Kids & Parenting
Katie Roiphe: My Newborn Is Like a Narcotic
Why won't feminists admit the pleasure of infants?
In the six weeks since my baby was born, I seem to have lost all worldly ambition. I can think about September, when I am supposed to go back to work, only with dread. I have a class to teach. I have to start writing again. But the idea of talking about ideas in front of students or typing a coherent sentence (i.e., my normal life) seems totally implausible. Even now, the prospect of writing a few paragraphs about this problem seems almost out of reach. Taking care of the baby—physical, draining, exhilarating—is more like farming: following the rhythms of the earth, getting up at dawn, watching the corn flush in the sunrise. It is not at all like writing.
Some of my fear of returning to work may just be an accurate assessment of my capabilities. The other day it emerged that I lack the intellectual wherewithal to set a table: It was just a little too challenging to hold the number of people at dinner in my head on the walk from the kitchen to the deck. Some of this may be hormones; some is certainly sleep deprivation. I know from my days suffering from insomnia that sleep deprivation is tricky; it makes you sloppy, nervy, and fogged. But you also start to take a kind of perverse satisfaction in the jangly feeling of total exhaustion; you begin to thrive on the physical crisis, the special adrenaline of it.
When the baby was four weeks old, I had to do a reading at Barnes and Noble. I had written the introduction to Gay Talese's Thy Neighbor's Wife, and I was scheduled to do a reading with Talese. On the night of the reading, I left the baby with someone I trust completely and absolutely. I managed to put on a dress and look something like the person who gave readings who I used to be. But when I walked out onto the street, I felt like I was missing a limb. Even though Talese was riveting by any objective standard, my concentration faltered. During the reading I thought about the baby. As people asked questions, I calculated how long the taxi ride home would take. Afterward, there were people who wanted to buy one of my books. The manager of the bookstore held out a pen, and I apologized and told him that I couldn’t sign books, that I had to run home. The manager looked a little bewildered. This was, after all, a book signing at which the authors traditionally sign books.
On the escalator I panicked slightly because the person in front of me wasn’t moving, and I couldn’t pass her to get out of the store quickly enough. During the taxi ride down the FDR highway, I looked out at the water and cried. It was insane, sentimental, out of proportion, and I was aware that it was insane, sentimental, and out of proportion. But only when the baby was back in my arms did I feel OK again.
I remember visiting one of my closest friends on her maternity leave last summer. We sat on a wooden bench in her garden and drank iced coffees, and gazed at her second baby. She is a writer, and we talked about how the women writers we most admired had no children, or have had one child, at the absolute most, but never two. (Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf and Jane Austen had no children; Mary McCarthy, Rebecca West, Joan Didion, and Janet Malcolm all had one.) My friend looked down at her newborn and her tiny eyelashes. She could entertain this conversation in an academic way, but as she adjusted the baby’s hat I could see how far removed it was from anything that mattered to her. Here, sitting in the garden, looking at the eyelashes, would you trade the baby for the possibility of writing The House of Mirth? You would not.
People often compare having a new baby to the early days of a love affair, which is true as far as it goes, but one’s physical fixation on, and craving for, a newborn is much stronger and more intense that that. How often in a love affair can you literally find yourself in tears because you were away from a man for three hours?
SNL: Equal Opportunity Objectifiers
Jon Hamm spent most of the Saturday Night Live episode he hosted last night shirtless.
Confessions of a Woman Comedy Writer
Allison Silverman accepts one from New York Women in Film & Television (and tells us why it's rare).
Comments
Versions of Feminism
By: Morland | Wed, 08/26/2009 - 11:50
I understand what Dr. Roiphe's saying. Feminism is typically portrayed in the mainstream media by people who clearly believe having children is a lesser experience than working. You can certainly argue that it is the choice of reporters and editors (still mainly men) who they interview and who they quote on the subject, but its not hard to find someone who is the spokeperson for a feminist organization who expresses those feelings. If you like being a mother, its difficult not feel devalued when you read such statements.
Babies are cute? No way!
By: P Starling | Wed, 08/26/2009 - 10:35
Lots of fury here. But I think the funniest part of this is pretending that somehow babies have been getting dissed all these years. It's like saying that high school sex education just ignores, IGNORES, the fact that sex is hella fun. All those teenagers who are being brainwashed into believing sex is only about procreation! And disease! Someone should stand up for them! Why don't any of those so-called educators talk about how sex FEELS?
