Yes, yes, yes. Though I'm not a mother, I feel this in my world of health. As somebody who is in between the two worlds - glad for vaccines, but terrified of big pharma's influence; an herbalist who is also thankful for modern medicine; an energy worker who knows at the core of so many of diseases are trapped trauma and emotions dysregulating the nervous system - and who ultimately believes so much of our illnesses are caused by a separation from nature - AND as somebody who has been a lifelong democrat/progressive who voted for Harris - the left's blindness to their own ideology around these topics is frightening. Trump is a fascist, RFK is a grifter, but Believe Science has become its own strident, unquestionable dogma - not to mention it ignores the deep influence of the patriarchy and white supremacy in our own modern medical system, that we never seem to question. Thanks for putting such eloquence to this topic. There are a lot of us out here - progressive women, who are looking around at the illness spreading amongst us all, the depression and anxiety amongst children, the death grip capitalism has on is that starts from such an early age, and are saying, "What we're doing isn't working." And so we must continue to speak up as you do so beautifully and keep forging our own path. Thank you for writing this and all of your work that digs into these themes. Keep going!
Thank YOU for such an insightful and lovely comment! It really gives me hope. There are more of us than we think in these in-between spaces, which are the most fertile and creative spaces.
The disdain for and devaluing of motherhood—and the biological processes connected to it—on the left is so pervasive in big and small ways. Tbh, it’s now difficult for me to read anything from a mainstream feminist or female writer on their own experiences of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, etc—because of the willful lack of reflection on the system’s impacts on their personal experiences (and that of others!!!) and tendency to write off trauma and lack of support as part and parcel of motherhood. And also the lack of any understanding or valuing of these experiences as profound and transformative rites of passage, in part because they *are* embodied and biological.
As a doula, I couldn’t even bring myself to read the anti-“natural” birth screed in the NYT earlier this year—like why trigger myself and make myself angry at such a nearsighted perspective? In lots of ways, it felt like mainstream feminism and the media discourse on parenting WAS moving, for a few years, at least, towards being more expansive in terms of birth, lactation, and parenthood. I saw it often in publications, orgs, etc—and as a writer and doula, I’m paying close attention to how these things are covered in the media. But I think Dobbs and the rise of Trumpism/tradwife stuff is pushing the rhetoric back to ABORTION ONLY PLEASE and it’s profoundly not the message that the country needs to hear. It’s not the one I want to align myself with, either, even as a proudly pro-choice birthworker.
I have felt like I’m losing my political home because it doesn’t feel like Democrats and the left care about anything I care about anymore, except for the right to have an abortion. I am watching with horror as those in the crunchy/wellness world turn right, but I’m also not willing to budge on those principles I hold in common with them. All of it is unmooring.
I am super grateful for your work and perspective and feel this is such an important conversation to have right now. There has to be a huge shift in the culture and in the cultural conversation.
Agree so much with all of this. Especially this: "I am watching with horror as those in the crunchy/wellness world turn right, but I’m also not willing to budge on those principles I hold in common with them." What to do about this? How do we open up a kind of third space? I have always been aware of the strong skepticism on the left – and honestly, particularly the urban, coastal left – of the "natural," crunchy, etc, but I have been shocked at how much I've seen that amplified post-COVID, and combined with a really toxic tow-the-line-believe-the-science attitude. My dad, who worked in public health for his entire career, has found this really disturbing. He is a scientist, through and through, and to him science is about constant questioning, doubt, examining, re-examining. Not blind belief in experts. I was HORRIFIED by that natural parenting article – don't read it, spare yourself! It essentially blames "natural parenting" for making women feel bad...not, say, the medical system for gaslighting and abusing them? Over and over I see this refrain and it's so frustrating. But I am heartened by the response to this piece and by the hunger I see in many women for new narratives, new spaces, outside of these exhausting ideological lines.
Yes, I honestly think COVID magnified and sped up everything that’s going on right now—pushed everyone further into their ideological bubbles and towards even more intense idealization of either “Science/Daddy Doctor” or “Nature.” We desperately need the third space!! The binarizing (lol is that a word, probably not) of the way we think and talk about well, everything in our world is a big piece of all of this, as you wrote. We need gray, both/and, the messy and complex middle. To me, making that middle third space and becoming more comfortable with nuance and non-absolutism is so so so important and I think you are doing it here. ❤️🔥
"I have felt like I’m losing my political home because it doesn’t feel like Democrats and the left care about anything I care about anymore, except for the right to have an abortion."
I have also been dismayed to watch as abortion seems to eclipse, well, every other discussion or issue in the feminist sphere. Yes, it's an important issue. But there are many, many women who will either never need an abortion or who wouldn't choose one even if they could. What about them?
I’ve been having several conversations about this exact topic post-election. Thank you for diving into this!
Mothers truly hold an immense power that is so often co-opted for one purpose or another. It’s like when #MeToo took off and it was “Believe women!” — but then we aren’t going to truly listen to them at any institutional level. And for me, as someone building and writing in the birth space, birth and matrescence are the origin of this profound and mysterious power and the dawning point for our communities. We are missing so much when we don’t live into these spaces.
I became a mother twenty-seven years ago, in the late 90s, and when I discovered the online world of "natural" parenting around 1998, it was mostly dominated by left-learning hippie types. (In the "real" world I was exposed to through some work I did in the midwife/birth arena I also knew there was a conservative religious contingent, but they didn't seem to be online in the same numbers - or at least, not the places I was hanging out in back then.)
