focus on to forget about how badly I need a new job.
One of my good friends found some YouTube video of him from like 1996 in which he’s rude to his fans or something (I’m judging by the title of the clip because I refuse to watch it) and she posted it to Facebook with the comment “At first I wasn’t sure what to think about the allegations about Jian Ghomeshi, but then I saw this.” I don’t have the emotional fortitude right now to potentially get in an argument with a loved one, but WHAT? Nine women coming forward with similar stories of abuse didn’t sway you but some grainy backstage footage from almost 20 years ago did? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
asldsflkjghsalkjdfs in solidarity with you.
Man, that sums up the Internet Justice System so well, doesn’t it? “Nine women have come forward with stories that Ghomeshi beat and raped them.” “Yeah, but he seems so nice and smart. I dunno…” “Okay, here’s a video of him being less than 100% polite from back when people listened to Limp Bizkit.” “GET MY PITCHFORK.”
“back when people listened to Limp Bizkit.” hahahahahahaa I will use this to refer to all things from the mid/late 90s now. 🙂
I’m about to link to a piece Cord Jefferson wrote about his mother, so get the tissues ready: https://medium.com/matter/on-kindness-819ce388f97….
it is in my roundup for tomorrow and i cried so hard
Thanks for sharing this – tissues, indeed. I’m in a similar situation with my dad so this brought forth a familiar ache.
“I then remembered that the only thing that’s made me feel consistently strong in my life is the recollection of my mother holding my hand, looking into my eyes, and entreating me to fight to stay kind in the face of the viciousness and grief existence likes to heap upon all of us.”
Lost it at this passage; I’ve never bookmarked an article before because I love reading, but this piece is so moving, I’m literally overwhelmed with Feeling. Gonna go see my horses to calm me down, then finish this later from a more centred, quiet position.
I think the real way we’re gonna end Gamergate is by employing more chat bots with female names so they’ll argue with them forever and not real people.
Brilliant. Just … brilliant. Could we also do this with online dating?
Are we trying to end online dating?
Not that I’m against it, just want to make sure I know what the plan is.
Just wanted to thank pitytheviolins and Linda…something (the end is smudged) for their postcards! They made my day.
Toast Post friends who haven’t received a postcard from me yet – sincere apologies and I will get something out as soon as possible, i.e., as soon as I get a few minutes to write (and find some cool cards).
Kinda sort of related to the sexism in STEM article, anyone else get annoyed by scifi where the finest scientific minds of the very advanced future are still mostly white men? *grumble*
That’s exactly why I couldn’t finish Asimov’s Foundation series.
Ah, I read those back when I was young and unaware of such things.
Just walked away from book 1 when I was nearly done for the same reason.
This why when I read Anathem, I had to mentally rewrite Fraa Jad as a woman. Enjoying Anathem involved a lot of mental editing, actually.
UGH UGH UGH I am so deep down this rabbit hole and have so many thoughts and feelings about it. Are you talking about the U. of Western Ontario stuff? What I read made it sound like there wasn’t enough of a basis for the university to take action publicly, but at least the profs were talking to each other and trying to keep their students out of harm’s way.
I attended a grad program in the US where a very, very big deal person gave a lecture once a year. And it was a known thing that he always singled a woman student out of the crowd and asked her to dinner. Importantly, he was not violent or forceful (to my knowledge), just an old, oversexed creep; I doubt he has had much going on physically for several years, he seemed to just like having inappropriate conversations with much younger women. While one professor gave students a heads up about this, another would make sure Very Big Deal got introduced to the chosen student. So, latter prof was basically pimping out students, presumably for the favor/high opinion of this person. And this was all talked about pretty lightly — it was like, okay, be smart, no one is asking you to dinner to talk about your WORK, hahahahahahhahaha old impotent famous men are so hilarious. Dude wasn’t a criminal, but I am so sick of the way women are socialized to put up with creepy shit.
