rebecca walker speaks out

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 3:22 pm

I wish Rebecca Walker would stop speaking. She hurt and offended adoptive parents everywhere when she said how much more she loves her genetic child than she could ever love an adopted child. This, in spite of the fact that she raised a non-genetic child with a woman who was her lover for years. She made it sound like adoptive parents can't know the depth of real parental love, which was pretty offensive to the adoptive moms I know.

shosh

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 3:57 pm

I'm sure there's another side to the story bc there usually is. And it's great fun to bring down a famous person in the press, even if she is your mother. However, I find some of her observations about feminism very true. There is something to be said about the denigration of motherhood as an ideal due to the growth of the feminist movement. I never read her statements about adoption. However, I would say that looked at objectively, yes, one probably would love one's own child more than an adopted one by virtue of the birth experience. At least it sounds like she loves her own child very much. However, she also sounds like a very confused person, which I guess, given her background, she probably would be!

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 4:03 pm

shosh wrote:

However, I would say that looked at objectively, yes, one probably would love one's own child more than an adopted one by virtue of the birth experience.

I know several people who have genetic as well as adopted children, and they do not feel that they love the genetic one more. Oh, by the way, they bristle at the notion of "one's own child" being used instead of genetic or biological -- all of their children are their children. That may seem nitpicky, but it's a big deal to adoptive parents and adopted children. Anyway, people don't love children more because they gave birth to them. This is the kind of notion that totally hurts these families, and even bothers non-adoptive families, who know better.

One last point -- as a feminist, I totally disagree with the notion that feminism has, in any way, hindered the mother-child relationship. Quite the contrary, feminism gave me the strength to be proud of my choices, and to feel that there was dignity in motherhood.

shosh

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 4:13 pm

I would say that, like so many other things, it probably depends on the family and the personalities. I also have known several adoptive families where, yes you're right, by loving and raising an adopted child the parents have come to feel no difference between that child and those that they actually gave birth to. And that is why it is a huge mitzvah to raise another person's child as one's own. I would also hope that those who do adopt or foster children would make no distinctions in their treatment or love of them. I was only pointing out what would not be an unnatural tendency, even if on a very unconscious level.

With regard to feminism, there is what I think of as positive feminism - determining our identity as women, having self-respect, an end to the oppression of women, etc. And that is probably the type of feminism, at a guess, that has made you proud of your choices. That kind of feminism has helped me too. It gave me the strength to get out of an abusive marriage, put my hands down toilets, and kill bugs with my bare hands. But there is also what I think of negative feminism - where it goes OTT, men are the enemy, being "only a wife and mother" is seen as negative, even though there are plenty of assertive, happy women who are content to be SAHMs and are proud of it, or the brand of feminism that promotes lesbianism and burning bras. This latter type is what has caused the damage, in my opinion.

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 4:25 pm

Promotes lesbianism? Is s-xuality now something that is promoted? I have never heard of men being the enemy, I have never heard being a mother denigrated (quite the opposite) and I don't think anybody has burned a bra since the mid-to-late 60's, so I can't believe bra-burning is still discussed in connection with feminism.

As far as the adopting thing being a mitzvah and people having to squelch their natural preferences for their genetic children, the adoptive parents I know feel that it is they, not their children, who have been given a great gift, and they don't feel they have anything to squelch. To me, your statements are about as acceptable as you might feel toward somebody who says that mothers of large families can't possibly love all their children, they have so many of them, there just isn't enough emotional range to feel such maternal love towards all of them.

Having a baby come out of my uterus has done very little for our connection. What has followed them being put into my arms and every day since, is what made the mother-child love a true reality. Anybody can have intercourse and carry a child, even those with incredibly limited emotional and maternal capacity. In fact, some of those people seem to have plenty of children. I don't think my friends and family members who are adoptive mothers have such limitations, that they have to fight their feelings of preference.

shosh

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 6:11 pm

Clarissa, lets not take it all too personally. I've heard all sorts of weird stuff from really radical feminists (such as sleeping with a man is sleeping with the enemy and other rubbish), which to be honest is why I tend to avoid them. I'm too busy being an oppressed female, loving my large family all equally, and staying at home (where I work!)

And I never said anyone had anything to squelch. All I said is that if someone did feel that way, it is not an unnatural emotion. I wrote:

I was only pointing out what would not be an unnatural tendency, even if on a very unconscious level.

I was not bashing anyone who adopts. Ch'v - the opposite. I think it's a wonderful thing to give a child a loving home, and yes I have also met plenty of pple who have adopted kids and absolutely adore them and feel privileged.

So?

greenfire

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 6:19 pm

I find it kinda sad that alice has a kid to disown her - then is not happy for rebecca to have the chance at being a mother as alice herself could've been ...

anyways - it's not the 60s but I've ripped bras off in a fury - close enough to burning Twisted Evil

what ever happened to the bra burning meet ... What

greenfire

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 6:23 pm

clarissa - I'm a little confused ... while a person may have a big heart - you have to admit that having a baby grow inside you is just a bit more connected than adoption ...

doesn't take away the love or diminish that of an adoptive parent ...

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 6:24 pm

Shosh, show me where radical feminists say it's wrong to sleep with men. Really. All of my straight feminist friends enjoy men as much as you and I do, and most have enjoyed a lifetime of healthy, happy s-xual relationships with men. Radical? Who is a radical feminist? Are you hanging with some extreme cult of marooned radical lesbian separatists that you want to tell us about?

This is like an exploration of the kind of mythology that frightened men used to spew in the early 60's when they were afraid of their wives changing. I honestly haven't heard anything like this in 40 years, which means you're even older than I am, and certainly hanging out with some interesting people.

shosh

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 6:27 pm

Clarissa, old chap, pls keep your hair on especially when you are talking to me ... ChillPill

I don't hang out with that lot. That's the point. They all make me Puke

But I have heard this kind of rubbish in the past, honestly ... and I think it's horrible. That's all. And if you would put your reading glasses on, you'd see that I didn't speak against all types of feminism at all. Only the burn your bra radical type, which yes I have heard or seen and then run a mile from.

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 6:30 pm

I'm sorry, but my late grandma and my parents (80's-ish) don't use such passe terms or references. It's kind of nostalgic, or it would be, if any of it were in any way based on any kind of reality. Sorry, but it's drivel, and no amount of emoticons make it more palatable. Save your vomiting and chill pills for reality.

mama-star

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 6:44 pm

hey, I think the chill emoticon is cool. and funnay. but that's just me.

anyways, wasn't it the feminist movement that coined the phrase "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle"...?

and hey, wasn't it newt gingrich who said that feminism destroys families and promotes lesbianism and witchcraft? if newt says it, it HAS to be true.

now I really have to get off imamother because I have to go fold laundry, like the dis-empowered housewife I am.

Clarissa

Tue, Jan 20 2009, 7:09 pm

That phrase was actually a take-off on a philosophical tidbit that "man needs God like a fish needs a bicycle." It was swiped and rewritten by a student as a statement about the fact that women can do well even if they don't marry. Like it or not, it was a tiny footnote in the movement that enabled women, even the women here, to get decent pay and to get respect for working outside the home. Interestingly, the young women of today want to be able to work if they want to, or if they need the money, but think the very people who created these opportunities for them by paving the way were idiots. Ridiculous. I won't even comment about the references to lesbians here. I suspect there are actually some people who think lesbians are women who just decided not to sleep with men. As I said, even Grandma knew better than that.

I detest most of these emoticons, and I personally wasn't happy with the new chill pill one, because I knew people would post contentious and outrageous things, others would react, and they'd get the stupid chill pill because they reacted.