Archive for the 'Family' Category

Good Girls Marry Doctors: a new project about daughters, feminism and the diaspora

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 16, 2010
in Books, Ethnicity, Family and Feminism
. 2 Comments

This past weekend I got an email from Josephine Tsui, a Mills and University College London alumna. Josephine and Piyali Bhattacharya have started a web project called Good Girls Marry Doctors, a site for diasporic women from East Asian, South Asian, and other non-Western backgrounds who are working to reconcile their feminism with their family traditions. Josephine and Piyali are putting together an anthology: Retaining Control, Negotiating Roles: South and East Asian Diasporic Women and their Parents, and are looking for submissions. Here’s their call:

Are you a good girl? You know what we mean: you listen to your parents, there’s no gossip about you in the “community.” Or are you a bad girl? Were you caught smoking in high school? Did you marry that white boy against your parents’ wishes?

We ask you to contribute your story to a forthcoming volume: “Mama Says Good Girls Marry Doctors.” This book focuses on the pressures on South and East Asian women who have grown up in North America to be “good girls.” It seeks to collect the stories of such women, and their traumas, victories, and defeats as they face the control that their immigrant parents try to exercise over them in relation to the choice of a partner, or a career, or their freedom. We want to know how negotiating these pressures affects young Asian diasporic women, their relationship to feminism, to their parents and to their partners or siblings.

We do not seek academic essays, but creative non-fiction pieces, narratives, reflections and personal histories and memoirs. You can tell your own story or that of a friend or relative. As Asian women who have experiences such issues ourselves, we want this volume to bring a range of stories out in the open and available to other women who are facing these issues.

More details at their website, and make sure to check out the blog Josephine and Piyali have started.

Josephine kindly notes that she found this post of mine from early 2009 to be particularly helpful: Peer mentoring, young Armenian feminists, and mapping a route out. It was a post of which I was proud at the time, and am happy to say that I’ve had some good success putting young women from that particular culture together to share strategies for negotiating a path to both freedom and cultural preservation. I got some very nasty emails after that post appeared, mostly from young Armenian men (and a few parents) who were incensed at what they saw as a crude assimilationist agenda. (One of the only times I’ve ever received a physical threat serious enough to consider reporting it to campus police came in one of those emails.) I emphasized to them what I emphasized in my post: it’s not cultural betrayal to insist that women’s individual happiness matters. It’s not cultural betrayal to offer support to young women from traditional backgrounds assistance in discerning what of modern feminism they want for their lives — and what they don’t. It’s not ethnocentric to encourage slightly older women who have had some success in mapping a route “out” to mentor younger women who are unsure of the way. If I can quote myself from one of the posts below:

… if feminists can agree on one thing, it’s this: the collective sacrifices of your parents, ancestors, and culture do not trump your own personal right to be happy.

Some related posts of mine:

Some lengthy thoughts on feminism, traditional families, contingent happiness and daring to disappoint

Dating to Disappoint: the Bulworth Solution

Dare to Disappoint: Cheering on Sandra Tsing Loh

“Kindly Remembrance”: of faith, ancestors, and debts to the past; a long post in response to Daisy B.

Privilege conceals itself from those who possess it: of feminist epistemology, marriage, and “standpoint theory.”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 28, 2009
in Class, Family, Favorite Posts 2009, Feminism, Feminist theory, Race and Relationships
. 20 Comments

The discussion below this post has grown heated, with the topic of debate being less the original post itself and more feminist epistemology and what is sometimes called “standpoint theory.” SamSeaborn quotes Elizabeth Andersen, who writes:

Feminist standpoint theory claims an epistemic privilege over the character of gender relations, and of social and psychological phenomena in which gender is implicated, on behalf of the standpoint of women.

Sam wants to know how that impacts my marriage (which I labeled as “feminist”), but he also seems to be asking how this “standpoint theory” affects the role of male allies in feminist settings. Though he kindly takes me at my word when I note that I don’t go through my married life with an apology for being male always on my lips, he wonders how a male feminist cannot help but defer to what, according to Andersen, is the “epistemic privilege” of a woman’s perspective. Sam gets a vigorous, and to my mind, very effective response, from commenters Oldfeminist and Mythago, and I recommend folks check out the whole thread.

I may be the son of two philosophers, and I may have done a graduate field in medieval scholasticism many moons ago, but I am no theorist. Phrases like “epistemic privilege” make my head hurt, and I must bite back the urge to plead, “But I am a bear of very little brain.” I’ve labored through Cixous and Irigaray and Butler because they’re important and necessary, but feminist theory ain’t my bag. I defer to the many wonderful folks in the blogosphere whose intellectual capacities exceed my own, and whose talent for explicating in plain English the difficult philosophical nuances of feminist theory is infinitely greater than mine.