I credit the early crunchy parenting groups with whom I had been spending time and sharing ideas online, as a young (then just 20 years old) mom, with helping to broaden my view of politics, which had been largely shaped by my dad's Reagan/Bush/Rush-era conservatism up until that point. For years (decades?) I associated gentle parenting, babywearing, extended breastfeeding, and midwife-assisted birth, as well as other "natural" ideas like herbalism and alternative healthcare, as something that was more in the purview of left-leaning than right-leaning folk.
So, it's been really weird to see the complete flip-flop that's happened in the conversations around these topics that's ramped up in the past maybe five or six years. I'm still in a Facebook group with many of the mothers I initially connected with over a quarter-century ago. Most are left-leaning, and many were at one time quite radical in their approach to attachment parenting, vaccine avoidance (these lib moms were the OG anti-vaxxers), homeschooling, homebirthing/freebirthing, breastfeeding, natural foods, and all kinds of other things that are now more associated with right-wing tradwives. (cont...)
The (often quite forgetful...) reversal on a lot of these topics, and the dismissive attitude toward anyone who might question so-called "established" science and mainstream economic values in those groups has been really disorienting. It's almost as though these topics somehow became right-coded, and then it was no longer acceptable for a left-leaning person to be associated with them. Of course, none of the people in this two-and-a-half-decades old group have little babies anymore, but the conversations around menopause, and the grandkids that are now entering the picture, make it pretty clear how dramatically the tides have turned.
I feel like I'm exactly who I've always been: someone who greatly values motherhood and family life, who values health autonomy and prefers critical thinking to groupthink, who's deeply suspicious of being told to line up and accept what someone tells me just because s/he's an "expert". But those values now by association somehow seem to link me up with the completely opposite political "team" from who they did twenty-five or even fifteen years ago.
Did I say disorienting? Sigh...yeah. I have always been skeptical about identity politics, but I think I'm finally grasping WHY, and this essay does such a beautiful job of illustrating their ultimate fragility. Apparently all it takes is a whiff of the right or wrong "coding" to get people to stop asking questions and line up behind the "correct" view. And when we stop asking questions, we all lose.
This comment is SO fascinating and smart. Thank you for taking the time to write it! Do you mind if I share this in an upcoming newsletter, as an addendum to this essay?
So feel everything you shared here. When I became a doula and started to interact with "crunchy" and attachment-focused parenting groups in 2012 (well before I had my own kids), EVERYONE was left-leaning. The flip-flop has been a slow creep, in the spaces I'm in but became really real in the last few years. I live in a very liberal city in Texas and recently in the "truly crunchy" Facebook group for my area, there was a long thread of moms sharing reasons they voted for....Ted Cruz. Like what? When did the values shift so dramatically? I try not to vilify those who think differently or are shifting their thinking, as I do know we still have so much in common in terms of what we want for our kids and the world, but also it's so disorienting, as you say. I really identify with how you shared how you see yourself and your values, and your reminder that when we stop asking questions, we lose. Thank you for this share.
" I try not to vilify those who think differently or are shifting their thinking, as I do know we still have so much in common in terms of what we want for our kids and the world, but also it's so disorienting, as you say."
I'm trying to remind myself that my values are REAL, unchanging things, even if the figureheads associated with them shift around.
I really appreciate this thoughtful essay. I'm increasingly feeling like the truly radical space to inhabit is a middle ground which permits people to be a little inconsistent, a little mixed, a little looking towards everyone. I found motherhood so deeply transformative and I was unprepared for how the feminism I'd grown up with didn't teach me how meaningful it was to put myself aside and care for this little person. And then to observe - ah yes, we are all animals, even us grown ones we still are mammals, albeit mammals with the magnificent ability to make art and weather balloons and spaceships and who can make and break and remake social constructs and who need to feel safe. We are no more or less than that. Wouldn't it be remarkable if we united in care for each other alongside , because of, all our vast difference.
I love this, Rebecca – I have come back to this notion in particular since becoming a mother: "And then to observe - ah yes, we are all animals, even us grown ones we still are mammals, albeit mammals with the magnificent ability to make art and weather balloons and spaceships and who can make and break and remake social constructs and who need to feel safe." To me, this doesn't diminish us. It unites us with the world in this beautiful, essential, comforting way.
Thank you, Sarah. I have had a similar journey going from a twenty-something childless corporate worker who was passionate about advancing women’s equality in the workplace to a thirty-something significantly more conflicted mother of two who now works part time.
I enjoy my job but also would not give up the time I have with my children even if it meant more time spent at the office to rise in my career. And after giving birth twice, first via induction/epidural and second unmedicated and with a doula (both still at a hospital) I can say I found so much more power, presence and meaning in the second birth. I cringe whenever I see criticism of women’s birth choices, especially coming from the left, where choice is supposed to be a value.
It is fascinating how threatening it can be to talk about what you call the "power, presence, and meaning." A lot of people really resist and reject that. I'm so glad you had that experience.
I have been drawn to certain internet content so many times only to find the creator has such different politics than my own. It just happened recently as I stumbled on an interesting parenting podcast that celebrated outdoor play and other perhaps crunchy ways to raise children and then found that the host voted for Trump, which I cannot fathom. It’s all mixed these days which is maybe one of the reasons why we are so mad at each other.
