Focus 580; Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace

With peace Her name is Sara Ruddick. She is a professor instructor in philosophy and women's studies at Eugene Lang College and the book as you listen to us talk I think you'll get a better understanding but just to give you a very brief kind of introduction she makes the case in the book that that various kinds of activities pursuits bring about in the practitioner certain way of thinking and a way of looking at the world and that that is true of mothering as it is true of a lot of other things. She also as as you will discover takes a fairly broad definition of mothering. It is more to her than simply a biological act. So it is possible that it's something a man could do although traditionally it has been done by women. And she says that it's bringing it causes you to think about the world in certain sorts of ways and that that kind of thinking is innately anti militarist and that because of that people who.

Spend a lot of time mothering are in a sense from ready made to be peacemakers. I think that that is not not doing it justice to the ideas in the book and and you will get a chance to learn more as we talk and also to react to what Professor Ruddock has to say. Let me give you our telephone number. Our number here in Champaign-Urbana is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Our toll free line is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. At any point here perhaps you'll have questions or you would like to react to what our guest has to say you share your own thoughts with us. Please do that. Professor Ruddock Hello. Good morning thank you very much for for being with us. I hope that that I did an adequate enough job at least to start off. Well you certainly did if I could only say one small thing and that is that I don't think others are innately peaceful or the maternal thinking of the night landing militarist comedy mothers are

avid supporters of wars history. But I do think is maternal thinking could become anti militarist. All right and the mothers as you said are fat. Become peacemakers even though they're not yet reliably peace. There is no guarantee that not only no guarantee but that's the real history of maternal militarism and it's perfectly understandable that mothers would be like most people would be loyal to their government and it might be their sons who are fighting for it. Well I think probably the place to start is to have you talk a little bit about what you mean when you use the term mothering because as I did as I try to explain that I think that you have a particular meaning in mine and that it is more than biology so it has more to do with giving. It is more than giving birth. It's also more than you know one might be tempted to use a word like parenting but that but there seems to be something more to it than

that when you think about it. What do you mean by mothering. Well you said it exactly right I think of it as a kind of work. Be kind of the part of the work that takes place in earliest infancy is an extremely small part of it. Mothering goes on for years. Years and years in fact I don't think really people ever stop mothering. And if you think of the problems of the work the problems of the child left out of a birthday party the problems of teenagers come to be on drugs. These are the kinds of problems that anyone doing the work may confront depending on the culture they live in and so on. And that kind of work can be done as well I believe by men and by women. There might be biological differences between men and women mothers. We don't know that really. But I don't see any reason why in principle or and ahead of the fact we can say that men can't

be just as good mothers as women. Some people I think would be prepared to to to agree with you to a point although they might say that there is still some something very special about the fact that the woman carries the child inside her and gives birth and that that's still the thing that men can't do and that somehow that means there will be a bond or. That it will affect a woman in a way that a man cannot cannot just cannot be affected. Well I. I distinguish mothering from birth giving and birth giving it. Of course something only women do. I had them talk about all mothers as being adoptive in that any mother man or woman makes a social commitment when they take upon themselves the the commitment to protect and nourish the child.

I'm sure I'm not sure but I've talked to a lot of adopting parents. I think it's probably very likely that in the very earliest months of infancy the birth mother has a different connection with her infant than either a man or a woman who has adopted a child without giving birth. But I don't think that that in the whole scope of mothering work in the whole scope of a lifetime that that difference is either great or predictable. But I do think it's very important I think. A lot of time in the book talking about birth and I think it's very important to honor female birth givers. And one of the things I think that maternal thank can do whether men or women is to begin to think about births differently and honor the female birth givers. You when you talk about the business of mothering you suggest that there are maybe three major

components or or three major activities broadly defined that one is involved in and I'd like to perhaps talk a little bit about each of those things and and the ways in then it seems you go on to suggest that the fact that one is involved in those things leads one to think in certain ways or perhaps think about the world in certain ways and maybe that does change. It changes one and how you feel about things so perhaps we could we could talk about a little bit about each of these things. The first the perhaps the most fundamental maybe the one that comes closest to instinct although I don't know how you feel about using that word. Is is simply the business of it of preservation of protecting the fact that babies when they come into the world and and children for for a lot of their life really do need to be protected from things and that maybe the most elemental. Role the most the strongest sort of gut feelings that a parent has

comes from the desire to protect you know to to to to almost to physically put yourself in between the child and and whatever threat you might see. Yes you put it very well. Where where does that come from do you think. Is it in fact a kind of instinctual thing. I don't think we can use the word instinct easily certainly because there are cultures where mothers and birth giving mothers let their children die. And in particular there's a study done by was that in turn from about mothers in 18th century France. That said the baby's out to be wet nurse even though they knew that made it very likely they wouldn't survive. But certainly from being a mother and talking to mothers there is something more in the fully compelling that seems to come from one's whole being about the desire to I think. How did you put it very well stand between your

