Holy Mother

I've just re-read my post on me, Posh, and parenthood, and it's made me really angry. Like badly jump-up-and-down and shout-at-the-world-ranty CROSS. (So this is a long post: bear with me.)

Not the post, exactly, but the truth of some of my observations, and how I have been pretty much screwed over by some of it. Like the 'mystery of maternal instict' theory (MOMI - how fortunate an acronym!). And the outrageous extent to which it prevails. And the fact that it's not just Posh being some nutter about it, but that she occupies this MOMI-world that's existed for God only knows how long, and will continue to exist long after any of us, and that it carries on like a horrible fungus, an ineradicable virus with which the western world seems to be riddled.

The MOMI theory's central premise, of course, is that there is this natural, instinctive, biological, uncontrollable urge that women feel, to be pregnant and bring a child into the world, and that she would give up everything for the child and fight with her life to protect it. Now that's not such a terrible thing in and of itself, but in the wrong hands it's positively dangerous. Because the sub-text to the whole thing is that women should feel that way.

Now, a brief detour to justify that, because I can hear the 'buts': stick with me for a moment. It seems to me that there was, for a while, a kind of thing about 'career women' and how it was really ok not to want kids, and there was a little effort being made (or at least sufficient lip-service being paid) to suggest that women didn't all have to be reproductive machines. And then came the worst thing: the 'we can have it all and we want it' stage. So now what you get is all the women's mags (VILE VILE things - another rant, another day), going on about 'how to have a successful career and a perfect family' (dependent, no doubt, on being able to give the perfect blowjob...but I digress into that other rant...). ANYWAY, now it seems we're all expected to want a career and kids, but the subtext of being-prepared-to-give-up-everything has still maintained its fierce grip. Considering how many people agree with the blog post "Women Who Don't Want Children (Aren't From Mars)", I do wonder why the reproductive imperative remains. (BTW, response number 10, from Livia, is a particularly interesting example of MOMIsm. And do check out Howard the moron.) To get all Darwinian about it, I guess that people inclined to reproduce will necessarily pass on their genes in the act of reproduction, thereby producing more people who want to reproduce - a cunning evolutionary trick (but there's no doubt a whole Darwin discussion to be had there another day).

Just look at the photo I started this post with: the way the baby is "kissing" the "mother" woman. It's such crap. She's so utterly smug about it, with this baby "kissing" her - but it's so tiny; anyone with half a brain can work out that baby's got absolutely no capacity to kiss the woman, demonstrate love in that way, but that's what we're all supposed to see, and you have to look twice to realise it's just an optical illusion. Isn't it sweet? And doesn't she look good? Isn't she truly glowing, radiant with the love of a mother and her satisfaction at realising her womanly potential? (What I really like about the picture is the look on the baby's face: like, 'ha ha, tricked you, you stupid cow!')

We're all attacked with these things, beaten over the head with these pictures and their insufferable ideologically loaded cuteness...like Anne FUCKING Geddes. I don't want to give birth: I can only just bear the monthly ritual humiliation. I don't want to be pregnant, to have a parasite wriggling around inside me for months on end, and causing me hours of agony before spewing out of me like a scene from Alien. I love my boys. Absolutely I love them, without question. But I object SO strongly to the whole MOMI system. It was absolutely crucial in my journey to parenthood. I'm sure I would still be childless if it hadn't been for Posh's MOMIst stance, and happy with that. Like I say, I love my boys dearly. Never let it be said I don't. I'm gutted not to be with them now. But I so utterly resent Posh for leading me down this path. I went willingly, for sure, but it was a dark alley and I followed her like a fool. She has used the so-called naturalness of it all to justify so much crap, to excuse her really shitty behaviour, and I'm really angry about it, that I'm left in this position because of the MOMI bullshit.

And there's just been a call from the British Fertility Society for a national policy on fertility treatment (good...), and for lesbians and single women to get the same rights as married women (good...), for obese women to be encouraged to lose weight before receiving treatment (yes....although everyone's got the wrong end of the stick of course), and for very obese women (BMI >/= 36) to be denied treatment altogether (I kinda see...but again the response has all been a bit off-centre). The thing is, the debate in response to this call seems to be centring a lot on the 'right' of people to have kids. Posh's sister had two successful IVF (ICSI actually) rounds, and has two kids without whom she would have (of course) been utterly despondent. I resent portions of my tax going to fucked up military shit, and tridents, and all that crap. But I am also beginning to have issues with the whole 'everyone should be able to have IVF on the NHS' thing too, frankly, because it's fuel to the MOMI fire.

I don't blame Posh for my situation, I can't. She's at the mercy not of any truth in the MOMI theory, but of her unknowing commitment to its image and its propagation: it's a devious mechanism that somehow sustains its image of Absolute Truth. And I could have decided differently. So I'm philosphical about it all. But I FUCKING HATE the MOMI theory. Long live drunken fucks and mistakes and accidents and bonus rounds. We'd all carry on fine that way, wouldn't we?