Unrelated: I had a dude on Tinder last night pull the “damn you autocorrect” line on me, as in, “I like rough sex. Damn autocorrect, that was supposed to be restaurants!” (like, 3 exchanges in) Normally I’d just roll my eyes and be like, you are unoriginal and obviously engaging in online dating with a different agenda from my own, next! But after a full weekend of ODing on JG coverage it made me sick to my stomach. (Apologies to responsible/up front kinksters; I have a bit of a hair-trigger about men coming at me/important issues in indirect ways.)
GOODBYEEEEE FOREVER TAKING TO THE SEA NOW
(oops, this was supposed to be a reply to toomanybicycles, about Jian Ghomeshi coverage)
Tom Maggliozzi (Tom from NPR’s Car Talk) just died. http://www.npr.org/2014/11/03/357428287/tom-magli…
This makes me very sad.
🙁
My brother emailed this to me with the subject D:
I feel like there’s just a little less joy in the world today.
I groaned when I heard about it. It’s very sad for his family, but I can’t help but be saddest for his brother!
My mother’s brothers are all very close, in a pile of puppies sort of way: they basically never stop giggling when they’re together. One of them died when I was little, and I can still sort of see the loss in their dynamic. It sucks, even twenty-five years later.
Or . . . the women got so sick of the sexism they said OH FFS I quit, I'm just going to look after animals, because dogs and cats aren't sexist assholes? I can sorta see that happening, a lot.
Go, Jaya! Looking forward to reading more of your stuff all over The Entire Internet.
Toast Post friends who haven't received a postcard from me yet – sincere apologies and I will get something out as soon as possible, i.e., as soon as I get a few minutes to write (and find some cool cards).
Are we trying to end online dating?
Not that I'm against it, just want to make sure I know what the plan is.
I WENT TO THE SCHOOL WHERE DR. BERRY TEACHES
It’s awesome to see an article by a professor at my small college (about 1800 undergrads) on The Toast!
Although I admit I have no idea who she is, because she was in a different department. But still! Very neat!
Rose-Hulman is an interesting place, partially because it is 80% male, and like 90%+ white. I can see how she’d need to be called Dr. Berry.
On the article about mothering I want to – very gently – invite the author not to be so hard on herself as a mother. Yes as mothers we do act out automatically the parenting we received. As conscious, reflective mothers like this author, yes we do struggle to stop that automatic behaviour where it is hurtful to our child.
But I think it is a mistake to see the child as the only vulnerable person in this situation. I am also vulnerable and I have my limits. I can only do my best and that means sometimes my child will crumple, diminish, because I snapped, frowned, sounded impatient, whatever.
Personally I would never embrace my child when he is dirty and sticky – unless my own body welcomed it. There are times my body DOES welcome a gloriously grubby embrace, but there are times when I do not. It doesn’t destroy my child to be wiped quickly – and then scooped into a passionate welcome. It takes seconds to wipe, and that is part of my job to civilise my child. He needs to learn that stickiness is not always welcome, but he himself always is.
The world constantly dumps shit on me and I constantly try to shield my child from it. Often I feel like a small, vulnerable creature holding two massive forces apart, before they crush me. One is that world of shit crashing in – and the other is the voracious, bottomless, NEED of my child. For my child is a cannibal, out to eat me up. Which is natural and proper.
By its nature the child is a life force hell bent on survival and flourishing, and to achieve those aims I am its food. For a young child there is no capacity to recognise MY needs; that only comes much later. So the child pushes an endless stream of demands at me and I do what I can to meet them. Sometimes I need to say no, I am empty, or I want my energy for something else. I am not just a bowl of food for you.
That will hurt my child and all hurts for a small one are enormous. But they pass quickly, and the over all message from me is that – mostly I am there for you and always I am there for the more important things. (That distinction is mine to make because I know more about survival, hot stoves, cars etc)
It’s the “mostly” that matters. A long ago child expert D. W. Winnacott, wrote about the “good enough mother.” That’s all we can be. I call it the mostly mother. My mother struggled to be perfect and failed. So did I. But I grew up strong enough to heal the damage she gave me and I now watch my glorious son weave his wise life so I know I did enough. I was mostly a good mother and that is enough.
This is really beautiful and reassuring 🙂