child and the danger that it might suffer. And what's very interesting about this work is that mothers do this despite very often being furious that their children are hassled themselves about their other parts of their lives and whatever I mean like they commit themselves to protection despite the fact that children are provocative and they're often powerless and hassled by all sorts of other things. Well in what way do you think that that that effects one's one's view of the world and what is happening. Well this is a very interesting place to actually look. I think ideally I would hope that mothers who have protected their children could continue to protect their children and the world's children from the kinds of violence is that war and poverty and

racism are examples of it. And I think certain kinds of thinking that arises. For example the deep knowledge that you cannot control the world and that your best efforts won't guarantee safety. I talk about this a lot in the book. This could lead you to be very suspicious of violence and force and and just trying to make things safe for children. On the other hand mothers could also become militarist out of this because they could see only the army can. Protect my children. Only the army can protect my country which has to be safe for my children. It's exactly the kind of place where I see this immense tension between the commitment of mothering to preserve lives which goes against the military commitment to kill. And there's this tension between a mother's commitment on the one hand and then on the other hand he can go over and be prepared to kill if he's prepared to take other people's children as her enemy. I think also you know that this is a place where parents I think often

feel tremendously frustrated and it might really lead one to despair when you think about all of the dangers that your child is likely to be exposed to and how little you can really do about it. I mean you physically you can't I mean you just can't you cannot physically put yourself in between your child and the danger and and so that might lead wanted to just get rather depressed because there's there is so much danger out there. Yes and I think and that's I talk in the book about how to kind of resume cheerfulness is necessary for this work protection and how parents are tempted to despair. And at the same time also of attempted to be what I called the Curie denial the denial the real deny the really evil for the world to cheerily pretty things up this resilient tearfulness things. I mean one of them. Characteristics of maternal thinking. One of the things that maternal thinkers identified as necessary to their work.

Would would it be trivializing it to say that one of the things that maternal practice develops in you or maybe you would hope is is this is a sense of optimism that that problems no matter how large they seem in some way can be confronted. Yes optimism hope and the danger and that is if you think it's because you're of the position of a child for the moment. The danger in that optimism is that is the temptation to cover things over to pretend things are better than they are not to call like even it when it's domestic violence whether it's social policy whatever for a mother not to say the truth about what's going on to the extent that a child needs truth so that you have this conflict between the necessary hope you must have and the necessary hope your child must have

and a child's need for some kind of truth that genuinely care. True but nonetheless true. Our guest this morning is Sara Ruddick. She's a professor and instructor in philosophy and women's studies at Eugene Lang College. We're talking with her about some of the ideas in her book maternal thinking toward a politics of peace. Beacon Press is the publisher. I do have a caller I'd like to bring into the discussion rather than make them wait. Others who are listening certainly are invited to our local lines are all open. The number is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 that's the local number. Our toll free line is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And we'll talk with someone right here. Hello. Yes. You know I'm I'm crying like I'm about I'm kind of attack right. Of. I'm sure.

But. Oh it's hard to look at it. OK. Push them in the form of bugs and witches which is so totally dominated it's rightwing and it's redundant of course elements. In the end of civilization which seem preoccupied with the politics of it. Mr. Spangler is pounced in that spirit which animates Western civilization and I think it most assuredly I was listening this fellow Mr. Gaffney in your last hour. Arguing that

for us. Well obviously more box more boxes more clout for the military or the military it seems to me as well as other much reactionary elements in the society have a habit that rather per million man by its short hair. If you are in the expression. And then I'd like to know what what you're I guess that thinks of the fight also like too. I recommend that to anybody who is really concerned at the direction our civilization is taking two or three books. One of which was sort of a Bible college a generation in the late 60s early 70s a book by Norman know how to live again. Also Brian Lochore the perverted priorities of American politics. It seems to me that we should be spending approximately what we're spending on the military through to cure environmental and miscellaneous other social ills and

approximately what we're spending on the environment and these other social care the military which is one way and another devouring the civilization the military and such like an institution. And thank you. All right I will thank you for the comment professor read again. Maybe you have some reactions. Well I I'm very much in sympathy with the feelings and the views expressed by the caller and one find in my book I talk about the ways that maternal thinking and a kind of standpoint of care is contrasted with the perverted values that dominate our cultures. So even the word he uses of perversion I agree with entirely. I think that I think that in the piece Politics point now. Go back to mothers. I think it's very important if you're engaged in any kind of peace politics. And by that I mean any kind of politics that allows people to live together without killing each other in mutual