That said, I do have some thoughts on standpoint theory and its practical application.

Epistemology is the study of how we know things. In a relationship between two people who are of different sexes, classes, or ethnic backgrounds, it’s reasonable to assume that each person’s knowledge of the world will have been shaped in no small part by their status. Class and sex and race and faith are some of — but surely not the only — prisms through which we see and interpret the world. Patriarchy, the complex system through which male identity is privileged in an extraordinary number of ways, impacts everyone. Yes, as the famous phrase notes, it “hurts men too.” But one particular thing that patriarchy does is warp our understanding of everything around us, particularly things like power dynamics, sexuality, and how we communicate with one another. Feminists point out the deeply obvious: the class of persons most likely to be discriminated against by the system are also those most likely to be aware of the system itself. This “greater awareness” is the epistemic privilege to which Andersen refers.

Epistemic privilege means that in a heterosexual relationship, it is generally — though not universally — the case that the woman will see gender-based power imbalances more clearly than will her boyfriend or her husband. This isn’t because of “feminine intuition”, it’s because folks in an historically oppressed class are always required to be more aware of power dynamics than those who belong to the dominant group. The same epistemic privilege can occur in race and class relations, regardless of the sex of the people involved.

Obvious example: rape and parking lots. Both men and women are cognizant of the reality of rape, and most understand that it is men who generally do the raping and women who are generally the ones attacked. But because of his privilege, a man can walk into a parking lot by himself at night and forget about rape, because his maleness affords him the luxury of remaining unobservant of the possibility of sexual danger. A woman walking alone in a parking lot at night will have a different experience, rooted in her vulnerability as a member of a class targeted for sexual violence. Not only is she more vulnerable, but her very understanding of the issue is superior to that of a man walking in the parking lot. He has the privileged luxury of ignorance; she’s forced to reflect, constantly, on rape and its threat to her. That means that when the discussion of women’s vulnerability to assault comes up, women ought to enjoy “epistemic privilege” in the conversation. Continue reading ‘Privilege conceals itself from those who possess it: of feminist epistemology, marriage, and “standpoint theory.”’

Reprint: Fat, Slut, Selfish

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 06, 2009
in Eating disorders, Family, Sexuality, The Martha Complex: perfectionism in adolescent girls and Virginity
. 4 Comments

This first appeared in June 2007.

I’ve been teaching women’s history here at Pasadena City College for more than a dozen years now, and throughout that time, have made journals a critical part of the course. It’s a lot of reading for me, but I remain convinced that my own teachers were right when they told me that putting my words down on paper is the single best way to figure out what it really is I think, feel, and believe.

Over these twelve years or so of teaching gender studies, of meeting with countless students in office hours, of listening. of reading student journals and reflecting on what I find there, I’ve noticed some fairly clear patterns. And the pattern that’s in my head this morning is the ubiquitousness of self-doubt and self-criticism that I see in so many of my female students (and youth group kids).

As my students will confirm, I’m fond of insisting that there are “three key points” to be made about virtually anything. (Too much Trinitarian Christianity; too much of the “three-column system” in Kabbalah; too much Hegel… or three divorces. Take your pick.) And if I were to try and sum up all of the negative self-talk I encounter from my students in just three words, it would be easy:

Fat, Slut, Selfish.

Let me be very clear that I’m not claiming that most women regularly beat themselves up with all three of these. For most of my students and youth group kids, one or two of these three words is particularly haunting. The fear of fat is much commented upon, and in looking back over the last twelve years of journals, the best that I can say is that that crushing anxiety about the body has, at least, not gotten significantly worse. Of course, it couldn’t get much worse. (I do notice more of my male students admitting to body dysmorphia and a desire to lose weight or change their shape.)

If the label “fat” still has tremendous power to wound, there are signs that at least among some young women, “slut” is losing at least a little of its force. From what I can tell (and to generalize enormously), we’ve done a marginally better job of helping young women claim ownership of their sexuality. Compared to what I was seeing, hearing, and reading in the mid-1990s, I see slightly more acceptance among young women (and their male peers) of the notion that women have the right to be sexual subjects rather than objects. Of course, as many feminists worry, when it comes to “sex talk” it’s often difficult to distinguish between false bravado and a genuine embrace of erotic agency. One role of feminist mentors (and youth group leaders) is to provide a safe environment where students can get honest about sexuality. It’s in these safe environments that those who are merely “talking big” about their comfort with their sexuality can begin to acknowledge that some of that apparent confidence is a facade; it’s also in these environments that those who are anxious or confused about their own sexuality can begin to unburden themselves. Continue reading ‘Reprint: Fat, Slut, Selfish’

Love, Again: second marriages and the triumph of hope and grace

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 08, 2009
in Family, Favorite Posts 2009, Marriage and Memories
. 11 Comments

My wife and I were married on the Sunday of a Labor Day weekend in 2005. On that same day this year, my cousin Scott married his girlfriend Sheila in a charming afternoon ceremony on the croquet lawn at our family ranch in Northern California. Eira and I were among the 120 friends and family in attendance to witness their vows and join in the celebrations which followed.