I still think there are a lot of progressive women who celebrate and deeply care about birth, mothering, caregiving, cooking, farming, the environment, and believe caring about these things doesn’t make us any less of feminists. But then the right has similar interests and so we get so mad at each other, especially in the internet space, with liberals aghast that we can hold similar interests but then find others believe in submission to their husband and vote for Trump.
Personally I don’t understand how anyone could care for the environment and vote for Trump. I keep getting sucked into things that talk about natural alternatives and ways of living only to find a Trumper and I think what the hell it’s happened again.
I like what Catherine said about the in between spaces. I can believe in seeing a doctor and an acupuncturist! I can want to give birth with a midwife at a hospital setting. I can enjoy homemaking and want equal distribution of labor in the household. I can want to stay at home to raise my child and still be a feminist! And on and on. Such weird times we live in but thankful for your insight muddling through it all.
Thank you, Sally! I agree with so much of this. The cognitive dissonance of those who purport to celebrate "natural" values and then vote right also baffles me tremendously, but since we are all so stuck in this zero-sum game of all one way or all the other it seems like the cognitive dissonance just amplifies and amplifies as we're forced to double down on one ideology. It should be a red flag that we are trying to decide what ideas to believe in/support by how the people espousing them voted. That is the death of critical thinking! And yet at the same time, it's real – I do question much of what comes from people who voted for someone I find so abhorrent. It's all very sticky. I find so much faith though in seeing all these comments from people who are clearly working out a third space we just don't hear about that much.
I just subscribed so I could leave this comment to say: thank you.
We desperately, desperately need midwives. That doesn’t mean Ina May, who blamed Black women for their own deaths in Texas in 2017 (ironic because the literal reason we stopped birthing with midwives in the US at the turn of the century, and why she had the opportunity to become so famous, is… simply… racism) is our savior, either.
I think this is a ultimately, perhaps, a problem of epistemic authority. Who owns birth? I oppose the violent enclosure of birth and birth knowledge. Birth belongs to birthing people. It cannot be sold back to us, re-packaged with a shinier bow on top. Not by the Free Birth Society. Not by Dr. Fran. Not by anyone.
So much truth here that rarely gets spoken. Beautiful; thank you.
I too have felt much frustration in my by-lined writing efforts for always having to quote "experts." Is anyone interested in women's stories and experiences as told by them? Or nah?
I did just have this published, which you and your readers might enjoy. One thing I love about this publication in particular is the way expert sources are often entire books. It's fine to require support for your points, of course, but the way journalists find random people with letters after their names and email/chat to "get their quote" and then that's the "expert view" is just lol.
I’ll check this out! Thank you for sharing. And the pressure to use “experts” to verify/approve/legitimize is unreal. I am also thinking of writing something about this.
Bravo! For delving into and articulating the complexity of a number of these issues. Unfortunately the left has calcified into lockstep approaches that do not allow for the creative approaches that are needed to move forward….as you mention. The result has been the loss of a too significant number of voters.
It’s interesting that those on the left used to be referred to as liberals. A liberal is one who might hold different views than you, but respects your right to practice living your viewpoint as long as you respect the well-being of others. That’s a little simplistic, of course, but generally the case.
Today’s Left Is a collection of jackbooted ideologues. In truth, they believe in the dogmatism of scientism, not science. They believe in the myth of neoliberal capitalism which views living ecosystems as expendable in the pursuit of greater economic growth. The experiences and concerns surrounding motherhood that Sarah and others express so eloquently stems from the Left’s contempt for women who value the experience of motherhood. This is the same contempt that the Left has shown the working class since the Clinton years, and is the reason that Trump is the President elect. They have lost the working class, and now are losing women.
It’s also concerning to me that authoritarianism is growing in the zeitgeist at both poles, and that so many in the middle seem unable to parse out subtleties and distinctions when making political choices. We do need a third way. And maybe a fourth, fifth, and sixth.
I was very engaged by this piece, and the responses. It gives me hope.
Have you read Jacqueline Wolf’s books on this topic? (Or maybe you were the person who brought them to my attention in the first place?) https://www.ohio.edu/experts/expert/jacqueline-wolf I thought they were fascinating and really pointed to the aspects that are very particular to American culture.
I've recently been going through my mother's effects after her death, and as I read through elements of her childhood in the '30s and '40s I'm often amazed by the constrained world a woman faced in those days. Small examples. First, my grandmother basically wrote my mom out of the family for several years because she had the temerity to move away to work in a factory office, then fall in love with and marry someone outside Grandma's faith and nationality (German Lutheran meets Italian Catholic. It's an old story). She quit work when she got pregnant because 'that's what ya did'. She then raised six children as a full-time mother before returning to the office for a last burst of working life that ended at 70.
I also remember the rise of the feminism movement in the '70s, and the goal seemed (as a man I was - and am - an outsider) to be expanding the freedom of maneuver for woman, to open up options, not to set up a new improved set of constraints. The current evolution feels sort of... counterrevolutionary. I thought the goal was the opportunity for a woman to follow what she felt was her best, truest path. My own life has been populated by women colleagues, friends and associates, women as my own doctors, women as fellow climbers and backpackers and adventurers. And a few who chose to take a different path - be a full-time mother and household manager. Feels like a win to me. When did taking a different path become so contentious?
