The times, they are a changin'
Jun. 20th, 2008 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fpbCome mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand.
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapidly agin';
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand,
For the times they are a changin'.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g798CHaazwkE1E0TMQv8AZ60Bj1wD91DKPI00
Like all really inevitable and natural development, this one surprised everybody, including me. Well, what the Hell did we all expect? People like babies. Women particularly like babies. Girls - with a few exceptions in whose personal history it is all too easy to read the emotional reasons - intensely love babies. You cannot introduce a baby among a group of schoolgirls without being practically drowned by cooings and bursts of wonder at the cuteness of them. Nobody should have expected that this natural instinct could be for ever silenced by an artificial image of a brilliant career woman, something which, for nine women out of ten, has no reality at all. Women look at Sex and the City with its childless, unmarried, rich, elegant forty-years-old, as they read Hello magazine: as a kind of fable. I do not understand the appeal myself, but I very much doubt whether it has anything to do with daily or real life. Women read their glossy magazines in ordinary, sometimes drab homes, and do not seem to make much of an effort to imitate them. It all seems to me to live in a special space of the mind dedicated to unreality. If any woman identifies with the Sex and the City characters, it cannot be because of their surroundings or careers; it is more a matter of the common complaint about weak, shiftless, commitment-phobic men - which, whether or not it is true, is at least a commonplace female whine. The idea that millions of schoolgirls go out into the great wide world in the hope of becoming top corporate lawyers, marketing VPs, or even fashion designers or Hollywood actresses, seems to me naive in the extreme. Some of them may dream of such things; most of them know that they never will happen. And the universal cultural pressure on girls to regard babies as obstacles in the way of their careers is increasingly nullified by the fact that, across the advanced world, the vast majority of women know that they will have no careers. The idea of spending one's life moving forwards in a job until one achieves a high and permanent rank is outdated, not only for the majority of women, but of men too. The same people who tried to scare us with the fear of being hobbled to babies for life also informed us, in the same breath, that the notion of jobs for life is an outdated superstition.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide;
The chance won't come again.
And don't speak too soon
For the world's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin';
For the loser now will be later to win,
For the times, they are a changin'.
It is a case study in the power and limit of cultural consensus. They removed the stigma from illegitimacy; these days, most people who call someone a "bastard" (and weirdly enough, it is a popular insult) do not know what is meant to be insulting about the term. But they could not remove the attraction from babies, or the magnetism from sex. Every attempt to make maternity unattractive or dreaded must founder on the reality of human nature. A number of people will no doubt absorb these attitudes: they are the kind who, for one reason or another, deviate from the human average. The majority may well learn to repeat them by rote, but will never internalize them; their emptiness will become manifest - they will vanish like mist in the sun - at the sight of a single real baby. You have made it easier, not harder, for your children to have babies. The result, as I said, should have been expected; it is only the result of our universal attachment to statistics - which are, after all, always yesterday's news - that kept us from seeing the obvious.
I am not saying that there will ever be a fad for having babies as such among sixteen-year-olds. One good (or rather bad) experience of childbirth would knock that sort of nonsense on the head, and at any rate even sixteen-year-olds are not that silly. The point is rather that the coming generation is beginning to instinctively see its future, not in terms of career - they learned at the cradle how difficult and fickle a thing it is - but in terms of children, of family, of heirs. These girls know that in nine times out of ten, what will give their lives continuity and content will not be the ever-changing, mostly frustrating, sometimes dangerous and unwelcoming, reality of work, but their families; that their real life is apt to be at home, with a husband or partner if they are lucky, but with a baby anyway. And like young people across the world, they are impatient to start.
The line, it is drawn.
The curse, it is cast.
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'.
AND THE FIRST ONES NOW WILL LATER BE LAST -
For the times, they are a changin'.
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand.