This was a second wedding for both Scott and Sheila; Scott’s four sons from his first marriage served as his attendants, while Sheila’s three children stood by her side in the ceremony. Scott and Sheila had married young, raised seven children between them, and then, with their youngest children barely into adolescence, gone through that terrible and wonderful crucible of divorce. After a few years of singleness — and single-minded devotion to caring for their children during the aftermath of the separation from their former spouses — Scott and Sheila were set up on a blind date by mutual friends who felt all but certain that a spark would flare. The flame kindled fast, and in due course we all found ourselves together on that lawn we love so much.

Scott’s first wedding, more than a quarter century ago, was the first church wedding I ever attended. I was sixteen when he, just eight years my senior, married the woman with whom he would have my four wonderful cousins. I was awed that day in 1983 by the pomp of the ceremony and the romance that seemed to undergird it; whatever cynicism about love I affected as a spotty-faced adolescent virgin was overwhelmed by the sentimentality of the service and the lavish garden party that followed. I cried at their wedding, and was teased for it.

I’ve never forgotten that day in the summer of ‘83. Since then, I’ve been to perhaps fifty weddings, maybe more, including a few same-sex unions. I’ve been married four times myself, and been the first husband to four different women. I’ve performed four wedding services, using one of those mail-order minister’s licenses. I’ve been a best man only once, but an attendant several times; I’ve read poetry and Scripture. I’ve offered to do interpretative dance, but been turned down repeatedly. Bottom line: I like weddings.

But on Sunday, I was reminded that I am particularly sentimental about weddings between two folks who’ve done the whole thing before. I like witnessing the union of two people who’ve long since let go of their illusions about marriage; the romantic aspirations of the young are touching, but the willingness of those who’ve been to the show and had their hearts broken to commit again is a far more compelling spectacle to witness. Remarriage after divorce may still be a sin to those whose rigid adherence to a narrow reading of Scripture trumps their sense of grace and hope, but to the rest of us, it is an even greater testament to the power of love than the wedding of two comparative innocents. Continue reading ‘Love, Again: second marriages and the triumph of hope and grace’

Home again, and giving thanks for Britain

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 22, 2009
in Family, Father and Traveling
. 14 Comments

We’re home from a fortnight in the UK. My wife and I took Heloise and my wife’s mother with us on the trip; for the latter two, it was their first visit to Britain. (Our daughter was in my wife’s tummy when we were in Europe last summer, but no passport was required at that point.) The ratio of three adults to one infant is a good one for travel, and we’re blessed with a daughter who is an easy flyer. (I’m proud to say that the Cabin Service Director on our BA flight to Heathrow called her “the little angel” as we got ready to deplane.)

I took everyone to visit Kingston Lisle, the tiny Oxfordshire village in the Vail of the White Horse where my father grew up. We knelt at the graves of my paternal grandparents (noting that we need to hire someone to redo the headstones), stayed at a glorious hotel in nearby Great Milton, and enjoyed the Cotswolds before heading on to Carmarthenshire, Devon, and Cumbria. We took my English nephew to see his hometown side, Exeter City, play their first home match of the season. And we finished the trip in the glorious Lake District, which was the only place where we dealt with rain.

My father, born in Vienna and, from the age of three, raised as a war refugee in England, had four children. My younger brother decided years ago that he felt more at home in Britain than in America; he and his family make their home in Exeter, where my brother is now associate professor of English. My two nephews and my niece are growing up with Devonian accents; they are culturally English. My sister Elizabeth lived and worked in Britain for nearly a decade before returning home two years ago; my youngest sister and I have never lived for any great length of time in the UK, but visit regularly. All four of us have two passports; each of us feels a different degree of connection to that “green and pleasant land.”

My love for Britain isn’t rooted in ethnic heritage; on my mother’s side, I’ve got some ancestors from that sceptered isle, but far more from the continent. The love I have is rooted in many things, but perhaps most plainly in my family’s history. My paternal grandmother, Elisabeth von Schuh, was born in Vienna to a Jewish mother and a Catholic father; her husband, Georg Schwitzer (the spelling would later be changed) was born Jewish but converted to Catholicism when he married. My father was uncircumcised and baptized, but was ethnically 3/4ths Jewish; that latter fact would have meant a death sentence for him and the rest of the family following Hitler’s takeover of Austria in 1938. My grandfather, a gentle physician, wasn’t eager to leave; like many, he thought things wouldn’t “get that bad” for Viennese Jews (who were used to anti-Semitism as a political prop.) My late grandmother knew better, and she explored every avenue she could to get the family out.