respect. You're bound to suffer a great deal of despair in these days and on the other hand we should also say this is partly because of Gorbachev partly for other reasons I think also a unique time of hope. So we shouldn't just emphasize the despair but when you engage in any kind of project whether it's something I've been thinking about recently more adequate services for very young mothers or whether it's trying to remove cruise missiles. You're going to feel an immense range of the forces against you and you're going to never know whether what Europe you particularly has done has made that much difference. We all do not we all but all across the country there are people you can gauge in certain kinds of projects. Union organizing health projects disarmament projects and having minimal success but some success that has to somehow we have to see is figuring into a larger. Picture. Now if I can go from that view of

peace politics back to mothers I think that mothering is a kind of preparation for developing that resilient tearfulness very few days with the child is good enough by the highest standards of the quote good mother. Numerous things are disrupted child's life things that a mother couldn't possibly control. Illness and accident for example as well as deep anguish the child suffers who can't understand and can't protect her or him from in the faces that he has to continue to be in some way resiliently cheerful not denying but not despairing. Many mothers despair and many peace makers despair. I think there is an ever present possibility that mothering gives rise to I think other value and another virtue which is resilient cheerfulness. I suppose if you were going to look for one sort of word that would describe

what is what is NO PLACE necessary for parenting. And if if it has the proper effect on one I think if you weren't that way when you started you'd be that way when you finished or else you wouldn't finish. And that is resilience and what seems to be to come through to me is that you're saying is is that if there's one thing the experience of mothering will do for one it's to get to the point where you will bend with the breeze and recognize the limits of your your power. I mean you know there is only you know enter in if we're talking about preservation there's only so far one can go. If you're talking about trying to get your child to do what you want to do then sometimes what he or she wants. Then you recognize there's definitely limitations of your power there and that that in some sense that even when you're thinking about. Parents wanting their children to grow up to

be certain kinds of individuals that even that is in some sense out of your hands. It is a process that runs a course of its own in that there's very little. In a sense very little you can do about it so if it's going to teach you anything it's that the flexibility and the limits of power. But on the other hand that you can't give up trying altogether. And the example you give of older adolescent children who are making moral choices that are deeply disturbing and maybe even comprehensible. But you can't just walk away and leave these children or say oh this is another culture so I'll be tolerant. You have to live with them despite this difference which is very painful. And this I think is a very important element. And of course many mothers do despair. And many mothers give up hope. But it's the struggle I'm trying to honor not the achievement of others but the struggle to stay hopeful

despite reasons for despair and that's what I think. Do you want peace. Well it isn't necessary to politic. But number here locally is 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 the toll free line good anywhere that you hear Aussie is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 maybe you have thoughts of your own you'd like to share with us as we talk with Sara Ruddick. She teaches philosophy and women's studies at Eugene Lang College. She is the author of the book maternal thinking toward a politics of peace and the publisher of that book is a Beacon Press. I wanted to ask you I'm almost embarrassed to do this but I didn't have the chance to check and some people might be curious. Professor Reich where is Eugene Lang College. Actually you didn't like college is part of the New School for Social Research. Have you heard of that. Yes in New York City. It started as two thirds of an adult education and graduate faculty at a university in exile during the

time of the Second World War. And and 1972 in the new school the small undergraduate college started this part of it. And my principal appointment is in that college and and then I teach another. I do teach one course in The Graduate. Faculty and so forth but that is my principal a point I think. I wonder as we talked about your view of the term mothering and I wonder in your thinking how the term father contrasts with mother. Well this is one of the most controversial parts of the book and let me just tell you my thoughts and then I give in the way I defined mothering it is clear that men can do it as well and therefore that men we usually call fathers are mothers. I mean there's no there's no need to distinguish father and mother there. I kept the

term mothering. Because throughout history and still now most of the people who have done the work of mothering have been women. And I wanted to honor the fact that I wanted to honor the women who have done the work. And I wanted to recognize that the fact work has been done by women has some important quality effect on its character and on maternal thinking so that I can look at different sort of writing like say Carol Gilligan's in a different voice which is not about mother's aunt but about women and find parallels or overlapping between what I say about mothers and what. He says about women a second thing too is I think the myth of fatherhood I call it there can be very destructive for men where fatherhood is defined in terms of providing for your children and defending them.

And a good enough father is supposed to be able to do that economically and do it in the face of the dangers of the world especially floor and Pav ridged young fathers young men and or for people who seem to have no options in life and life seems stacked against them. They can easily say I can never be a father. But they can engage in mothering work mothers whatever the sex has to go out and get the resources to care for their children. Women and men who are mothers have to do that very often neither a woman nor a man can be a quote father in the way that men are expected to be fathers. And it's a very discouraging and demoralizing to be told this is what you have to do. I'm struck by again I've been reading a lot about adolescent mothers and adolescent pregnancy.

