Mommy wars..... It really does take a village...

Okay. Logical question: Why is a woman who has never had children sticking her nose into a question like this?

Well, I'm sticking my nose in because I live on the same planet, I am interested in the lives of women and I'm interested in culture. And I care about children.

That established.... :)

I read an exchange this morning, directed by a few different blogs I've read so far, and was startled by the anger, the judgment and the snarkiness. It was a cat fight. It's not the first cat fight I've read on this particular topic. A few things came to mind as I read it. While the exchange addressed one of the symptoms of a greater disease, I wanted to take a look at what I see as the larger, more global, issue.

My understanding of feminism is that it is supposed to allow women choices we didn't have in the past. Somewhere along the line, there are those who took that to mean that we have the right to make choices, but only choices that are approved by other women.

So it was a switch from one set of no choices to another set of no choices.

I have my own opinions about child raising, even though I chose to not raise children myself. From a strictly social point of view, I prefer the idea of women staying home with their children. I'm a rather typical social conservative in that regard.

At the same time, I've lived long enough to know that life is often complex and messy. Not all women have the choice to stay home, even though they might prefer it.

And there are some who don't prefer to stay home and make decisions accordingly.

In a culture where the group dynamic is primarily individualistic, women who make the latter choice are at a disadvantage. Rather than being able to depend on their community, they are often alone, having to balance choices that satisfy both their own desires and the best interests of their children.

Others don't have a choice at all. They can't stay home. Economics being the usual reason. Welfare doesn't pay enough to make that a viable option for those women and it often won't award based simply because a woman wants to raise her children herself.

Yesterday during a quick trip to Target, I saw this for myself. A young woman, probably no older than 20, sat in the food court next to her child, police present. She was wearing the Target uniform. She didn't have anyone to take care of her child and she had to work. She left the little girl in the food court with a cheeseburger and a coloring book.

I overheard enough of the conversation with the police to know that her unpardonable crime of being poor will cause her problems in the future, perhaps even the loss of her child. There were comments made about Child Protective Services and Target's obligation to call the police, having seen the child alone.

These are the realities, the day-to-day life of many mothers. It's not about "choice". It's about necessity.

The mountain of this entire argument is much larger than the molehills so many have discussed over the past 30 years. The truth is that there is often no village. There are individuals. There are individuals with children. And a culture that doesn't support them or value them. Personal desires are the pinnacle of the meaning of life. Personal fulfillment comes before family obligations. Extended families, the possibility of leaving children with Grandma, are nearly a thing of the past. Once living in small communities, extended families and friends are now spread across miles. Neighborhoods are no longer small communities. They are made up of strangers who happen to live near each other.

When it comes to having the interests of children as a priority, it seems to me that this needs to change. Sometimes choices are hard. Sometimes we don't always get to have everything we want. Sometimes we might have to stay put when we don't want to stay put. Sometimes we have to consider the well-being of the community before our personal dreams.

"It takes a village" has become a nice catchphrase, something to be said to express a warm fuzzy feeling, but I wonder how many actually examine the implications of that and the changes that would be necessary to create it. More importantly, how many would be willing to actualize those changes?

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