It was Great Britain that welcomed in my father’s family. Not the USA (my grandmother tried that option). Not France (lucky, too, given what would happen to French Jews during the war.) The only door that opened was for Britain, which was willing to take certain Jewish professionals, especially doctors. The family escaped just before the outbreak of World War Two, and after a brief period in London, settled in what was then Berkshire and is now Oxfordshire, in a place called Fawler Manor just outside of Kingston Lisle. Though my grandfather was briefly interned as an enemy alien, he was eventually released and allowed to practice medicine. While my grandmother and her children stayed in the south, he went to work as the staff doctor at the refinery in Ellesmere Port, Lancashire — where he would die in a car accident in 1947.

It was the English who cared for my family before, during, and after the Second World War. My father left England at 24 to go to graduate school at Berkeley, but England never left him. The fundamental decency of that culture stayed with him all his life. He lived 47 years in the USA, but never got an American passport — he only wanted one citizenship, that of the one country that had opened its door and saved his family from the worst mass murder in human history. His California-born children all got their UK passports as soon as they could, and we all use them with varying frequency; we honor our father and we honor the land that became his home.

It was the British (the Scots are as British as any) who gave the Lockerbie bomber his compassionate release this week. Whether it was deserved in this case is debatable, but it is worth noting that compassionate release for the terminally ill is far more common in the United Kingdom than in the States (or anywhere else I know of). While the American attitude tends to be “let the man rot”, or more commonly, “fry his ass”, the attitude of at least a plurality of Britons is far more humane. And I see a direct link between the compassionate release of Abdelbaset al Mograhi this week and the compassionate welcome my father’s family received nearly seven decades ago. My family were escapees from mass murder rather than agents thereof, but the decency that undergirds the very existence of the concept of compassionate release was the same impulse that saved my father’s life.

Could I live in Britain? Perhaps. Not in London, which I find delightful but exhausting. To quote Cerys Matthews, the sublime and lovely Welsh pop star for whom my daughter is only partly named, “I come alive/outside the M25″ (the ring road around the capital.) I love the northeast, particularly Durham and Northumbria, but my brother’s location in the southwest makes a good case for a second home there. But perhaps, like my Dad, I am destined to spend the majority of my life in the once Golden State, making regular visits to somewhere greener, somewhere wetter, somewhere somehow just a bit kinder.

In any case, it’s good to be back. More blogging to come soon.

Assorted daddy thoughts

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 15, 2009
in Family, Father and Traveling
. 4 Comments

My wife, daughter, mother-in-law and I spent a very happy weekend in New York. We saw family and friends and kept ourselves very busy. I didn’t start visiting Manhattan regularly until a decade or so ago — and now, increasingly, I see it as somewhere I could live. (My dear wife would embrace that idea very eagerly.) The pace at which things happen is indeed satisfactory, and the fear of boredom is allayed in so many countless ways by that marvelous city.

It was the baby’s first long plane ride, and if I do say so myself she and her carers acquitted themselves splendidly. I now consider myself an old hand at wrangling strollers down jet ways and changing diapers in the lavatory in the midst of not-inconsiderable turbulence. My wife and I arranged our meals to be served separately, so that one could hold Heloise while the other ate. And oh, the blessing of a happy baby whose delicate ears are untroubled by landings and takeoffs. Heloise barely cried at all, and spent most of her waking time charming the FAs and her fellow passengers. (We are lucky parents, we know.)

I’ve got a post or two about feminist co-parenting (from the limited perspective, of course, of a first-time papa to a not-quite five-month old) in the hopper. For now, let me say simply how much I love being a father. There is nothing singular about this experience I’m having; many of my readers have had it or are having it, some many times over. But my goodness, what an extraordinary delight this girl is! And how extraordinary too to discover in myself reservoirs of patience and energy that I had no idea existed, reservoirs that might have gone untapped had my wife and I not had this little girl. Continue reading ‘Assorted daddy thoughts’

Dean Butler in “It’s All About Me”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 10, 2009
in Family and Show business
. 1 Comment

It’s Mother’s Day, my wife’s first. I’m on the floor of our nursery, my daughter asleep beside me on her playmat, the TV showing a soccer match. (Women’s Professional Soccer; never too early to make an impression on Heloise!)

