Michelle here.
As part of my reading on parenting, I get regular alerts from Mothering Magazine, a magazine that takes an … uhm … rather eco-friendly view of parenting. It’s got some good stuff in it, but basically it’s the parenting magazine on newsstands for the All-Natural Trail-Mix and Granola Crowd. I was amused by this notice of an upcoming chat channel guest at the magazine’s web site:
"Hathor the Cowgoddess lives in the middle of urban sprawl with her dearest super-husband and three wee and wise kids. She has had an unassisted birth in the middle of her 700 square foot apartment, she breastfeeds on demand and in public, she shares sleep, maintains constant contact and unschools. Not only does she do all of this, she does it with grand style and verve. With extravagant and outrageous behavior. And with her trusty sidekick baby in a sling.
"Hathor is the completely true product of the imagination of Heather Cushman-Dowdee, an outraged (because she might look distracted but she is paying attention!) mama who has done almost all of the above (that part is autobiography) … except for the part that she totally makes up (those parts are wishful thinking). The raucous exploits of Hathor and her family are produced in comic form on the web and printed in many, many zines and magazines and books, too."
So, who is Hathor the Cow Goddess really? (Not counting her Egyptian mythological namesake.)
And, for a bit of balance in the "lactivism" debate, see THIS COLUMN by Betsy Hart.
(JIMMY ADDS: You’d never guess that Hathor was a cow goddess from the way she appears on Stargate SG-1!)
Charming!
And I thought field hippies were extinct.
Nice to see anyone acknowledging that Motherhood is a Good Thing in itself, rather than being a self-esteem booster for the Starbucks generation.
Children are a calling, not a commodity.
But why do some people have to make every aspect of their life a protest? The folks who read this comic are addicted to militancy, and don’t know how to be content.
The artist says “my work lies at an intersection between activism and art”.
Mostly activism.
unschools?
It seems like on one hand, we have people who treat women as sexual objects in that women’s personhood is comprised ONLY of that which makes women sexually different to men. Abuse, the hypersexualization of society in the name of either “women’s liberation” or “females=sex” ideologies, and attacks on the real dignity of women result from this.
On the other hand, we have people who treat women as beings whose dignity is comprised ONLY as what makes them different to men, and celebrate this caricature idea of “woman”, effectively denying the complete personhood of woman in favor of a one-sided view of women–only the “nurturing” aspect.
Both camps are committing the same fundamental error, and on the same exact spectrum, in denying the complete personhood of women, with their narrow definitions of “woman”, and outright ignoring the complete personhood and dignity of women.
Reading for the day: John Paul II’s Letter to Women
I am not a cow.
My thoughts exactly Jimmy!
Brilliantly stated, Tim!
I don’t know about “unschools,” but “unschooling” is sort of a militant/protest-ant variation on homeschooling that opposes the language as well as the venue and curriculum of schooling per se, specifically the teacher-student model, the idea being that you don’t teach children, they teach themselves.
“unschooling” as I understand it is a variation on home schooling where one doesn’t use a defined curriculum (no workbooks or textbooks) but more hands on teaching from life situations. Xtreem waldorf perhaps.
I’m all for freedom and I’m all for eating whatever’s put on the table. That said, this lactivism crud….
It’s rude. It’s crude. And it’s gross. Under the guise of exalting motherhood, it’s turning a private thing of wonder into a public act of contempt for others.
Look, I come from a waste-not want-not family. And if you happen to have extra breast milk around and you’re comfortable cooking with it for yourself or your close family, fine. Whatever you want to do. But making breastmilkbread for strangers… EW!
Breast milk is a mother’s gift to her baby. It’s not a mere ingredient, and it’s not something to pull out of the dairy section — unless you advocate the dystopia in Piers Anthony’s story “Dairy Farm”. In which case you have no right to drag the rest of us into your sick little world.
Women are not cows. Women are not goddesses. Women are supposed to be women. Isn’t that enough?
“”unschooling” is sort of a militant/protest-ant variation on homeschooling that opposes the language as well as the venue and curriculum of schooling per se, specifically the teacher-student model, the idea being that you don’t teach children, they teach themselves.”
Yikes. I don’t know why this way of schooling has to be described as “militant.” I see this movement as an acknowledgment that the current “traditional” model of education happening in our public and private schools is failing our children and an alternative needs to be an option. I plan on at least partly “unschooling” my children and it has nothing to do with being “militant” and very little to do with “protesting.”
I don’t identify with the goddess part, but perhaps the cow. When I was breastfeeding my youngest, my 6-year-old daughter told her friend that I was feeding the baby. Her friend was puzzled by that because she couldn’t see a bottle. My daughter explained, “The milk is inside my mom. She’s like a cow!” Moo.
I have a friend with 5 kids. The older ones refer to their mother’s breasts as “mommy’s bottles.”
Agreed, Praying Twice, “unschooling” is kind of hard to define, but there is no need for it to be negative or militant.
To me, it’s just a less formal way of homeschooling your kids. More opportunistic and less structured.
I did that, for a while, with my son. We might see the Space Shuttle launch on television and then say, “Hey, I wonder what we can find out about that on the internet…”.
This is our seventh year of homeschooling and we know families that unschool. Most are very defensive about their approach and I think that translates to most people as militant. Because one of the first questions people usually ask them is “Do you test your children?” That would put most people on the defensive, I think.
I would guess that most families who unschool want to avoid any association with the pitfalls of a public school education.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
I did all these things, even the unschooling, one year. I was completely comfortable with all of it except the unschooling. But I think that was because my parents were elementary school teachers. Doctor’s daughters sometimes have trouble giving birth at home; they associate doctors and hospitals with the safety of a father’s protection-and women birth best where they feel safe and at ease. (For me that was definitely in my own house.) I couldn’t manage thinking outside the framework of grade levels, etc.
My kids survived, eventually went back to school and did ok. One of them might have been a better speller with more regular schooling and drill that one year, as that sort of thing didn’t come naturally to him. But he is successful as a computer network manager and was previously successful as a mechanic and inspector of aircraft, so I think any harm was passing. Another child I think benefitted greatly from the lack of pressure during those two years. So who knows?
To me most of the rest of the natural mothering agenda just comes naturally. I am bewildered by the people around me at work who all seem to have C sections and “can’t” nurse their babies. Nature isn’t perfect and no one can say every mother can give birth, or even that there is no possible real barrier to breastfeeding, but the vast majority of women should be ability to birth their babies and a vaster majority ought to be able to nurse them, and there is something wrong with a society in which this is becoming more and more rare.
I never thought I was ONLY the biological role of mother. But it is a role with great satisfactions, which are greater if one surrenders to it and goes with the flow of it. That period of one’s life passes, even if one has many children (I had nine.) Then one is on to other roles.
The Hathor the cow goddess sounds amusing, and the cartoonist sounds as if she knows how to laugh at herself, at least from the description.
Susan Peterson
Susan,
I SO hear you! Even Catholic women, despite our wonderful teachings on the theology of the body and natural law, seem to trust the doctors more than God’s creation.
Just gave birth at home to my second–with a good midwife and no red flags, it’s an option all women should consider.