My Father is a Feminist

After staying up too late last night reading Wendell Berry's novel, "Hannah Coulter," in which the protagonist grows up working hard on a farm, going to bed exhausted from manual labor and rising early, I awakened around 7:30, longing for a sleep-in and coffee. Merry was singing a song at my elbow; Elspeth was alternately chewing on my nipple and crawling on my head. I stumbled downstairs and immediately and grumpily began taking stock of my husband's shortcomings. (My husband loves and looks forward to this pasttime of mine). He had not swept the floor or washed the cookie sheet from the night before; he had not fixed me coffee; he had not changed Elspeth's diaper. Never mind that he had cooked dinner the night before and cleaned the kitchen, or that he had fed Elspeth breakfast.

After a good strong cup of coffee, I was able to find my inner reason and begin again my internal discussion of feminism. What does it mean to be a daily feminist? Does it mean ticking off household duties, weighing out who did what and deciding whether I am succumbing to prescribed roles? My brother-in-law has pointed out that the women in my family talk hard feminism but love their men. Well, the two are not exclusive. Gentleness and feminism are not by any means contradictions of each other. And being a feminist does not mean that women are grouchy people or militants, though they jolly well have equal rights to those two things! But the point is, nobody, regardless of who they are, has the right to treat another person badly.

I grew up with the best parents possible. My mother was a feminist in every true meaning of the word; she consistently instilled in her daughters self-respect, determination, and idealism backed by the practice of hard work. She pooh-poohed moodiness, never gave stock to self-pity, and expected us to work hard and hold fast to true ideas of ourselves. Under her guidance, I never doubted for a minute that I was inherently worthwhile and strong. She generally espoused the notion I recently heard in "Mary Poppins," that while men with exceptional character can individually be adored, "as a race they're rather stupid." She did not encourage false vanity and even laughed at it but always, always affirmed that we were beautiful not because of how we appeared, but because of who we were, deep down. Nothing could change that, no matter what people said about us or did to us.

My father is a gentle, soft-spoken, easy-going humble man who works hard, thinks well, succeeds quietly, and loves us all with a deep, abiding tenderness. I have never heard or seen disrespectful behavior from him, especially regarding women. He takes a lot of flack and criticism from my sister and I, but he knows we are proud of him and hold him up as an impossible ideal for all men.

The point is, my parents are more who they are than what they do. My father has his PhD in public health and is a writer; my mother is a powerful speaker and has her Masters of Christian Education, which she took course by course with Kenyan classmates when I was in high school in Nairobi and enjoyed every minute of it. Both my mother and father are self-sacrificial. Both expect and value self-discovery and individual pursuit in each other, and share and nurture newness in each other. Both value family over everything else; both profess to love each other more than they love us, emphasizing that this is the way to love us best. They are not perfect, though I often thought they were. Their marriage is not perfect, though there is far more to admire and emulate in their partnership than to criticize.

My mother is a feminist, and my father is also a feminist. And how could a daughter ask for more?

I wish I could say I fell in love with my husband Martin at first sight. I did not. But I did fall for him at second sight, which is almost as good. After our second meeting, and after just one kooky, wonderful conversation, I told my roommate I had found the man of my dreams. Martin's mind and manner were the first draw; after that I found out he was a musician and a writer. I understood always that he was exceptionally kind in the deepest way. I didn't think much of his poetry at first, but as the years passed I began to think he was an excellent poet. It is handy to be married to a fellow writer, and it is good to be married to a life-long learner and a gentle person. When we married, we discussed children and decided that when we had them, we would both work part-time and stay home part-time. I can say in perfect honesty that Martin would have been happy to stay home full-time while I went out to work.

And then Merry came along. Martin was in graduate school and I was teaching English at the Jesuit high school in Missoula, MT. After my maternity leave, I went back to work, leaving Merry at home with Martin during the day. After work, I came home, Martin passed off baby like a baton and went on to his evening classes. It was miserable. Every time I stepped outside to walk to work, I felt as if I were ripping out my heart and leaving it bleeding in the doorway. Once I was at work, I enjoyed teaching my classes. But I couldn't shake the thought of all I was missing, with Merry changing quickly and still just an infant.

To make the separation harder, Merry refused to take my bottled breastmilk and cried all day, so Martin began rushing her in for feedings during my breaks. I barely saw Martin. We quickly realized this was no way to live.

And then I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I wanted to stop working at the high school and stay home with Merry. I longed for it so much that I categorically insisted that this must be. Martin felt a bit double-crossed, since we had discussed childrearing and agreed that we would share it evenly. "I don't care what I said then," I told him, "This is how I feel now." And so Martin sacrificed for me, and found a full-time job, and I got my heart's desire and stayed with Merry.

This is what the partnership of marriage is about: a life-style of mutuality and self-sacrifice. We have followed Martin's vocation to many different places, and though I take my vocation with me wherever I go (parenting at 'home' and writing), moving in pursuit of his job prospects has involved hard work and sacrifice from me. But it is mutual, and it is based on choice, and that is truly liberating.

I am baffled by women who talk as if they exist purely for the whim of their spouses. "Poor so-and-so," they'll say, referring to their husbands, "I haven't put on lipstick all week." And then, often in the same breath, they berate their spuses and denounce them as demanding and unreasonable devils.

I do not dress, or wear make-up, or do anything purely for Martin's benefit, anymore than he does everything for my benefit. To do so would be unhealthy, because acting in such a way would put unrealistic expectations upon each other. I do not wait around for Martin to fulfill all my needs. He does not depend upon me for his self-worth. If Martin died, God forbid, I would suffer, but I would not stop being a whole person with high expectations of myself and my daughters. And I would jolly well keep putting on clothes to please myself and nobody else.

What Martin says, or does, cannot change the person I am at the core of my being. And vice-versa. At the same time, we expect and celebrate all the things that we mutually contribute to each other and to our family. We realize that we are a small community of sorts, made to exist within a larger community. We realize and affirm that our love for one another must sometimes, and often, involves self-denial.

But true feminism does not come from a series of things I do, or what my profession is (though who a person is and what they do dynamically affects each other). True feminism comes from inside me, from a deep, unchanging well of self-respect and faith that I am whole, worthwhile, and capable. This is an ideal that I wish for everyone I love, male and female. It is a reality that I am constantly reminding myself of and working towards.

Tomorrow, I want to think more about feminism and its practical implications for my daughters.

But now my Elspeth is awake and typing with one hand while I breastfeed with the other is proving tricky. (Note to self: You chose this.) Right-o! So I did! Hallelujah!