This post is for the family and other interested parties: it’s a short review of my cousin Dean Butler’s performance last night in his one-man show, “It’s All About Me” at Sterling’s Upstairs at Vitello’s in Studio City. Dean, my dear first cousin and fellow Bay Area transplant to Los Angeles, is widely known for his television roles as Almanzo Wilder on “Little House on the Prairie”, Moondoggie on the “New Gidget”, and — to a younger audience — his brief appearances as Hank Summers in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” What’s less well known is that Dean’s background in musical theater goes back to high school, when he was perhaps the youngest and WASPiest Tevye ever to bring down the house in a production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” He’s also had several stints on and off Broadway in a wide variety of theatrical and musical productions.

Dean is now principal in Legacy Documentaries, and most of his work these days is behind the camera. But his love for musical theater and the stage is still in his blood, and that passion led him to last night’s terrific show. Working with a piano and an upright bass for musical accompaniment, Dean offered just over an hour of music and light comedy, tracing his own career with charm and self-deprecating humor. From “If I Were a Rich Man” from the aforementioned Fiddler, to a medley from “West Side Story” (he played Tony in the Japanese touring production) to country standards from Collin Raye and Kenny Rogers, Dean charmed — and at times, moved — the audience of just about a hundred happy and enchanted diners. Two highlights stood out: a duet with former Gidget star Caryn Richman on “Summer Nights” (from Grease) and a powerful, stirring number from the new Little House: the Musical.

Dean offered a number of comical, perfectly timed anecdotes about his years in the “business”, many of which had the audience in stitches of laughter. Some were familiar to his loved ones; others were new and surprising. Entertainment is a capricious business, and without the ability to laugh at the setbacks and the rejections which are part and parcel of the life that he and so many others lead in this town, it’s hard to delight in the rare but glorious triumphs that come along. Dean has had his triumphs and his setbacks, and along the way he’s accumulated many wonderful stories — and far more importantly, many wonderful friends — who have sustained, encouraged, and inspired him. Last night at Vitello’s the crowd was thick with many people who have known and adored Dean, and filled with people who don’t — yet — know him well. And you didn’t need to know him or his story to delight in his perfectly-paced, masterfully produced, and immensely enjoyable show.

For my wife and I, it was our first date night “out without the baby”, who waited at home with my mother-in-law. What a perfect evening for this new milestone in our life as parents. I’m very proud of my cousin, and eager to see what the next chapter in his long and unfolding career will hold.

“Kindly Remembrance”: of faith, ancestors, and debts to the past; a long post in response to Daisy B.

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 15, 2009
in California, Faith, Family and Western Civilization
. 8 Comments

After a week away, I’m back — just in time for midterms here at Pasadena City College. Our official spring break is next week, which I believe gives us the last in all of America. Some colleges are only days from finals, and we’re only halfway through.

Much about which to be blogged, but let me start with a couple of pieces from Daisy, who now blogs at Dear Diaspora. Daisy blogs as a young Jewish lesbian feminist, and many of her best posts at her old blog (and her comments around the ’sphere) have been in defense of communitarian values. (See our exchange, as it were, around this post.)

As we eased into Passover, Daisy put up a pair of posts about what questions we who call ourselves people of faith ought to be asking. I’m in particular struck by her second post, in which she asks three questions:

What are the effects of practicing my traditions?
What are my obligations to my ancestors?
What are my obligations to my descendants?

Daisy sounds a bit like Edmund Burke here, suggesting that society is composed of three groups: the living, the dead, and those who are to be born. These are the sorts of questions traditionally asked not only by the religiously inclined, but also by those whose temperament is fundamentally conservative. Yet they’re worth reflecting on, particularly perhaps from a feminist standpoint. (Daisy asks another question about what Christians see as their “central question”, and I’ll try and get to that in another post.)

To summarize, the relationship between Western feminism and this Burkean sense of obligation to ancestors and unborn descendants is a complicated one. At the risk of over-generalizing, the feminist tradition in this country, at least, tends to be suspicious of appeals to grand obligations. It is women, more often than not, who have had to do the grunt work of living up to those obligations. It is women who tend to be the primary providers of care to the “living ancestors” (one’s grandparents or older in-laws.) It is women who carry in their bodies the “yet to be born”; historically, the labor of delivery is not the first nor the last “labor” of which women will assume a disproportionate share. So it’s no accident that the feminist message has so often been “You are more than the expectations of your parents and ancestors” and “You are more than a husband and a wife.” To be flip, sometimes feminist advice dovetails almost perfectly with the title of Sandra Tsing Loh’s famous commencement address at CalTech: “Dare to Disappoint your Parents.”

