It often happens like this. When I get a day – or a few of them strung together like this past weekend- images and ideas that have been floating in the ether, half-formed, suddenly settle and come together. I am not sure I can articulate them well but will give it a shot.

I mentioned earlier that the nasty exchange at The Old Schoolhouse disturbed me to no end. It was not because of the school choice issue but the basic misunderstanding of women’s choice, my choices specifically. This heated discussion intersected with another article which brought back intense memories. I hesitate to link, hesitate even more to comment. However a private email the other day showed me that the author’s story or at least similar versions of it, was reality for many of us. That reality tremendously impacted many of our early marriage and mothering experiences and we carry those images and messages with us forever. This story, then, is not about an expose of one popular figure but rather a story that could be retold with variations by countless of my generation. So I share it.

Rebecca Walker was raised to believe that motherhood is a form of servitude and that children (and men) enslave women. This assertion was not unique when we were growing up. However while the rhetoric has toned down a bit the basic belief remains, even if not articulated as such. Family is limiting. It narrows your options. It eats into your personal time. All dangerously bad things according to mental health experts. You know, like Oprah…. These voices allow that you can dabble, but don’t surrender yourself to this calling. Hold back, be careful.

Ms. Walker’s take on ‘sisterhood’ vs ‘motherhood’ is particularly insightful. It more than anything explains so much of what happened. The emphasis for some decades now has been on horizontal relationships vs. vertical, which left many girls with ‘friends’ where a mother, in the truest sense of the word, would have been so welcome. It is indicative of the desire to meet one’s needs versus the willingness to meet the needs of others. Ultimately we can never really ‘meet our own needs’. Focusing upon them feeds them and they mutate into a hunger that is never completely satisfied. That is a lesson that is often hard-learned however and many are caught up in the futile quest for self-preservation, often laying waste to those around them. It left us collectively with a plethora of sisters and a dearth of mothers.

Alice Walker figured prominently into my own early adulthood. I graduated from high school early and attended a large state university that year. Since I had tested out of first year English and was registering late I had just a handful of course options from which to choose. I ended up in Women’s Lit and spent the next five months immersed in stories and discussion of goddess theology, matriarchy, incest (considered rampant), violence against women, and feminine potential which was universally tied to leaving the men and children in one’s life and embracing other women either figuratively or literally. That was considered the only ‘safe place’ a woman had in this world and her self-actualization was only possible to the extent that she accepted this.

To be sure, this was the not the first I had heard of any of it. I was well-versed in alternative theology and alternative family composition by that point having grown up in a home with shelves lined with similar titles. I had been raised to question authority and to never trust men. This continuing education left me with troubling images and furthered the wariness I left home with. Having never actually lived in a traditional family nor with any males I had nothing to counter these arguments. What did I know? I entered marriage and motherhood with many conflicting feelings and few concrete skills.

Like Rebecca, my baby announcement was met with horror. Granted I was much, much younger than she. However the real problem was that it seemed there would be no college degree nor career and that prospect was appalling to the women in my family. It was hard for them to envision happiness without that.

Like Rebecca, I became so caught up in the bliss that carrying new life was that these negative responses didn’t sway me much. In fact it was hard to give my attention to much else besides the life growing inside me and the life my husband and I were building – imperfectly but determinedly. We made innumerable mistakes. Many of them could be directly traced to those messages ingrained in me when I entered this union. They colored my feelings about housekeeping, discipline (always bad), and unity between men and women (equated with fantasy). It was an uphill battle to reconcile the teaching of my past with my new reality which contradicted all I had expected.

The distinction that I finally articulated to myself was between slavery and service. The one is enforced, demanded, required, while the other is chosen, given freely, a gift. In a world where choice is supposed to be empowering it is seemingly impossible for some to believe that others would make a choice contrary to their own. When that happens the dissenter is rarely left to agree to disagree. They are considered unwise at best and unsafe at worst. This is arrogance to an extreme – to assume that those who do not concur must be deluded or entrapped. Is it not possible they have, instead, chosen the road less travelled. Perhaps by their giving without reserve it is they who have been given the gift?

Ann’s reflections about Choice overlapped with these others. She reminds us that

“with each loss, staggering or common, so the choice comes: gratitude or resentment.”

In fact this choice is always ours, not just with loss but every time life changes. Every decision necessarily closes other doors. We cannot do it all, or least not well. So yes, committing to a man, to children, to a vocation necessarily means there are now many other paths no longer open to us. We have a choice – bitterness or joy, carefully metered out affection or total self-donation. We are not victims. Those emotions come from inside of us, they are not inflicted upon us. We choose. That truth is most liberating. It is not about coercion. It is about laying down one’s life freely. This is true empowerment.

I wish I could have known that before I began this journey. I am not sure words could have ever spoken as compellingly as the grasp of a newborn’s tiny hand around my finger. They could never have explained the ‘safe place’ that was the embrace of a man who loves you. It hasn’t been without trial. It has been messy at times, as life usually is. Still it is a beautiful mess. It is a gift. Given and received.

I thank God I did not miss it.

*note – If you were inclined to think these voices belong to another era, think again. Just yesterday a friend forwarded me her son’s high school English summer assignment list. It was populated by just such authors. She was justifiably alarmed as they have begun to work their way through the list. : /