I am a retired scientist, and as such I have to quibble some of the negative comments about "science". I worked close to health care for decades, I know many more scientist who've done the same, and most will tell you there's a difference between Science and Medicine. There's a difference between science and the science-based business regulation and politics practiced by FDA. There's a big difference between science and science or medical journalism. I followed the link about the anti-home birth form OB, and the actual scientists quoted in the WBUR story were considerably more reserved that the subject of the report. I remember one especially saying that some studies showed positive outcomes and that the actual data from US home births was not enough to make solid conclusions. If you're interested a real scientific take on something, read the news section of Science or Nature or one of the appropriate journals. Those reporters are much less prone to polemics disguised as scientific reporting.
An interesting piece, and I think you're on to something.
There's a distinction to be made here and it requires the clear, rigorous lens of epidemiology, medical history, and medical anthropology.
Obstetrics is not, characteristically, scientific as a discipline. The technologies that made hospital birth, finally, about as safe as home birth in the American mid-century are marvels and explicitly crosscut disciplines: blood banking and antibiotics are among them. Vaccinations, sufficient food for pregnant women, clean water and air, all things our ancestors could not take for granted; advances in public health.
Obstetrics did not invent the cesarean. It did not develop the technologies which today make the cesarean "only" 3x more likely to kill the birthing woman, as opposed to years past where cesareans were done from desperation on dying or dead women.
Obstetricians today has the dubious honor of producing worse outcomes than midwifery or family medicine, in low-risk cohorts, again and again and again.
I'm grateful for the ability to birth my babies in a hospital, because of the lifesaving technologies I can access. But it's profoundly intellectually dishonest to claim obstetrics is responsible for any of these gains, which unfortunately is the project OBs seem to be engaged in.
Thank you for this very thoughtful reply. And I agree with you on the important distinction between Science and Medicine – I do think, however, that the two are also quite closely connected in our society. I also think that when it comes to decisions like home birth, there is a larger philosophical issue to consider: science really struggles to measure what "physiological birth" or, more problematically I suppose, "natural birth" looks like, because once "science" (e.g., observers) get involved, automatically the situation is different. So relying on "science" to always tell us what is safe/good etc automatically entails a bias towards what science can, and chooses to, measure. My dad was a scientist, so I understand the real value of science – I can also see the many ways science (and not just science journalism or medicine) gets co-opted by corporate and political interests, and so think we need to be careful about talking about "science" as a neutral, inherent good.
I know I'm a little late to the discussion on this, but I've been thinking about it a lot and not able to find time to comment properly as my two kids are just coming through influenza A -- talk about the importance of caregiving right there, I don't know how we would have made it through the past week if I wasn't available to rearrange my schedule to be home with them.
I think there's a lot of unfortunate conflation and false equivalency happening on both sides. The Left assumes prioritizing domestic work implies subservience, which it doesn't in all relationships. I think the "barefoot and pregnant" comment is saying women have the "right" to take a subservient role under the left rather than be "forced" into it under the right, without acknowledging that there's a huge range of middle-ground there. But this nuance is hard for a lot of people to grasp. I've known since I was a child that I wanted to be at home with my kids, and I've also always been a feminist. These things made me fear I wouldn't be able to find a mate who supported a decision to stay home without also holding rigid, traditional ideas about gender. Fortunately, I did find someone who understands the nuance in me and in these issues, who values care work, and with whom I can be an equal in the relationship even though I bring in very little income. I know many women are not so lucky, and in some ways are forced into a "subservient" role when what they really wanted was a domestic role, because they have partners who lord their income-earning over them and cut them out of full partnership.
Like others who posted here, I came to more "natural" medicine and parenting methods through progressives -- but now that I'm a SAHM, I find the only women I am able to socialize with who are also SAHMs are far more conservative than I am. Meanwhile, my progressive friends who have kids all powered through with their careers anyway and seem to be uncomfortable or even embarrassed by the fact that I'm not working. One friend lamented how she hated feeling like she wasn't "contributing" when she was between jobs, even though she had two young sons that she managed as she looked for a new job.
Because of this, I've turned often to books for the companionship I've needed on this journey. Now that I am no longer nursing I recognize all the baggage that La Leche League brings with it ... but at the time, those books were the ONLY source of validation I had for the choices I was making as a parent, or the things I valued as a parent, outside my mom and my husband.
Another false dichotomy is the idea that Western medicine = supported by science and natural wellness = totally made up. There is plenty within Western medicine that is not evidence-based, and there are plenty of natural methods that are supported by science. The danger comes when someone who claims to be on the side of "science" (as I am!!) throws that conviction out when "science" doesn't align with what they perceive as "modern."
I despise Donald Trump but I agree that the solutions offered to family issues on the Left remain unsatisfying. Low-cost, high-quality childcare is often touted, but that is only of use to women who WANT to be in the workforce while their children are young. Far more supportive of ALL families would be to give a childcare stipend, which could go toward a family's childcare option of choice (daycare, nanny, preschool, babysitter) or which could supplement for a non-working parent's income. But neither side really seems interested in supporting women who choose to prioritize caregiving -- perhaps women are drawn to the Right because it at least pays lip service to the value of domesticity.