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command,
Your old road is rapidly agin';
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand,
For the times they are a changin'.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g798CHaazwkE1E0TMQv8AZ60Bj1wD91DKPI00
Like all really inevitable and natural development, this one surprised everybody, including me. Well, what the Hell did we all expect? People like babies. Women particularly like babies. Girls - with a few exceptions in whose personal history it is all too easy to read the emotional reasons - intensely love babies. You cannot introduce a baby among a group of schoolgirls without being practically drowned by cooings and bursts of wonder at the cuteness of them. Nobody should have expected that this natural instinct could be for ever silenced by an artificial image of a brilliant career woman, something which, for nine women out of ten, has no reality at all. Women look at Sex and the City with its childless, unmarried, rich, elegant forty-years-old, as they read Hello magazine: as a kind of fable. I do not understand the appeal myself, but I very much doubt whether it has anything to do with daily or real life. Women read their glossy magazines in ordinary, sometimes drab homes, and do not seem to make much of an effort to imitate them. It all seems to me to live in a special space of the mind dedicated to unreality. If any woman identifies with the Sex and the City characters, it cannot be because of their surroundings or careers; it is more a matter of the common complaint about weak, shiftless, commitment-phobic men - which, whether or not it is true, is at least a commonplace female whine. The idea that millions of schoolgirls go out into the great wide world in the hope of becoming top corporate lawyers, marketing VPs, or even fashion designers or Hollywood actresses, seems to me naive in the extreme. Some of them may dream of such things; most of them know that they never will happen. And the universal cultural pressure on girls to regard babies as obstacles in the way of their careers is increasingly nullified by the fact that, across the advanced world, the vast majority of women know that they will have no careers. The idea of spending one's life moving forwards in a job until one achieves a high and permanent rank is outdated, not only for the majority of women, but of men too. The same people who tried to scare us with the fear of being hobbled to babies for life also informed us, in the same breath, that the notion of jobs for life is an outdated superstition.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide;
The chance won't come again.
And don't speak too soon
For the world's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin';
For the loser now will be later to win,
For the times, they are a changin'.
It is a case study in the power and limit of cultural consensus. They removed the stigma from illegitimacy; these days, most people who call someone a "bastard" (and weirdly enough, it is a popular insult) do not know what is meant to be insulting about the term. But they could not remove the attraction from babies, or the magnetism from sex. Every attempt to make maternity unattractive or dreaded must founder on the reality of human nature. A number of people will no doubt absorb these attitudes: they are the kind who, for one reason or another, deviate from the human average. The majority may well learn to repeat them by rote, but will never internalize them; their emptiness will become manifest - they will vanish like mist in the sun - at the sight of a single real baby. You have made it easier, not harder, for your children to have babies. The result, as I said, should have been expected; it is only the result of our universal attachment to statistics - which are, after all, always yesterday's news - that kept us from seeing the obvious.
I am not saying that there will ever be a fad for having babies as such among sixteen-year-olds. One good (or rather bad) experience of childbirth would knock that sort of nonsense on the head, and at any rate even sixteen-year-olds are not that silly. The point is rather that the coming generation is beginning to instinctively see its future, not in terms of career - they learned at the cradle how difficult and fickle a thing it is - but in terms of children, of family, of heirs. These girls know that in nine times out of ten, what will give their lives continuity and content will not be the ever-changing, mostly frustrating, sometimes dangerous and unwelcoming, reality of work, but their families; that their real life is apt to be at home, with a husband or partner if they are lucky, but with a baby anyway. And like young people across the world, they are impatient to start.
The line, it is drawn.
The curse, it is cast.
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'.
AND THE FIRST ONES NOW WILL LATER BE LAST -
For the times, they are a changin'.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 10:42 pm (UTC)Childbirth involves pain, yes, but it does not have to be awful. That is is too often dreadfully awful is problem in our society that has several convergent causes:
1. We expect it to be awful. We set ourselves up for failure in this regard. You know the "sheila-na-gi" carvings found in Ireland and France? Ever wondered why these carvings of women pulling on their own exaggerated labia are carved on churches of all things? A common theory is that they are survivals of pagan ritual, which is why so many Victorian and Edwardian curators tried to systematically excise them. However, another theory holds that they were originally intended as *reassurances* to young mothers: our physiology is designed to let us get HUGE when the time comes. The baby won't get trapped in there! However, if we're panicked about the (possible) pain, we psychologically prevent ourselves from behaving as nature intended.
2. We routinely force women to give birth lying on their backs which puts undue pressure on both mother and child, increasing the difficulty of the birth. The supine position often stops cervical dilation, increasing the risk of tearing. It prevents the child from turning normally as it enters the birth canal leading to a number of complications including "posterior arrest" which doctors generally "correct" by performing a Ceasarean. Then add cramping, numbness, blot clots and pinched nerves to the equation. And top it off with the inherit degradation of the position and feelings of powerlessness that too often accompanies it.