But many feminists, particularly those outside the white middle-class American tradition, have suggested that this almost contemptuous attitude towards tradition risks throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. With the understanding that yes, almost every cultural tradition has a less than flawless record on women’s rights, some feminists have long called for ways to reconcile the “ways of the ancestors” and the sense of obligation to community with a deep-seated belief in women’s radical equality with men. Feminism needs to be about more than individual choice and empowerment; it needs to find a way to center women’s voices and needs in ancient stories which still have value. And perhaps a way can be found to honor ancestors, to honor parents, and to still proclaim an uncompromising and uncompromised egalitarian vision. Continue reading ‘“Kindly Remembrance”: of faith, ancestors, and debts to the past; a long post in response to Daisy B.’

Off until Monday

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 26, 2009
in Family and Traveling
. 1 Comment

I’ll be away from the blog until Monday morning. My littlest sister is getting married up in Santa Barbara this weekend, and we’ll be gathering together in and around that city of my birth for the next few days. Heloise Cerys is two months old today, and we leave this afternoon for her first “road trip.” Ingmar the Volvo is packed to the gills, the hotel has already confirmed a crib in the bedroom, and we’re ready to embark with joy and a tiny degree of trepidation on another “first.”

Comments may languish in moderation longer than usual as a result. Your famous forbearance, my readers, is appreciated.

Happy 30th to a Schwyzer

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 11, 2009
in Family
. 2 Comments

Happy 30th birthday today to my little sister, Elizabeth. She’s the associate arts editor at the Independent; an accomplished writer, dancer, and black belt. If you live in Santa Barbara, you know her or know of her. Elizabeth and I are kindred spirits in many ways, and her conscience and her intuition and her passion continue to inspire her eldest brother and many others.

Follow Dudley

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 28, 2009
in Family
. 3 Comments

And though Héloïse Cerys Raquel is our first born human child, our “first son”, Dudley the chinchilla, has his Facebook page up and running and accepts friend requests. Should he twitter too?

Real blogging returns Monday.

And for those marked as friends or family only, pictures of our Cerys are up in my Flickr account.

“People like you should be parents”: of Nadya Suleman, Alfie Patten, and well-meaning but problematic classism

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 17, 2009
in Class, Family, Money and Parenting
. 30 Comments

The octuplets born to Nadya Suleman came into the world on January 26, 22 days ago — and just three hours or so after our daughter was born. (And in Bellflower, a working-class Los Angeles County community some twenty miles away from us.) Our first child shares a birthday with the world’s first surviving group of eight babies born at once, and in the midst of all the hubbub and upheaval that goes with having a new addition, I’ve paid at least some attention to the coverage of Suleman and her (now) fourteen children. I’ve also noticed, more than I might otherwise, the coverage of the birth earlier this month of little Maisie in London — a girl whose father is apparently Alfie Patten, age 13.

Maisie and the Suleman octuplets have been welcomed into the world in the harsh light of the media glare and nearly-universal censure. The mental state of Nadya Suleman (a single woman who recently reported she has been celibate for eight years) and the foolhardiness of her fertility doctor have been much decried; Maisie’s arrival has been greeted with the not-particularly-original lamentation about how awful it is for “babies to have babies”. In the Suleman case, it’s that she’s had too many babies without a husband or the obvious means with which to provide for all of these children. In both the Patten and Suleman case, we’re dealing with folks who have been labelled “unfit” to be parents, and the orgy of hand-wringing commenceth.

I contrast these infamous stories with the reaction to the birth of baby Cerys, born as she is to a well-off, heterosexual married couple (husband in his early forties, wife in her mid-thirties). Baby Cerys was longed for and planned for and wished for, not only by her now-doting (if exhausted) mother and father, but also by an army of grandmothers and aunts and uncles and friends and cousins and even acquaintances. (One of our chinchillas, Ninotchka, regularly expressed enthusiasm by allowing my wife to hold her while she was pregnant, but only near the growing belly.) My growing family has been showered with love and with gifts and with warm words of praise, as if we have done something new and surprising and wonderful. Admittedly, many in my family “never thought they’d see the day” when the inconstant black sheep of his generation became such a devoted papa, but that surprise and delight at this change in me is only partly a reason for such enthusiasm.

My wife and I have been given a compliment many times in the past three weeks, sometimes with direct reference to the Suleman case. Both friends and family members have said to us: “You two are the sort of people who should be parents.” It’s a sentence loaded with meanings, only some of which may be intended by the many who have spoken and written it to us. What’s meant, at least by most, is that my wife and I are “ready” to be parents. We are in a stable relationship (married three and a half years, together for more than six). We are homeowners, employed, insured. We are certainly not young parents, but not so old that folks start to question whether we will be physically up to the challenges of raising small children. We are in good health physically, and at least for the past decade, mentally. We are planted in a strong and supportive spiritual community, and so on and so forth. And we’re feminists, which at least to a great many people is an encouraging sign in the parents of a newborn daughter.

