Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear

207 Pages·2018·1.8 MB·English

by  Kim Brooks

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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page

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For my children
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In March of 2011, a person I didn’t know, and would never meet, tried to have
me arrested for what she viewed as criminally irresponsible parenting. The
consequences of that action played out slowly over the course of two years, and
ultimately motivated me to begin writing about the experience, and about the
broader subjects of parenthood and fear. To learn about these subjects and their
points of intersection, I spoke to other parents, psychologists, social workers,
historians, sociologists, legal experts, parenting rights’ advocates, safety
advocates, medical professionals, and writers. My goal in initiating these
discussions was not to justify my actions or to establish myself as a parenting
expert. My goal was not to gauge my own success as a mother, or to arrive at
any consensus about how much freedom parents should be allowed in the
choices they make for their children, or how much independence children need
to thrive. My goal, in fact, was not to provide any particular answers at all but,
rather, to pose questions that were not being asked with the frequency or urgency
they deserved.
Why, I wanted to find out, have our notions of what it means to both be a
good parent and to keep a child safe changed so radically in the course of a
generation? In what ways do these changes impact the lives of parents, children,
and society at large? And what, in the end, does the rise of fearful parenting tell
us about our children, our communities, and ourselves?
Inevitably, some will argue that my recollections of anxious motherhood, the
story of what happened to me, and the path of inquiry down which it led me are
not representative, or that they represent only one woman’s unique experience.
They may argue that my experience of motherhood would not have been what it
was if I had had more money or less, a more high-powered career or no career at
all, a more supportive network of extended kin, a different group of friends and
neighbors; or if I were a single mother, a woman of color, an older or younger
mother, a mother who needed, wanted, and expected something more or less
from motherhood. I’d like to concede the point from the start. I’d argue only that
the subjectivity of one woman’s or, specifically, of one mother’s experience
does not render it irrelevant any more than the subjectivity of one soldier’s
experience, or one lover’s experience, or one critic’s—or any of the individual
experiences more commonly deemed suitable for serious discourse.
This problem of diminishing or demeaning women’s experiences by
challenging their universality—to insist that if you can’t speak for everyone then
you can’t speak for anyone—reminds me of a recent encounter I had during a
panel discussion on motherhood and creativity. During the question-and-answer
portion, a woman in the audience raised her hand, then made an incisive and
thoughtful remark about the multitude of practical and artistic challenges
mothers face as writers. She followed up her comment by adding that she wasn’t
any sort of expert but “just a mom.” The idea that being “just a mom” was both
an admission of a form of amateurism and a justification for disregarding a
person—and all of her experiences, observations, knowledge, and so on—
saddened and infuriated me. There is an extended musing about the inherent
problems of perspective in Doris Lessing’s masterpiece The Golden Notebook
that I wanted to share with her. I’ll share it with you (and, if she’s reading this,
that so-much-more-than-just-a-mom) now:
*
Nothing is personal, in the sense that it is uniquely one’s own. Writing about
oneself, one is writing about others, since your problems, pains, pleasures,
emotions—and your extraordinary and remarkable ideas—can’t be yours alone.
The way to deal with the problem of “subjectivity,” that shocking business of
being preoccupied with the tiny individual who is at the same time caught up in
such an explosion of terrible and marvelous possibilities, is to see him as a
microcosm and in this way to break through the personal, the subjective, making
the personal general, as indeed life always does, transforming a private
experience … into something much larger; growing up is after all only the
understanding that one’s unique and incredible experience is what everyone
shares.
*
With this in mind, I share with you the story of the day I left my son in the car
and the journey I embarked on in its aftermath. It is “just” my story. But it
belongs to you as well—as yours belongs to me.
You had a Dame that lov’d you well, That did what could be done for young
And nurst you up till you were strong
And ’fore she once would let you fly
She shew’d you joy and misery,
Taught what was good, and what was ill,
What would save life, and what would kill.
Thus gone, amongst you I may live,
And dead, yet speak and counsel give.
Farewell, my birds, farewell, adieu,
I happy am, if well with you.
—ANNE BRADSTREET, “IN REFERENCE TO HER CHILDREN, 23 JUNE 1659”
In his late sixties, Herman Melville took a four-year-old granddaughter to the park and then
forgot her there.
—DAVID MARKSON, READER’S BLOCK
Oh, honey, you’re not the world’s worst mother. What about that freezer lady in Georgia?
—HOMER SIMPSON