A Feminist in the Family

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I was born in the early seventies—a great time to be a feminist baby. It was the Free to Be…You and Me era, and my parents were two baby boomers who, while not quite flower children, took to heart the political upheavals of their generation. We wore that record out. In our house, all people were equal and everyone had unlimited potential.

Despite the freedom to be them, I didn’t end up as a CEO, astronaut or Supreme Court justice. I got a world-class college education and worked the same job my grandmother had: housewife.

From the start, I refused the uncomfortably Schlaflyesque moniker of Stay-At-Home-Mom. That seemed so limiting for someone who could do anything, be anything, handle anything. And besides, the command “stay” made me feel like a dog. Unlike Lisa Belkin’s Opt-Out Generation, I was opting-in to the challenge of redefining parenthood on my own terms, like so many of my punk rock idols had done with political and creative scenes. Hell, I thought, this parenting shit was gonna be easy.

My son Elliott changed all that. Elliott was no mere fussy baby. He was a shrieking, sobbing, kicking, howling-until-he-ran-out-of-air-and-turned-purple baby. For hours at a time my wanted, loved, adorable boy would wail inconsolably while my brain melted and ran out my ears, leaving behind only the darkest possible id, alone in that shadowy corner where all the demons hide.

You’ve seen the stories of parents charged with grievous assaults on their children. You see their grainy mugshots and think: How could anyone do that? I knew. I knew how such a horrible thing could happen, though I had only parenthood in common with the moon-faced adults on the news. I had everything going for me. A safe, monogamous relationship (with a man, conveniently, so I had access to his health benefits in addition to many other hetero perks), a middle-class lifestyle that included financial stability, good physical health, a college education, a support network of friends and family, a child that my husband and I planned for. In short, I had everything I needed to get out of my desperate circumstances.