No there are lots of feminist philosphers who have decided motherhood was not for them.
Yes Luce is important but hard going.
Maternal feminism seems quite reductive in our current era. I liked your other post and cannot believe how much good stuff I am missing on radio 4 at the moment. Will try and catch up later. I was up at 4 a.m. today to travel to a client's and am a bit tired already.
Because of this thread I have been thinking a great deal about my own relationship with my mother. I do not remember much from my early childhood except knowing my mother trusted me implicitly to tell her the truth about how she looked. It mattered a lot to her that she looked her best when going out. My mid childhood was full of family problems that did not resolve themselves until I was around 16. I very much took on the maternal role with my siblings whilst my parents fought their battles. When the house was calm again (and full of fun) my mother and I once again became extremely close with me being able to confide in her and feel that I was always getting an honest answer. We were still close when I was away studying and later when travelling.
Then I reached the age she was when she married and started making babies and something changed. She could no longer relate to my lifestyle even though she had encouraged me to be independent and chase my dreams. She had not done that and I think it was hard for both of us to acknowledge I had now grown up and we didn't have that much in common anymore.
Once I became a mother things returned once again to what might be our natural state of closeness. I am not sure. There was something lost in those middle years or perhaps it was something gained. I am still trying to work it out.
I feel like we are now entering the final phase in our relationship. Her visits to specialists are becoming more frequent and I expect to soon be caring for her in a new maternal role.
Thanks for liking my post on the history programme.
I've looked up the historian today and she has a website with links to other work she has done.
Emma Griffin ~ Historian & Author
She is done work on the industrial Revolution. Including a lot on women in that period. I will check it out.
Work of historians like her is important as something like industrial Revolution is mainly seen in terms of the worker. Who is assumed as male.
On personal history. I don't have sisters. My female friends have mixture of realtionships with mothers.
Some good some not.
If I get your OP right you aren't only talking about personal relationships but how mothers are seen symbolically? Which is fair point to make. Early childhood ( and this is specific to our society) mothers did early nurturing then the Father role became more important later as children started to move towards becoming more adult. Move into society. Thus the maternal role gets devalued symbolically? Or am I getting the wrong end of the stick?
So for the mother/ daughter relationship this became problematic.
Sounds like in your family history you early on took on the maternal role in your family.
I think for people of my generation my parents grew up during and post war to live in society structured around specific roles for parents. To try and go against the social structures in which one was brought up in one's own personal relationships isn't something that might work out. Whilst family life is socially and historically constructed it acts something that is natural.
The way I deal with it is looking at how social structures constrain people. Why I liked that history programme. My own family was a failure. Despite my parents intentions. They didn't manage to overcome the social structure they had to live in.
After years of not having anything to do with my family I recently had contact with my brother. We pretty well agreed on why our family history. We get on fine. I never fell out with him. It was my family.
Unlike me he has children. They are doing ok. As he said to me he wanted his children to have a start in life that we didn't.
Interestingly my brother now works in social services running parenting course for families.
Anyway I'm not going to say more on this thread on my personal history. Its not all that relevant to the OP.
As you bravely shared some of yours thought I should say some of where I come from.
nah. I was going for gender critical Judy. Have you posted here under a different name in the past?