It’s true that all of these things are helpful, though in and of themselves none of them are guarantors that we will be great parents. But I can’t help but hear a tinge of classism in at least some of the voices that have proffered this well-meaning phrase in one form or another. Though it is true that my wife and I are, of course, delightful human beings, I’m troubled by the implied comparison between us and the likes not only of Nadya Suleman or Alfie Patten, but all of the vast army of new parents who lack our educational background and financial good fortune. It’s hard to say “Hugo and Eira are the sort of people who should be parents” (the emphasis is generally the speaker’s) without wondering who it is that the person offering this insight thinks ought not to have reproduced.

Most of us think there’s something just a bit odd about Nadya Suleman. Most of us think having eight embryos implanted after having had six children is a bit unusual at best. And most of us think a thirteen year-old boy and fifteen year-old girl are woefully unready to be parents. But it’s not as if our sense of outrage and judgment is limited to the likes of these. The praise and encouragement lavished upon my wife and me is sometimes explicitly linked to a sense that we will have the resources to provide comfortably for Cerys and any other children whom we might have. Continue reading ‘“People like you should be parents”: of Nadya Suleman, Alfie Patten, and well-meaning but problematic classism’

Love, calling, guardianship: the faith of a new father

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 04, 2009
in Christianity, Faith, Family, Favorite Posts 2009 and Parenting
. 14 Comments

I will eventually get back to blogging about subjects other than my new daughter, but surely I can be forgiven for being somewhat single-minded these days.

A friend of mine wrote me a note a few days ago, asking how becoming a Dad at long last had impacted my faith. She gently pointed out that I haven’t been blogging much about spiritual issues recently, and thought that this might be my opportunity to turn to that subject once again.

When I saw my baby born nine days ago, I think (I can’t be sure) that my first words were “Oh my God.” Those of you who are parents surely know what I’m talking about (those who actually gave birth know far more). It is an extraordinarily primal moment — blood and sweat and all sorts of other fluids, the grasping hands of caregivers, the gasps of a woman in pain and joy, and, after a few heartstopping seconds, the cry of new life. There is no hyperbole in saying that that instant two Mondays ago was the most wonderful experience of my nearly forty-two years in this incarnation. I felt God with me and with my wife and new child; I sensed the “great cloud of witnesses” looking on. I cried, of course, tears of joy — and tears of thanksgiving for the safety of my wife and child.

I’ve been saying “Thank you” to God every day, several times a day, this week. I’ve also been asking, constantly, for His help and guidance as I do this new thing called fatherhood. I’m smart enough to know that I can’t possibly do it perfectly, but am sufficiently filled with love and zeal that I want to do every imaginable thing that I can for my wife and daughter.

But at times, of course, I’ve battled a lot of fear, and have called out to God in my anxiety. I have the usual fears that first-time parents have: “Is that a normal poop?” “Why does her breathing change so suddenly?” But I have other fears as well which I am turning over to Christ. I call myself a “born again” (albeit one with universalist theology and liberal politics) because I know what it is like to be transformed and changed by faith. But the memory of who it was I used to be — the drug addict, the borderline, the narcissistic manipulator, the self-injurer, the womanizer, the utterly self-absorbed — has haunted me a bit these past few days. What if that Hugo comes back? What more can I do to ensure that my daughter never knows first-hand those aspects of her father, and only encounters them through fragments of old stories and the myriad scars she will find on my body? I’ve been talkin’ to God about this every day. I trust His grace, because I’ve felt it. I trust, too, that I will be given the strength to persevere (one way of translating the “p” in TULIP, for you crazy Calvinists) until the end and past the end. Continue reading ‘Love, calling, guardianship: the faith of a new father’

On “O Du Fröhliche”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 19, 2008
in Family, Father, Holidays and Music
. 14 Comments

Though I may have a stray post up now and again, I’ll be away from blogging until at least December 29. A Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all.

I thought about making my last pre-Christmas post a “top ten favorite carols” list. Perhaps next year. Rather, I’m thinking this morning of the one which has been in my head all week: “O Du Fröhliche.” (Here’s an old Youtube clip of the Vienna Boys Choir singing a rather stately version.) Along with “The Holly and the Ivy”, “O du Fröhliche” would certainly make the upper end of any top ten list I compiled.

