snarky-funny

[fflo]

> Rebecca's a "third-wave" feminist.
>
> so, y'know, not one.

ha  (attribution withheld to protect the not-so-innocent)

here's the controversy (never mind her relationship with her mother):

The most incendiary notion in "Baby Love" may be that, for Ms. Walker, being a stepparent or adoptive parent involves a lesser kind of love than the love for a biological child.

In an interview, Ms. Walker boiled the difference down to knowing for certain that she would die for her biological child, but feeling "not sure I would do that for my nonbiological child."

"I mean, it’s an awful thing to say," said Ms. Walker, who in a previous relationship helped rear a female partner’s biological son, now 14. "The good thing is he has a biological mom who would die for him."

Rebecca hasn't been any kind of hero to me, as I didn't know anything about her until now. But I agree with her about this: that IS an awful thing to say.

But maybe ultimately we're fortunate that there aren't more circumstances in which mothers have to die for their children. There are just lots of circumstances in which they seem to need to contemplate whether/that they would.

Comments

[radicalteacher.livejournal.com]

You know, I disagree profoundly with her. I read the article and was disappointed. It has that "oh look, she finally found herself and reverted to earth mama" vibe to it, which I don't really appreciate. The whole leaving queerness story... because the New York Times is not about to label her in their pages, either.

I'm not a big follower of hers, but I also know she'll get all kinds of play because she is Alice Walker's daughter.

I think there are third-wave feminists who ARE. I'll go against other "devil's advocate" type arguments that I've made in the past and say: Just because she is a young woman writing does not make her third wave. I like a little bit of explicit feminism in my writers.

[sprig5.livejournal.com]

I had no idea Alice Walker had a daughter. There must be more going on beneath the surface here (about their relationship, etc.).

Yiccch, was my reaction, when I read the part you excerpted above. Also, I copied it, because I was going to quote it in a reply for you--didn't realized you had already done so!

I have a high school friend who voiced the same sentiment: He and his wife were having their first baby, and I said maybe I'd like to adopt someday. He then said he said he couldn't imagine feeling the same about an adopted child. Well, then. Don't adopt. It pisses me off a little that people like that exist. And that my friend didn't have to worry about adoption being his only option. I didn't state that then, but I should have. Sometimes it's good to not say all you're thinking.

What of when the 14-year-old former stepson reads the article? Sometimes it's good to not say all you're thinking.

Incidentally there are certain cultures that don't adopt much--Asian cultures, most notably. I remember hearing people voice that in Japan. The friend of mine I refer to above is actually a white American, although married to a Chinese woman in Thailand (he probably held his ideas long before he went to Thailand though).

I'm still thinking about this:
There are just lots of circumstances in which [mothers] seem to need to contemplate whether/that they would [die for their children].

[01100001.livejournal.com]

First, I find it bizarre and more than a little sick that she measures "love for a child" by "willingness to die". Second, it is not clear to me from the article how she came to help raise her partner's son. Where they together when her partner decided to get pregnant? Did her partner already have the kid? I think it is the rare person who could act as a caretaker to a baby or small child for a significant length of time and not form a bond such that they would die to protect the child.

I can understand the transformative power of children. I used to think I didn't want to have kids. But after my brother and a few of my close friends had kids and I started spending more time around kids (babies) my view shifted 180 degrees. But being adopted myself, adopting a kid is important to me. Even if I were to have a bio-kid I would adopt at least one kid too.

I'm going out on a limb here because I don't know anything about Ms. Walker except what I learned from that article. I see someone who, after a life of radicalism, became radically conventional. To wit, she is in a relationship with a guy after a history of same-sex relationships. She privileges traditional bio-families over non-traditional families. Frankly, I think she's lying about the transformation coming about through the experience of having a kid. Indeed the complex family life covered by last quarter or so of the article offers evidence that more is at play in Ms. Walker's development of radical conventionalism than having a kid.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I think Rebecca Walker's very existence mostly serves as a reminder of all the good reasons for not having children: Your children might grow up to make a career out of embarrassing you in public like Rebecca has done.

I do feel a bit sorry for Rebecca Walker, though, because surely her parents should have been able to take good enough care of her to enable her to at least live beyond the age of fourteen before she needed an abortion.

And that stuff about motherhood being the first club that she's ever been able to claim unequivocal membership in? That's nonsense. Lots of anti-abortionists (and now, I guess adopted parents and step-parents everywhere too!) would probably like to excommunicate her at least from the club of good motherhood (which I presume is what she really wants to claim membership in), whereas I don't think nearly as many people would challenge her membership in, say, the clubs of the human species, or of living things, and so on.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

there was an article on her "mom-oir" in the sunday nyt book review. quite horrified at her and her comfort in self-promotion by way of having the child. some children just ain't lucky enough not to be born to their parents.