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Motherhood
May. 16th, 2021 07:26 pmI'm a regular listener of Left Right and Center, and today this brought to my attention that there's been some kerfuffle about an article by Elizabeth Breunig in the New York Times-- she was the left guest this week, and the article got discussed a bit. Which is interesting, because from the way she talked about it, without having read it yet, I immediately went "yes, of course the internet fell on your head," but I was wrong about why.
On the show there was a staggering lack of awareness of their socioeconomic privilege from all three hosts, because they were talking about "of course you can afford kids; it's in how you spend your money" and I'm like "Okay, but all three of you have jobs that pay comparatively well." It's not about how you choose to spend your money-- it's another example of people not grasping what it's like to actually be so broke that changing how you spend isn't going to do it. (The right host was talking about how he has six children and he can only do that because he spends all his money on his children, and I'm just like "Fine, but the fact that that works means you're bringing in exponentially more than I ever will.")
The article itself acknowledges financial issues a bit more, but she also talks about how she would know about money issues-- her magazine was put up for sale while she was pregnant and she had to find a new job while pregnant and how their jobs weren't steady... and she also says that by the time her child was three she owned a two-bedroom condo in DC, so I have a difficult time believing she was ever in the sort of financial precarity that even comes close to what most of our generation experiences.
So I figured the backlash on Twitter would have a lot to do with the general display of not grasping how finances work for us normal folk. (And as precarious as my finances are, and they are much more precarious than anything she describes, I'm still in a position of relative privilege compared to most of my generation; her attitude is probably even more infuriating for someone who has, say, outstanding student loans.) But it seems a little more complicated than that, in that Breunig apparently has a history of writing articles about having children that sound very cultural-conservative in their attitudes with heavy subtext of "women should want children," and the reaction was based around that. And there does seem to be a lot of subtext in the ones I've read about having children being a calling and fulfillment that supersedes all other things, in that she repeatedly calls the things she worries about once she has a child more "pure" than the things she worried about before. (And there's the one where it's not subtext, where she outright says she's a pro-life leftist and talks about how America should be supporting mothers to reduce abortions and says we shouldn't have harsh punishments for women seeking them-- implying that they still should be illegal, just without punishing the women.)
She also takes as given something I take issue with: the idea that upping the birthrate is something we should be trying to use public policy to encourage. I'm wholly in favor of using public policy to allow people to make the choices they want when it comes to having kids, but given overpopulation I really don't think we should be trying to actively incentivize children beyond making it possible for those who want them to have them-- if it's just "the country needs more young people to function," that is 100% solvable by allowing more immigration.
(Semi-related sidenote: no one on Left Right and Center understands how the internet works. Just in general.)
(Why do I listen to this show when I often think everyone on it is wrong? Because it's a quick way to fulfill my weekly "when was the last time you reminded yourself most people don't agree with you" requirement and it generally contains 3-4 different ways in which people don't agree with me. And on weeks when I haven't read the news, I also find out what happened over the last week.)
On the show there was a staggering lack of awareness of their socioeconomic privilege from all three hosts, because they were talking about "of course you can afford kids; it's in how you spend your money" and I'm like "Okay, but all three of you have jobs that pay comparatively well." It's not about how you choose to spend your money-- it's another example of people not grasping what it's like to actually be so broke that changing how you spend isn't going to do it. (The right host was talking about how he has six children and he can only do that because he spends all his money on his children, and I'm just like "Fine, but the fact that that works means you're bringing in exponentially more than I ever will.")
The article itself acknowledges financial issues a bit more, but she also talks about how she would know about money issues-- her magazine was put up for sale while she was pregnant and she had to find a new job while pregnant and how their jobs weren't steady... and she also says that by the time her child was three she owned a two-bedroom condo in DC, so I have a difficult time believing she was ever in the sort of financial precarity that even comes close to what most of our generation experiences.
So I figured the backlash on Twitter would have a lot to do with the general display of not grasping how finances work for us normal folk. (And as precarious as my finances are, and they are much more precarious than anything she describes, I'm still in a position of relative privilege compared to most of my generation; her attitude is probably even more infuriating for someone who has, say, outstanding student loans.) But it seems a little more complicated than that, in that Breunig apparently has a history of writing articles about having children that sound very cultural-conservative in their attitudes with heavy subtext of "women should want children," and the reaction was based around that. And there does seem to be a lot of subtext in the ones I've read about having children being a calling and fulfillment that supersedes all other things, in that she repeatedly calls the things she worries about once she has a child more "pure" than the things she worried about before. (And there's the one where it's not subtext, where she outright says she's a pro-life leftist and talks about how America should be supporting mothers to reduce abortions and says we shouldn't have harsh punishments for women seeking them-- implying that they still should be illegal, just without punishing the women.)
She also takes as given something I take issue with: the idea that upping the birthrate is something we should be trying to use public policy to encourage. I'm wholly in favor of using public policy to allow people to make the choices they want when it comes to having kids, but given overpopulation I really don't think we should be trying to actively incentivize children beyond making it possible for those who want them to have them-- if it's just "the country needs more young people to function," that is 100% solvable by allowing more immigration.
(Semi-related sidenote: no one on Left Right and Center understands how the internet works. Just in general.)
(Why do I listen to this show when I often think everyone on it is wrong? Because it's a quick way to fulfill my weekly "when was the last time you reminded yourself most people don't agree with you" requirement and it generally contains 3-4 different ways in which people don't agree with me. And on weeks when I haven't read the news, I also find out what happened over the last week.)