Yes, yes, yes. Though I'm not a mother, I feel this in my world of health. As somebody who is in between the two worlds - glad for vaccines, but terrified of big pharma's influence; an herbalist who is also thankful for modern medicine; an energy worker who knows at the core of so many of diseases are trapped trauma and emotions dysregulating the nervous system - and who ultimately believes so much of our illnesses are caused by a separation from nature - AND as somebody who has been a lifelong democrat/progressive who voted for Harris - the left's blindness to their own ideology around these topics is frightening. Trump is a fascist, RFK is a grifter, but Believe Science has become its own strident, unquestionable dogma - not to mention it ignores the deep influence of the patriarchy and white supremacy in our own modern medical system, that we never seem to question. Thanks for putting such eloquence to this topic. There are a lot of us out here - progressive women, who are looking around at the illness spreading amongst us all, the depression and anxiety amongst children, the death grip capitalism has on is that starts from such an early age, and are saying, "What we're doing isn't working." And so we must continue to speak up as you do so beautifully and keep forging our own path. Thank you for writing this and all of your work that digs into these themes. Keep going!
Thank YOU for such an insightful and lovely comment! It really gives me hope. There are more of us than we think in these in-between spaces, which are the most fertile and creative spaces.
This!!!
The disdain for and devaluing of motherhood—and the biological processes connected to it—on the left is so pervasive in big and small ways. Tbh, it’s now difficult for me to read anything from a mainstream feminist or female writer on their own experiences of pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, etc—because of the willful lack of reflection on the system’s impacts on their personal experiences (and that of others!!!) and tendency to write off trauma and lack of support as part and parcel of motherhood. And also the lack of any understanding or valuing of these experiences as profound and transformative rites of passage, in part because they *are* embodied and biological.
As a doula, I couldn’t even bring myself to read the anti-“natural” birth screed in the NYT earlier this year—like why trigger myself and make myself angry at such a nearsighted perspective? In lots of ways, it felt like mainstream feminism and the media discourse on parenting WAS moving, for a few years, at least, towards being more expansive in terms of birth, lactation, and parenthood. I saw it often in publications, orgs, etc—and as a writer and doula, I’m paying close attention to how these things are covered in the media. But I think Dobbs and the rise of Trumpism/tradwife stuff is pushing the rhetoric back to ABORTION ONLY PLEASE and it’s profoundly not the message that the country needs to hear. It’s not the one I want to align myself with, either, even as a proudly pro-choice birthworker.
I have felt like I’m losing my political home because it doesn’t feel like Democrats and the left care about anything I care about anymore, except for the right to have an abortion. I am watching with horror as those in the crunchy/wellness world turn right, but I’m also not willing to budge on those principles I hold in common with them. All of it is unmooring.
I am super grateful for your work and perspective and feel this is such an important conversation to have right now. There has to be a huge shift in the culture and in the cultural conversation.
Agree so much with all of this. Especially this: "I am watching with horror as those in the crunchy/wellness world turn right, but I’m also not willing to budge on those principles I hold in common with them." What to do about this? How do we open up a kind of third space? I have always been aware of the strong skepticism on the left – and honestly, particularly the urban, coastal left – of the "natural," crunchy, etc, but I have been shocked at how much I've seen that amplified post-COVID, and combined with a really toxic tow-the-line-believe-the-science attitude. My dad, who worked in public health for his entire career, has found this really disturbing. He is a scientist, through and through, and to him science is about constant questioning, doubt, examining, re-examining. Not blind belief in experts. I was HORRIFIED by that natural parenting article – don't read it, spare yourself! It essentially blames "natural parenting" for making women feel bad...not, say, the medical system for gaslighting and abusing them? Over and over I see this refrain and it's so frustrating. But I am heartened by the response to this piece and by the hunger I see in many women for new narratives, new spaces, outside of these exhausting ideological lines.
Yes, I honestly think COVID magnified and sped up everything that’s going on right now—pushed everyone further into their ideological bubbles and towards even more intense idealization of either “Science/Daddy Doctor” or “Nature.” We desperately need the third space!! The binarizing (lol is that a word, probably not) of the way we think and talk about well, everything in our world is a big piece of all of this, as you wrote. We need gray, both/and, the messy and complex middle. To me, making that middle third space and becoming more comfortable with nuance and non-absolutism is so so so important and I think you are doing it here. ❤️🔥
"I have felt like I’m losing my political home because it doesn’t feel like Democrats and the left care about anything I care about anymore, except for the right to have an abortion."
I have also been dismayed to watch as abortion seems to eclipse, well, every other discussion or issue in the feminist sphere. Yes, it's an important issue. But there are many, many women who will either never need an abortion or who wouldn't choose one even if they could. What about them?
I’ve been having several conversations about this exact topic post-election. Thank you for diving into this!
Mothers truly hold an immense power that is so often co-opted for one purpose or another. It’s like when #MeToo took off and it was “Believe women!” — but then we aren’t going to truly listen to them at any institutional level. And for me, as someone building and writing in the birth space, birth and matrescence are the origin of this profound and mysterious power and the dawning point for our communities. We are missing so much when we don’t live into these spaces.
Thanks again, as always, for your work!!
Yes, we are! So much power there. Thanks for reading.
I became a mother twenty-seven years ago, in the late 90s, and when I discovered the online world of "natural" parenting around 1998, it was mostly dominated by left-learning hippie types. (In the "real" world I was exposed to through some work I did in the midwife/birth arena I also knew there was a conservative religious contingent, but they didn't seem to be online in the same numbers - or at least, not the places I was hanging out in back then.)