But I write this morning thinking of my father, for this was indisputably his favorite carol, and his memory of hearing it sung as a small boy is especially poignant. My father was born in Austria in 1935 to a Catholic mother and a Jewish father who had converted to Rome. After Hitler’s takeover of Austria in 1938, my grandparents took their children and fled successfully to England, living a refugee life in London, then Ellesmere Port, and finally rural Berkshire. (Most of the rest of my grandfather’s family perished.) When World War Two broke out, however, the British government interned my grandfather. A citizen of an enemy nation, it didn’t seem to matter — at least at first — that he was an ethnically Jewish refugee from Hitler. He was released after about a year, but spent the first Christmas of the war — 1939 — in what my father says was a reasonably comfortable camp in Scotland. (He was not interned with actual prisoners of war.) Women and children were not interned; England’s policy was apparently more lenient than that shown by the Americans to the Japanese.

That Christmas, when my father was four and a half or so, my grandmother took him and his older sister on a long train trip up to the north to visit my grandfather in his camp. My father remembers very little of the visit, but he does remember that the assembled internees (all of whom were either German or Austrian men) sang some Christmas songs. The last one they sang was “O Du Fröhliche”, and my father remembers that his mother and many other grownups wept. For the rest of his life, he was very fond of the carol.

I’ve sung “O du Fröhliche” all my life. And I’ve heard many recordings. But the version I love best is one I’ve never heard. I often like to imagine the one which was sung in December, 1939 by dozens of German-speaking men, ranging from adolescence to late middle age, internees in spartan barracks in Scotland. I imagine their mostly unprofessional voices, and their faces as they gazed at their families who had come to spend a few Christmas moments with them. I think of my grandfather, a then 37 year-old physician, himself descended from a line of Moravian rabbis, but now a loyal son of Holy Mother Church; I imagine his mixed feelings at being safe from Hitler only to be shut away from his family in this strange northern country. And I imagine my father, not quite five, missing his daddy as I, a man of 41, miss mine this Christmas.

It’s a fine carol.

Merry Christmas.

Modes of grieving: my father, Matilde, and disenfranchisement

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 12, 2008
in Chinchillas, Family, Father and Grief
. 8 Comments

I just came across this nice discussion of “disenfranchised grief” and masculinity in the Feministing community.

Disenfranchised grief is grief over a loss that is not conventionally acknowledged or socially acceptable in your culture. Couples who experience infertility, terminate pregnancy due to some genetic disorder that the fetus had, or have a miscarriage often experience disenfranchised grief. Other examples include grief over the incarceration of a loved one, the death of a pet, the breakup of an unacknowledged relationship (i.e. gay couples who haven’t come out yet or have been rejected by their families) or the death of a partner in an unacknowledged relationship, the “loss” of one’s parent due to Alzheimer’s, the death of an ex-spouse or lover, the recurring grief of a birth mother who gave up a child for adoption, and the grief of an adopted child for the relationship they might have had with their birth parent(s). In many of these cases the people who surround the grieving individual may not understand the depth of the grief involved, or may think it’s something the individual should be able to get over already. In other cases, such as in the case of unacknowledged relationships, the individual may not be able to share their grief at all.

So as I’ve been thinking about this it occurs to me that men may often experience disenfranchised grief more often than women, because it’s more socially acceptable for women to express their grief, and because men are often expected not to have the same depth of feeling. I’ve known several men who really wanted children, and were deeply emotionally invested in having a family. When they (and their partner) encountered infertility or miscarriage, their grief was barely even acknowledged, while their partner received a lot of support. When men do express their grief over infertility or a miscarriage, or don’t “get over it” quickly enough, they’re viewed with a mixture of confusion and disapproval. So I think this is one example of the damage a patriarchal culture inflicts on men. What do you think of this? Are there other examples of disenfranchised grief I haven’t thought of? Are there cases where a woman’s grief is more disenfranchised than a man’s?

Check out the comments below the original post (made by Rachel in WY).

Without knowing the term, I’ve written several times about “disenfranchised grief.” I’ve written about my strong and enduring reaction to my high school girlfriend’s abortion. My most instant connection to that sense dates from June 2006, when I lost my father and our beloved first chinchilla, Matilde, only eleven days apart. I wrote about both deaths, but when I announced Matilde’s death, I shut off comments. I knew that news of my father’s death would elicit tremendous sympathy, but I feared that posting about my devastation at the passing of a 600 gram rodent (albeit one who had captured our hearts and given rise to our rescue charity) would also elicit ridicule. And at that point, if even one idiot had made fun of our grief over the death of Matilde, I would have been crushed. I got so many sincere notes from kind folks who read the post and were unable to comment that I opened up a later post. My own fear of being teased led me to be more mistrustful than might have been necessary. Continue reading ‘Modes of grieving: my father, Matilde, and disenfranchisement’