Adrienne Rich is a well-known lesbian radical feminist poet. When asked why she never wrote poems about her children, she replied “poetry was where I lived as no-one’s mother, where I existed as myself” (31). Her nonfiction writings explore the various ways that patriarchal dogma permeates society from the law of the land to the subconscious mind of the individual. Of Woman Born is an insightful investigation into the way we perceive motherhood on personal and cultural levels. Motherhood is a nesting ground for paradoxes. Mothers love their children as tiny beings with vast potential and hate the near-constant demands they make of her. Mothers savor the experiences of first words and steps, the feeling of being unique and irreplaceable to at least one person, even as they defer their dreams and parts of their identities which prove incompatible with childrearing. According to the patriarchal mindset, motherhood is a woman’s ‘sacred calling’ that is simultaneously deemed unworthy of pay or notice (unless something goes wrong).
Traditionally, the unborn child has been valued above the mother in medical emergencies by the same lawmakers who condoned exposure of female infants. These paradoxes, according to Rich, may well be born of fear. Pregnancy proves that women can give life; what is given can also be taken away. Rich theorizes that the originators of the patriarchal system had a vision of woman as Kali, she who creates and destroys for unknowable reasons. In their fear, they deny the power of procreation by devaluing everything connected with it, including childrearing, pregnancy, even women themselves. By denigrating a woman’s ability to be anything other than homemaker and caretaker, they reassure themselves that mother isn’t going anywhere – she is bound to the child.
Rich points out the difficulties of raising children in this paradox. All children have some hidden awareness of a mother’s power (‘I brought you into this world, I can take you out’). A mother raises a son who must either learn to disrespect her or become a pariah to his peer group (‘mama’s boy’); this relationship is also a template for his attitudes toward women throughout his lifetime. Either way she chooses, the mother must damage some part of her son’s fragile psyche. Daughters have another set of difficulties; their role models are just as confused as they are. Yes, mothers are often confused and frustrated and badly in need of help. Unfortunately, the same system that denies their inherent worth also denies their need for help. Childbirth is treated as a medical condition to be dealt with by technology. Mothers in crisis are only acknowledged in the aftermaths of tragedies. We must debunk the myth of instinctive motherhood and look for workable solutions to the problems of reproduction, childrearing, and a woman’s place.