I credit the early crunchy parenting groups with whom I had been spending time and sharing ideas online, as a young (then just 20 years old) mom, with helping to broaden my view of politics, which had been largely shaped by my dad's Reagan/Bush/Rush-era conservatism up until that point. For years (decades?) I associated gentle parenting, babywearing, extended breastfeeding, and midwife-assisted birth, as well as other "natural" ideas like herbalism and alternative healthcare, as something that was more in the purview of left-leaning than right-leaning folk.
So, it's been really weird to see the complete flip-flop that's happened in the conversations around these topics that's ramped up in the past maybe five or six years. I'm still in a Facebook group with many of the mothers I initially connected with over a quarter-century ago. Most are left-leaning, and many were at one time quite radical in their approach to attachment parenting, vaccine avoidance (these lib moms were the OG anti-vaxxers), homeschooling, homebirthing/freebirthing, breastfeeding, natural foods, and all kinds of other things that are now more associated with right-wing tradwives. (cont...)
(cont)
The (often quite forgetful...) reversal on a lot of these topics, and the dismissive attitude toward anyone who might question so-called "established" science and mainstream economic values in those groups has been really disorienting. It's almost as though these topics somehow became right-coded, and then it was no longer acceptable for a left-leaning person to be associated with them. Of course, none of the people in this two-and-a-half-decades old group have little babies anymore, but the conversations around menopause, and the grandkids that are now entering the picture, make it pretty clear how dramatically the tides have turned.
I feel like I'm exactly who I've always been: someone who greatly values motherhood and family life, who values health autonomy and prefers critical thinking to groupthink, who's deeply suspicious of being told to line up and accept what someone tells me just because s/he's an "expert". But those values now by association somehow seem to link me up with the completely opposite political "team" from who they did twenty-five or even fifteen years ago.
Did I say disorienting? Sigh...yeah. I have always been skeptical about identity politics, but I think I'm finally grasping WHY, and this essay does such a beautiful job of illustrating their ultimate fragility. Apparently all it takes is a whiff of the right or wrong "coding" to get people to stop asking questions and line up behind the "correct" view. And when we stop asking questions, we all lose.
This comment is SO fascinating and smart. Thank you for taking the time to write it! Do you mind if I share this in an upcoming newsletter, as an addendum to this essay?
Absolutely, Sarah, I’d be honored!
So feel everything you shared here. When I became a doula and started to interact with "crunchy" and attachment-focused parenting groups in 2012 (well before I had my own kids), EVERYONE was left-leaning. The flip-flop has been a slow creep, in the spaces I'm in but became really real in the last few years. I live in a very liberal city in Texas and recently in the "truly crunchy" Facebook group for my area, there was a long thread of moms sharing reasons they voted for....Ted Cruz. Like what? When did the values shift so dramatically? I try not to vilify those who think differently or are shifting their thinking, as I do know we still have so much in common in terms of what we want for our kids and the world, but also it's so disorienting, as you say. I really identify with how you shared how you see yourself and your values, and your reminder that when we stop asking questions, we lose. Thank you for this share.
" I try not to vilify those who think differently or are shifting their thinking, as I do know we still have so much in common in terms of what we want for our kids and the world, but also it's so disorienting, as you say."
I'm trying to remind myself that my values are REAL, unchanging things, even if the figureheads associated with them shift around.
I really appreciate this thoughtful essay. I'm increasingly feeling like the truly radical space to inhabit is a middle ground which permits people to be a little inconsistent, a little mixed, a little looking towards everyone. I found motherhood so deeply transformative and I was unprepared for how the feminism I'd grown up with didn't teach me how meaningful it was to put myself aside and care for this little person. And then to observe - ah yes, we are all animals, even us grown ones we still are mammals, albeit mammals with the magnificent ability to make art and weather balloons and spaceships and who can make and break and remake social constructs and who need to feel safe. We are no more or less than that. Wouldn't it be remarkable if we united in care for each other alongside , because of, all our vast difference.
I love this, Rebecca – I have come back to this notion in particular since becoming a mother: "And then to observe - ah yes, we are all animals, even us grown ones we still are mammals, albeit mammals with the magnificent ability to make art and weather balloons and spaceships and who can make and break and remake social constructs and who need to feel safe." To me, this doesn't diminish us. It unites us with the world in this beautiful, essential, comforting way.
Thank you, Sarah. I have had a similar journey going from a twenty-something childless corporate worker who was passionate about advancing women’s equality in the workplace to a thirty-something significantly more conflicted mother of two who now works part time.
I enjoy my job but also would not give up the time I have with my children even if it meant more time spent at the office to rise in my career. And after giving birth twice, first via induction/epidural and second unmedicated and with a doula (both still at a hospital) I can say I found so much more power, presence and meaning in the second birth. I cringe whenever I see criticism of women’s birth choices, especially coming from the left, where choice is supposed to be a value.
It is fascinating how threatening it can be to talk about what you call the "power, presence, and meaning." A lot of people really resist and reject that. I'm so glad you had that experience.
I have been drawn to certain internet content so many times only to find the creator has such different politics than my own. It just happened recently as I stumbled on an interesting parenting podcast that celebrated outdoor play and other perhaps crunchy ways to raise children and then found that the host voted for Trump, which I cannot fathom. It’s all mixed these days which is maybe one of the reasons why we are so mad at each other.
I still think there are a lot of progressive women who celebrate and deeply care about birth, mothering, caregiving, cooking, farming, the environment, and believe caring about these things doesn’t make us any less of feminists. But then the right has similar interests and so we get so mad at each other, especially in the internet space, with liberals aghast that we can hold similar interests but then find others believe in submission to their husband and vote for Trump.
