 Motherhood
- Smarter or More Anxious?
Dateline: 5/7/05
By Ann Zeise
Two books have come out recently just in time for Mother's
Day 2005. One claims that motherhood makes us to be more anxious
and the other claims motherhood makes us women smarter. Does
one necessarily preclude the other?
I have finished Perfect Madness and am about a third of the
way through The Mommy Brain, but as Mother's Day is tomorrow,
I was anxious to appear smart and get this essay
up online! Where does homeschooling fit into The New Motherhood?
We know too much now about the effects of good and bad parenting,
things I didn't know when raising my children, and things my
mother certainly didn't know. She smoked through her pregnancies
and as she was raising us. Me, I was just told in the 70s if
I spent "quality time" with my children, that would
be enough.
There was lots more support for mothers when I was raising
my first child in the 70s. There was a Montessori preschool nearby
where I could drop off Sara for two mornings a week. They didn't
even offer full-time childcare! It gave her 5 hours a week to
be in a safe educational situation and gave me 5 hours to do
something for myself!
We bought our first home for about $18,000 with a mortgage
through the veterans, as my first husband had been in the Air
Force - before Vietnam! Our house payments equaled a quarter
of his take home pay, so there was plenty left over for other
things. It was about $175 a month. It had three bedrooms, one
bath, a living room with a kitchen and dining space connected
to it. It had a garage, and we turned the end of it into a playroom.
There were plenty of other mothers of young children in the neighborhood,
and we would freely pop in and out of each other's homes.
In Perfect Madness, Judith Warner points out that there is
far less support for American families than ever before, in spite
of all the rhetoric to the contrary. The average home is out
of reach for most young families, especially those of veterans.
Often both parents must work, and so no one gets their needs
taken care of: not the parents or the kids. Fights about who
gets some time for themselves for self-improvement are common.
It is a rather depressing book. If you weren't anxious before
reading it, you would be afterwards!
Homeschool moms are definitely on her list of anxious mothers.
Right up there with the breast feeders. Such attention to children
must mean we're anxious that doing the opposite would be somehow
"wrong." We spend too much time bickering over details
when the big political battles are being lost. Politically, we've
been losing. Many families are without sick leave or vacation
time. When companies downsize, those who are left just have to
pick up the slack and work not only their own job, but the laid
off worker's job as well. Now they really have no time for their
kids! work 80 hours a week, or you'll be next to get the ax!
Warner seems at times to want more government programs but also
to realize that intrusions into our lives is also not a good
thing. Just making it easier to spend more time with each other,
raising good kids, seems to be her main point.
Now, The Mommy Brain is for those not intimidated by such
statements as...
"When I held my first baby in my arms, my hypothalamus
told me This is why you are here!" Quoting Marian
Diamond, mother of four and a respected neuroanatomist.
If you can relate to that proclamation, you'll love this book.
Funny, yet ultimately scientific. Katherine Ellison helps us
understand ourselves. She points out how hard it is to even do
such studies, as it is not politically correct to admit even
the possibility that parenthood can affect a woman's brain.
One test was done on women the day they gave birth, and they
didn't do too well on the intelligence test. Well, DUH! says
Ellison, the mothers obviously had more important things to attend
to than some silly intelligence test! Motherhood from Day 1 changes
the chemical balance in our heads! It forces measurable changes
to help us to focus on the needs of our infants.
So, how do you explain how forgetful you seem? It isn't that
you are more forgetful, only that you are better at remembering
that your forgot than women who have not had children. They forget
things, too, only they forget that they forgot!
She compares a study done with monks and mothers regarding
their social intelligence. Both groups routinely exercise positive
emotions, such as love and compassion. Your love for your child
cultivates "smart" emotional and social behavior. Mothers
really can be compared to saints at times!
Motherhood teaches us how to be extremely efficient experts
at time management. Every once in awhile our Chamber of Commerce
will have some speaker come in to talk about how to motivate
sales. I'm sitting their thinking, "Well, DUH! This is no
different than selling a reluctant teenager on studying algebra!"
Homeschool moms tell me all the time that they learn so much!
They may have started homeschooling wondering how they'll ever
teach their kids the "hard stuff," but then wind up
in the habit of just staying a chapter ahead all along, so that
when the time comes for quadratic equations or physics, it is
"no problemo!" Desperate to find resources for their
young, homeshcool moms were probably the first women to use the
internet extensively. I started this site in 1994, having to
learn how to set up a First Class BBS system first. There are
those who even pre-date this!
Motherhood teaches us to multitask, and homeschooling moms
often find themselves not only taking full responsibility for
educating their children, but often also running a home business,
and suddenly finding themselves leading some kind of homeschool
resource such as a website, a support group, a newsletter or
message group. Then they find themselves to be speakers and authors,
or managing conferences to which a thousand people attend! Motherhood
made them competent and smart. Homeschooling gave them the venue
to give back!
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