Because, duh, most people know that babies are fun and cute and smell like little milk-sodden bundles of opiates. Thousands of years of little girls playing with baby dolls would indicate that we get that at a basic cultural level. What feminism has done has been to inject some reality into the dialogue: yes, babies are great, but they're also sometimes hard work and interfere with other life plans and can give the wider world a reason to dismiss women's ideas and education. And it's not always opiates, all the time, for everyone! Rounding out the cultural narrative of BabyLoveAllTheTime is not a bad thing.
I'm a little puzzled by the way Dr. Roiphe seems to have missed the broader cultural conditioning and picked up only the warnings. I suppose it happens to a minority, especially if their nearest and dearest are intensely focused on passing on the warnings, and if they have no direct contact with babies. It is kind of charming and funny to see a woman who espoused the fish-and-bicycle thing suddenly fall googly-eyed in love, and it's kind of funny to see a woman who just doesn't get all those self-effacing parents with pictures of their children (NO!) posted in a public place suddenly go into paroxysms of rapture about her little bundle o' joy. But it doesn't reflect anything about the wider world of feminism.
Different Experience
By: Shana | Wed, 08/26/2009 - 08:47
My son was born July 26th and so he is just over a month old now. I do truly find him intoxicating, but for me I do not feel the need to have him attached to my hip. My first time away from him was the Friday after he was born. I was more concerned about him eating (since I was breastfeeding) than anything else. I got home after being gone for over two hours and thankflly he had slept the entire time I was gone. I took him to lunch with one of my friends the week after he was born, this past Sunday he went with me to a meetup. And this week we are trying to get him used to the bottle so that I can go to the movies with one of my friends and he can have some more alone time with his dad. And I still have the inspiration to write. Not writing as much as I want since I am exhausted, but I certainly have no desire to have my life revolve around what is honestly one of the best things to happen to my husband and I.
yep, I've been drugged, too
By: andy | Wed, 08/26/2009 - 08:03
Oh, the slow people on the escalator, the tearful taxi ride to get home to your baby. I've been there. My first time away, when the baby was about 3 months old, I got a speeding ticket driving home from a work assignment. And by the time the cop got to my window, I was bawling. I had to get home, I explained. The baby. Was the baby okay? he asked. Yes, yes, I said. I just had been away for three hours and needed to get home. He wrote me the ticket and reminded me the baby needed me to be alive (oh I was NOT going THAT fast). And when I got home, the baby WAS fine. But if anyone but a state trooper had tried to delay my return, I would have gotten violent, or completely lost it. I was fortunate enough that I worked from home and didn't have to separate much in those early months, but it truly was for me (and Roiphe, evidently) a biological instinct to get home to that little narcotic. I also remember being aware that, to be socially acceptable, I had to talk about something other than the baby. I had to pretend to care. But I didn't, not really. And yes, it fades. The baby is a toddler now and I go off to work just fine. And for those moms who might not have enjoyed the narcotic effect, who had colicky babies, who missed their more adult conversations? That's fine, too. Maybe you'll love the pre-teen years, or melt over the grandchildren, whatever. I'm just glad Roiphe put into words the hormonal, emotional, opium den that some of us experienced but no one ever really seemed to talk about.
Because not all infants are pleasureable?
By: staceyruf | Wed, 08/26/2009 - 01:55
Its great that Katie has had an incredibly positive experience as a new mom...but not all babies are alike and not all new motherhood experiences are the same. Financial pressures, post-partum depression, family stressors may all interfere with bonding with an infant. And while the vast majority of newborns are quite pleasureable there are a percentage that are not - and those newborns that do have more challenging temperments could also interfere with a mother getting that narcotic like effect from her newborn (also depending on the mother's temperment).
I speak from the experience of having an extremely fussy/colicky newborn -- I stayed at home from work for 12 weeks after my daughter's birth - and while I bonded with my daughter and love her deeply, the 12 weeks at home were the hardest I've ever experienced - take the sleep deprivation, the cycles of eating and erratic sleep and toss in incessant and inconsolable crying day after day week after week -I was looking for some narcotics to take when she was around 6 weeks old (just kidding!!).