Personally I don’t understand how anyone could care for the environment and vote for Trump. I keep getting sucked into things that talk about natural alternatives and ways of living only to find a Trumper and I think what the hell it’s happened again.
I like what Catherine said about the in between spaces. I can believe in seeing a doctor and an acupuncturist! I can want to give birth with a midwife at a hospital setting. I can enjoy homemaking and want equal distribution of labor in the household. I can want to stay at home to raise my child and still be a feminist! And on and on. Such weird times we live in but thankful for your insight muddling through it all.
Thank you, Sally! I agree with so much of this. The cognitive dissonance of those who purport to celebrate "natural" values and then vote right also baffles me tremendously, but since we are all so stuck in this zero-sum game of all one way or all the other it seems like the cognitive dissonance just amplifies and amplifies as we're forced to double down on one ideology. It should be a red flag that we are trying to decide what ideas to believe in/support by how the people espousing them voted. That is the death of critical thinking! And yet at the same time, it's real – I do question much of what comes from people who voted for someone I find so abhorrent. It's all very sticky. I find so much faith though in seeing all these comments from people who are clearly working out a third space we just don't hear about that much.
I just subscribed so I could leave this comment to say: thank you.
We desperately, desperately need midwives. That doesn’t mean Ina May, who blamed Black women for their own deaths in Texas in 2017 (ironic because the literal reason we stopped birthing with midwives in the US at the turn of the century, and why she had the opportunity to become so famous, is… simply… racism) is our savior, either.
I think this is a ultimately, perhaps, a problem of epistemic authority. Who owns birth? I oppose the violent enclosure of birth and birth knowledge. Birth belongs to birthing people. It cannot be sold back to us, re-packaged with a shinier bow on top. Not by the Free Birth Society. Not by Dr. Fran. Not by anyone.
YES, Liz! Amen! Thank you.
So much truth here that rarely gets spoken. Beautiful; thank you.
I too have felt much frustration in my by-lined writing efforts for always having to quote "experts." Is anyone interested in women's stories and experiences as told by them? Or nah?
I did just have this published, which you and your readers might enjoy. One thing I love about this publication in particular is the way expert sources are often entire books. It's fine to require support for your points, of course, but the way journalists find random people with letters after their names and email/chat to "get their quote" and then that's the "expert view" is just lol.
Here's the piece: https://fairerdisputations.org/reproductive-justice/
I’ll check this out! Thank you for sharing. And the pressure to use “experts” to verify/approve/legitimize is unreal. I am also thinking of writing something about this.
Bravo! For delving into and articulating the complexity of a number of these issues. Unfortunately the left has calcified into lockstep approaches that do not allow for the creative approaches that are needed to move forward….as you mention. The result has been the loss of a too significant number of voters.
Thanks, Dennis, totally agree.
This is so, SO powerful and echoes many conversations I've had with my partner lately. Thank you.
Thank you for reading and for the note, Emma.
It’s interesting that those on the left used to be referred to as liberals. A liberal is one who might hold different views than you, but respects your right to practice living your viewpoint as long as you respect the well-being of others. That’s a little simplistic, of course, but generally the case.
Today’s Left Is a collection of jackbooted ideologues. In truth, they believe in the dogmatism of scientism, not science. They believe in the myth of neoliberal capitalism which views living ecosystems as expendable in the pursuit of greater economic growth. The experiences and concerns surrounding motherhood that Sarah and others express so eloquently stems from the Left’s contempt for women who value the experience of motherhood. This is the same contempt that the Left has shown the working class since the Clinton years, and is the reason that Trump is the President elect. They have lost the working class, and now are losing women.
It’s also concerning to me that authoritarianism is growing in the zeitgeist at both poles, and that so many in the middle seem unable to parse out subtleties and distinctions when making political choices. We do need a third way. And maybe a fourth, fifth, and sixth.
I was very engaged by this piece, and the responses. It gives me hope.
🔥 What a piece. I appreciate the thought you put into this, to get complicated. Always look forward to reading your writing.
Yes, getting complicated! It’s what we’ve gotta do. Thanks for reading and for the note.
Have you read Jacqueline Wolf’s books on this topic? (Or maybe you were the person who brought them to my attention in the first place?) https://www.ohio.edu/experts/expert/jacqueline-wolf I thought they were fascinating and really pointed to the aspects that are very particular to American culture.
I have not but am now very intrigued!
This made me tear up – you articulated all my swirling, confused thoughts perfectly so that I could better understand my own thinking. Thank you.
I've recently been going through my mother's effects after her death, and as I read through elements of her childhood in the '30s and '40s I'm often amazed by the constrained world a woman faced in those days. Small examples. First, my grandmother basically wrote my mom out of the family for several years because she had the temerity to move away to work in a factory office, then fall in love with and marry someone outside Grandma's faith and nationality (German Lutheran meets Italian Catholic. It's an old story). She quit work when she got pregnant because 'that's what ya did'. She then raised six children as a full-time mother before returning to the office for a last burst of working life that ended at 70.
I also remember the rise of the feminism movement in the '70s, and the goal seemed (as a man I was - and am - an outsider) to be expanding the freedom of maneuver for woman, to open up options, not to set up a new improved set of constraints. The current evolution feels sort of... counterrevolutionary. I thought the goal was the opportunity for a woman to follow what she felt was her best, truest path. My own life has been populated by women colleagues, friends and associates, women as my own doctors, women as fellow climbers and backpackers and adventurers. And a few who chose to take a different path - be a full-time mother and household manager. Feels like a win to me. When did taking a different path become so contentious?