So why do we do it? Habit. Originally the move from birthing stools to birthing tables came about as male doctors took over supervising births from female midwives. The doctors wanted to be able to *see* what was going on. The position is only advantageous to the doctor. The midwives trusted the mothers and vice versa.
3. American hospitals and doctors have a worse habit of administering epidurals, which in addition to blocking pain receptors, also slow dialation and contractions. This, of course, unnaturally slows the labour, but then the doctors want to speed things also (they're on a schedule!) and administer drugs to speed contraction. Which counteracts the epidural. So women ask for more. Which counteracts the the drugs. It's a vicious circle that often ends in bad tearing or resort to Cesarian.
As an addendum to the detrimental effect overuse of epidurals can have on the birth process itself, many women experience permanent back pain afterwards and the doped-up babies (remember, until the umbilical is cut baby gets everything mom gets) often cannot nurse properly for several hours and some cannot even breath properly until the drugs clear their systems.
Child birth is a multi-million dollar revenue stream in the United States, and there is a movement afoot to make home births illegal, thus guaranteeing both more money in doctor's pocket, and the continuation of a system that is actually harmful to both mother and child. A system that makes birth truly, and inescapably awful.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-21 01:09 am (UTC)Believe me: nobody forces anything on these mums. The midwives tell them to get into whatever position they find comfortable. Lying on your back? OK. Lying on your side? Sure. (Occasionally, if the baby's heart rate shows it's a bit distressed, they'll ask the woman to lie on her side, because this can help the baby get into a better position.) Standing up, leaning on a raised bed? Great. In the bath? Sure. All the birthing rooms in the hospitals I've been in have great big bathtubs just for this purpose.
Pain relief is offered if and when the mother wants it. Plenty of mums having their second or third baby never ask for anything. But all the mums having their first end up asking for something. Many will start out saying they don't want an epidural, but once the contractions get really bad, they're begging for it - and cursing the anaesthetist, who's taking ages to show up!
Hell, I know I'll be asking for an epidural when I have a baby. I've seen enough births to know that no matter how compassionate and understanding and lovely the midwives are, pushing a baby out is hell on earth.
Oh, and babies can, and do get stuck. Why do you think so many women used to die in childbirth? There are a gazillion things that can go wrong in labour. Millions of mohters and babies have been saved by performing a c-section. Oh, and by the way, usually doctors here - I don't know about the United States - will do anything and everything to encourage mum to have a normal delivery. C-section is a last resort, when it's too dangerous to deliver vaginally.
Sorry, I just thought I'd point out that even in a health system where hospitals are non-profit organizations, childbirth is generally Not Much Fun. It can be a positive experience for some mums having their second or third child, but a first child is always torture. It's just the way our bodies are.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-21 11:53 am (UTC)Don't get me wrong; I'm not knocking C-sections altogether. My mother was born by one (giving my Dad an excuse when he forgets her birthday: "Well, you weren't actually born ..." Which usually ends with Mom making a "hmrmph" noise). My sister also had one with her fourth child because Aine was in distress (partial placenta previa that tore during labour) And I know that some women lack the the bone structure for a sucessful unassisted birth.
However, the level of C-sections is rampant on this continent - in the US primarily for doctor convienence, but in Canada I've become shocked by the number of first-time mothers who simply schedule a Ceasarian because they don't want to deal with a vaginal birth. (Canada, I believe, sort of sits half way between the US and Britian; we have socialized medicine, but it's not entirely not-for-profit).
no subject
Date: 2008-06-22 08:26 am (UTC)Here in Australia, I really haven't seen caesars happen because of doctors' preference. I've seen a few women get induction of labour when it probably wasn't essential... but that's because there's not enough data on the risks of certain things.
Doctors don't really get involved in normal births, unless the mum is a private patient who has opted to have her obstetrician deliver the baby. Generally, it's all done by midwives. The doctors only get called in if there's a problem, or a particular procedure needs to be done, which the midwives aren't trained for.
What little I know of the US health system doesn't sound very attractive. I get the impression that medicine is treated like a business - hopsitals are trying to make a profit. I'm glad that's not how it works here. I mean, there are doctors who are in private practice, and there are patients who opt to go "private". But that isn't necessary - most people get their necessary healthcare covered by Medicare. It's not 100% - we still pay a lot for our health care, especially if hospital stay is involved - but it's nothing like the US.