We Make Human Capital – A Book Review by Maureen Eich VanWalleghan

Become a mommy and become a part of a phenomenon as defined by dictionary.com: a fact, occurrence, or circumstance observed or observable...

After reading The Price of Motherhood, Why the most important job in the world is still the least valued by Ann Crittenden, I realized that the place I call Mommyville is real. The location where I feel tremendous love for and by my child, but where I am completely invisible to the outside world is in fact created by the culture I live in.

In chapters like “How Mothers’ Work Was ‘Disappeared’: The Invention of the Unproductive Housewife,” Crittenden discusses things mothers know intuitively, but don’t want to talk about, can’t quite put their finger on or sadly, think is just a personal issue, like getting a divorce with children is a sentence of poverty. Or that moms are directly impacting GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and yet in the United States the contribution of raising children is not calculated into the formula for the creation of our economic health. Throughout the book, Crittenden uncovers the history, politics and phenomenon of how mothers’ work is unvalued in our culture.

Now lest one think I just picked this book because I am feeling crabby, let me say that this book has so turned my head around and spotlighted what I have been feeling from the moment my daughter was born, which was that I had somehow become irrelevant. This was acutely more distressing since I came to the marriage and baby-making party quite late. Being a single career woman till after 40 means that the shock has been tremendous. But, after reading this book, I don’t feel crazy anymore. Crittenden discusses money, how it’s spent, and who has control of it in the context of marriage, being a stay-at-home mom and raising children. What’s eerily fascinating is that those fights I sometimes have with my husband are actually the same fights many women are having...because really husbands’ attitudes are shaped by the larger culture as well.

I am reviewing this book—which is not new, it was originally published in 2001, though it did get new preface from the author in 2010—because I want to contribute to the mommy revolution...we are in one right now. I want to remind us that it is mothers who make the big changes for the good in this world. Consider the film The Race To Nowhere, which is challenging America’s push for excessive achievement in school or a more recent film, Miss Representation, that considers the limiting images of women in the media. What’s so wonderful about these films is that the writer/directors are mothers, who embrace their motherhood role to champion change. Put their work together with The Price of Motherhood and one finds a potent mix of information and empowerment.

Read The Price of Motherhood and discover why “feminism” or even conservatism have an investment in keeping the work of mothers invisible. Read The Price of Motherhood and discover why wealthy women have a tough road in marriage and divorce. The truth is that divide and conquer has always kept women from finding their voices. See what Crittenden reveals about the most important work on the planet: raising kids. It will give you a whole new prospective about the phenomenon of being a mother in the 21st century.

P.S. Definitely check out Crittenden's website, linked above. In Contacts there is great information about improving the economic status of mothers.

I Want To Be An Old Woman by Maureen Eich VanWalleghan

Do you ever wake up and just feel old? Could be hormones, or I’m just tired or who knows what, but I think it’s just the waning of my youth seeping ever so slowly out of me. Aging is mostly attitude, right? If I feel young, I am young. Maybe...

In my mind, aging is understanding how helpless and inconsequential one really is and not caring. The warrior self of my youth is giving way to a sense that I have little impact in the world beyond my family and even then I am but fleeting.

Oh to wax so poetically when really I am just feeling pissy. Right now, I am reading Free-Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy. It’s the third book of really profound, life-changing books I have recently read and I’m feeling depressed, sad, helpless and finally wondering how to make the world a less nutty place. The other two books I finished include The Mask of Motherhood by Susan Maushart and The Price of Motherhood by Ann Crittenden.

I know that I am sensitive person and others might read these books and not feel as deeply or as emotionally impacted as I do. My guess is that society has always asked the question “What are we coming to...” But, when one starts asking the question and feeling powerless to change things then there is that feeling of being “old.” Now maybe if becoming old wasn’t such a horror than I might feel differently. I remember telling an older friend—a woman who was 35 years older than myself—that her time for being a “warrior” was over, but remembering and educating and sharing her wisdom was of great importance and equally as valuable.

We had been talking about Bella Abzug, who was this woman’s personal friend and who knew that Bella died feeling she was a failure. My friend was explaining that feeling and I—in my youthful exuberance—was trying to console her. Now I am beginning to understand what my friend was talking about. The wisdom of age is not valued and when the warrior self is too tired to carry on the fight (of anything that we believe in) then the feeling of hopelessness can harden in the heart like a bitter lump.

So maybe this pissiness is just mid-life angst. Angst from the German meaning a great abiding fear. Do I feel fear? I do. I am reading Skenaky’s book and feeling it deeply. Not even the reflection of seeing all that I am doing right with my daughter can remove the underlying fear I feel about everything. Fear of aging, fear of not being successful, fear of being a bad parent, fear of isolation, fear of waking up wondering how did I end up...where ever. Fear is a great motivator, but one can choke on too much of it.

When I see an old woman wearing shorts with spider vein legs, baggy knees, no makeup, gray hair and her oldness hanging all about her and she is just having fun out in the world, I know that she is not afraid. She just doesn’t care anymore. I would like to have that freedom too. It looks a lot more appealing than the old woman who is trying to be youthful in clothes, hair, makeup etc. Right now I am in the in-between stage. I sometimes feel old, but I don’t really look it and I am still very invested in maintaining a youthfulish appearance because of fear. Oldness has not fully settled on me. I am walking a fine line. I have a sense of my mortality, my smallness and a part of me still wants to fight...the warrior that is down, but struggles to their feet...a hero's journey. Yeah right, this is just life, not a movie with a three act structure and dramatic arc. Oh well...

As I often say about my daughter, she is just going through a development phase...she’ll get beyond this (whatever this is). You know, she’ll grow out of it—hopefully sooner rather than later. I think I am going through a phase and I hope I grow out of it sooner rather than later.