I am a retired scientist, and as such I have to quibble some of the negative comments about "science". I worked close to health care for decades, I know many more scientist who've done the same, and most will tell you there's a difference between Science and Medicine. There's a difference between science and the science-based business regulation and politics practiced by FDA. There's a big difference between science and science or medical journalism. I followed the link about the anti-home birth form OB, and the actual scientists quoted in the WBUR story were considerably more reserved that the subject of the report. I remember one especially saying that some studies showed positive outcomes and that the actual data from US home births was not enough to make solid conclusions. If you're interested a real scientific take on something, read the news section of Science or Nature or one of the appropriate journals. Those reporters are much less prone to polemics disguised as scientific reporting.
An interesting piece, and I think you're on to something.
There's a distinction to be made here and it requires the clear, rigorous lens of epidemiology, medical history, and medical anthropology.
Obstetrics is not, characteristically, scientific as a discipline. The technologies that made hospital birth, finally, about as safe as home birth in the American mid-century are marvels and explicitly crosscut disciplines: blood banking and antibiotics are among them. Vaccinations, sufficient food for pregnant women, clean water and air, all things our ancestors could not take for granted; advances in public health.
Obstetrics did not invent the cesarean. It did not develop the technologies which today make the cesarean "only" 3x more likely to kill the birthing woman, as opposed to years past where cesareans were done from desperation on dying or dead women.
Obstetricians today has the dubious honor of producing worse outcomes than midwifery or family medicine, in low-risk cohorts, again and again and again.
I'm grateful for the ability to birth my babies in a hospital, because of the lifesaving technologies I can access. But it's profoundly intellectually dishonest to claim obstetrics is responsible for any of these gains, which unfortunately is the project OBs seem to be engaged in.
Thank you for this very thoughtful reply. And I agree with you on the important distinction between Science and Medicine – I do think, however, that the two are also quite closely connected in our society. I also think that when it comes to decisions like home birth, there is a larger philosophical issue to consider: science really struggles to measure what "physiological birth" or, more problematically I suppose, "natural birth" looks like, because once "science" (e.g., observers) get involved, automatically the situation is different. So relying on "science" to always tell us what is safe/good etc automatically entails a bias towards what science can, and chooses to, measure. My dad was a scientist, so I understand the real value of science – I can also see the many ways science (and not just science journalism or medicine) gets co-opted by corporate and political interests, and so think we need to be careful about talking about "science" as a neutral, inherent good.
I know I'm a little late to the discussion on this, but I've been thinking about it a lot and not able to find time to comment properly as my two kids are just coming through influenza A -- talk about the importance of caregiving right there, I don't know how we would have made it through the past week if I wasn't available to rearrange my schedule to be home with them.
I think there's a lot of unfortunate conflation and false equivalency happening on both sides. The Left assumes prioritizing domestic work implies subservience, which it doesn't in all relationships. I think the "barefoot and pregnant" comment is saying women have the "right" to take a subservient role under the left rather than be "forced" into it under the right, without acknowledging that there's a huge range of middle-ground there. But this nuance is hard for a lot of people to grasp. I've known since I was a child that I wanted to be at home with my kids, and I've also always been a feminist. These things made me fear I wouldn't be able to find a mate who supported a decision to stay home without also holding rigid, traditional ideas about gender. Fortunately, I did find someone who understands the nuance in me and in these issues, who values care work, and with whom I can be an equal in the relationship even though I bring in very little income. I know many women are not so lucky, and in some ways are forced into a "subservient" role when what they really wanted was a domestic role, because they have partners who lord their income-earning over them and cut them out of full partnership.
Like others who posted here, I came to more "natural" medicine and parenting methods through progressives -- but now that I'm a SAHM, I find the only women I am able to socialize with who are also SAHMs are far more conservative than I am. Meanwhile, my progressive friends who have kids all powered through with their careers anyway and seem to be uncomfortable or even embarrassed by the fact that I'm not working. One friend lamented how she hated feeling like she wasn't "contributing" when she was between jobs, even though she had two young sons that she managed as she looked for a new job.
Because of this, I've turned often to books for the companionship I've needed on this journey. Now that I am no longer nursing I recognize all the baggage that La Leche League brings with it ... but at the time, those books were the ONLY source of validation I had for the choices I was making as a parent, or the things I valued as a parent, outside my mom and my husband.
Another false dichotomy is the idea that Western medicine = supported by science and natural wellness = totally made up. There is plenty within Western medicine that is not evidence-based, and there are plenty of natural methods that are supported by science. The danger comes when someone who claims to be on the side of "science" (as I am!!) throws that conviction out when "science" doesn't align with what they perceive as "modern."
I despise Donald Trump but I agree that the solutions offered to family issues on the Left remain unsatisfying. Low-cost, high-quality childcare is often touted, but that is only of use to women who WANT to be in the workforce while their children are young. Far more supportive of ALL families would be to give a childcare stipend, which could go toward a family's childcare option of choice (daycare, nanny, preschool, babysitter) or which could supplement for a non-working parent's income. But neither side really seems interested in supporting women who choose to prioritize caregiving -- perhaps women are drawn to the Right because it at least pays lip service to the value of domesticity.