I would have loved to have had a Katie Roiphe new-mom like experience - but it wasn't in the cards for me - and I had to come to terms with this over the course of my maternity leave. I also struggled with feeling guilt about wanting to return to work early to take a break from all the crying (I stuck it out and am glad I did) and feeling grateful for being able to get out of the house every day. My baby has now outgrown the extreme fussiness and in some ways I think I feel even closer to her than if her newborn days were filled with a narcotic-like effect - kind of like we've been through war together. I have also returned to work and am a better mom because doing something I enjoy and interacting with adults brings me joy and balance - I am able to give more of myself to my daughter because I work - but that is just my experience - I wouldn't expect all working moms to have it. Feminism should acknowledge that there are a range (or a continuum) of emotions/feelings that a woman can experience when caring for an infant - none better or worse than any other. After all, all of these infants are going to grow up to be teenagers - and all of us moms are ALL going to be in the same boat!
The real question is ...
By: fangboy3000 | Tue, 08/25/2009 - 21:18
Why does Roiphe have to apologize for enjoying her newborn?
I get it. I really do. I get it because three years ago I would have vomited in my mouth after reading this column. I would have penned a column, just like Roiphe did a few months ago, bemoaning women who use their kid's photo for their Facebook profile pic.
But then I had my daughter. And this committed career woman suddenly couldn't remember what was so important about her job any more.
I understand that entering motherhood isn't the same for everyone. Actually, Roiphe's experience sounds a little more heavenly than mine. In hindsight, I was equal parts in love and completely scared about having a child.
But like, Roiphe, I suspect anyway, my willingness to abandon everything about who I was before I became a mother was startling. It's almost like I could hear this voice in me, the voice I identified as the staunch feminist, chastising me for longing to stay at home after working my way into a management position at work. It almost felt like a dirty secret, something I was too afraid to share with any of my girlfriends, for fear they would respond to me much like so many of you have responded to Roiphe's column.
On a side note, the
By: musicalCha1rs | Tue, 08/25/2009 - 21:09
On a side note, the "narcotic" effects of having a newborn on the author scare me off pregnancy even more than labor pains.
It's the subtitle.
By: k8ward | Tue, 08/25/2009 - 20:59
I am a feminist and a formerly swooning mother and I agreed with the content of this article, but found the subtitle unnecessary and strange. Feminists won't, "admit," how pleasurable babies are? Have you so limited your concept of who feminists can be that you don't know how many thousands of us have yummied up and nursed our own perfect babies?
The article (and the one defending it) points out that most famous feminist authors haven't focused on the greatness of babies, but since it was also made clear that most of the authors considered weren't mothers (and I guess we're really narrowing down our database to the very most famous of them), I think we can see why they wouldn't be focused on motherhood.
Another issue might be that by the time we feminists have gotten back to our writing projects, our chemicals have mellowed a bit and we are writing, not as mothers of delicious newborns, but as mothers of far more demanding (though deeply rewarding) kids.
I really did appreciate your article, but the subtitle is just plain out of line.
Great article
By: JJL | Tue, 08/25/2009 - 20:58
I loved it. Fantastic. And congratulations on your new baby.
By the way, for all the commenters who tout their feminist credentials while attacking "Ms. Roiphe's" article -- she has a PhD, so she is not *Ms.* Roiphe. She is Professor Roiphe or Dr. Roiphe. Please do not boast about how staunchly feminist you are if you cannot acknowledge this woman's advanced degree and its accompanying title.
"Why won't feminists admit the pleasure of infants?"
By: closetpuritan | Tue, 08/25/2009 - 17:35
"Why won't feminists admit the pleasure of infants?" just did not belong there. (I suspect that the editors, not Roiphe herself, were to blame.)Maybe that's a good way to get people to read your article, but it's also a good way to get people pissed off at you and undermine your more moderate point (which takes up a paragraph on the second page of your article, and which I don't interpret as the major point of your article) that feminism tends to downplay the enjoyable aspects of childcare in order to get childcare taken seriously as work. Well, yes. Do you think that if the argument went, "We really love taking care of our babies and it's the most euphoric feeling in the world!!! (But could you please take the work we do taking care of your children seriously?)" that would be a good way to confront the patriarchy? As others have pointed out (sorry, the comments disappear when I go to post my comment), that's really not the province of feminism, and a lack of emphasis on this experience is not the same as denying the experience--leaving aside the fact that this is not a universal experience.
There was some really interesting and insightful stuff in there about how your universe contracts and how drug addiction-like (in both good and bad ways) having a baby can be (doesn't always, but clearly does for Roiphe). As pointed out earlier, this article is interesting given her previous article about moms putting their babies' photos up as their FaceBook photo. Unfortunately, I think the soul of article got lost by tacking on "Why won't feminists admit the pleasure of infants?" right below the title. Sort of like the recent Time article of "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin,"--the extreme title there concealed a more reasonable point in the actual article, as well.