I've been reading about the women the men come in there all the time and over and over again you hear voices of young men saying I would like to be a good father that's the way I protect my part expressed himself. But I can't. There's no job and so forth and what I want to say is Well here is a kind of words you can share to the best of your ability and demand of all mothers should be able to demand the resources that the society should give you to do that work. You know I wonder if some people also mightn't react in a in a kind of a similar way to the way that you have defined mothering in the sense that you say that a lot of people would feel that they couldn't live up to this. So this this construct that we've come up with that's father and all of the various expectations of it. And then at the same time what you've done for mothering is that and you do say in the book that sometimes you can meet this kind of. Some of that that you are all over idealize you know that

or either that or somehow Halling that you're being reactionary that you're hauling us back to a definition of motherhood that some people believe that we have progressed past as a result of the women's movement. I wonder how how you react to that kind of criticism when you hear it. Well I am one. One way I do is by saying that I am continuously talking about the efforts mothers make the struggles I identify and the cognitive abilities that are and ways of looking at the world that arise out of those struggles. I'm not talking about success. For example to go back to the example before I'm not saying that mothers are resilient Leach or full. I'm saying they recognize the necessity for resilience cheerfulness but they fail all the time. I also talk about the way the shadow of the good mother is very destructive. Just as the SAT I hadn't

thought of it. That this lie that the fat of the good fathers is destructive to men the shadow of the good mother is destructive to women too. And I think it's extremely important to stress. The ambivalence the confusion the hatred for a child a mother can feel and the ways in which all mothers I believe often feel that they are failing. But it's what they count as failure that I think is so critical here. Not that mothers fail but but that they have a certain ideal and that that ideal in the struggle to realize it is like the struggle to realize the ideals of peacefulness is maternal thinking something that could be taught or must be learned in practice. I think that's I think it is learned by children from their own mothers to a degree. And

I never I never talk about mothers but but what people come up and tell me that they have had very bad mothers but they didn't learn anything. But no. I would have written the kind of book I wrote unless I'd learned a good deal about maternal thinking from my mother who I'm visiting now in fact I think it can be learned there. I think it can certainly be learned on the job. But I believe at least in the United States and to be different elsewhere we should have a much more systematic effort to introduce into the curriculum all through the years including right through and through college. Different aspects of maternal thinking and to begin to look at the work of mothering as a kind of work which gives rise to a specific persistent challenges which in turn gives rise to specific ways of thinking that we could do this far more than we do now.

So that you combine and I don't think you can ever. We prepare for mothering too you know in advance. But you provide preparation for what will be coming and also a respect for the work that mothers and children. No respect for the work mother doing. Yeah I think that that what I have understood many women to say about this experience especially the for the first time is that there is some sort of societal expectation that women are genetically programmed to be mothers and that you know as soon as that they have the baby and the baby is handed to them it's put in their arms that automatically somehow this programming is going to it's going to slip into place and that no one will know exactly what to do. And that in many cases there there is great frustration and difficulties because they are because they really don't and it would be it's unfair to expect

them to to and somehow I think we don't have those expectations of men and we don't expect them to automatically know you know what to do but that women because they had that baby are somehow expected to to be ready to go and not somehow not to need any help. I think that's true and that's it. Destructive myth for women to live with to win mothering is an ongoing learning process. My younger child is 23 now and I think still learning. So that's something nothing that you are genetically programmed to do and it's nothing you should have to do alone. I think mothers live much too much of that life and isolation. Now sometimes that they're in there and their workplace they meet other mothers with whom I can talk. But when they're with their children they're often very much alone. And I want to see that. I mean I have all sorts of utopian fantasies about changing the ways that

the institutions of motherhood the ways that mothers can be brought together and talk to each other and learn from each other. It's it certainly has has been the case in as you point out that that over time women have often been have often worked hard for peace. But I wonder why given you know. When the fact that maternal thinking you're arguing that maternal thinking argues leads one to to think in certain ways and that that one that perhaps might lead one although it lead one to be a peacemaker although there is no guarantee that that is going to happen but why somehow women haven't been or haven't been stronger voices against militarism. And perhaps that may go back to the reality of women's status

and in society over time. And that would have been difficult or impossible for them to do. Well there is that and some people have that when women are women generally or mothers specifically are powerful. The world will be peaceful but there are things within maternal work itself that I think are conducive to militarism and in particular maternal work starts with very passionate loyalty to very particular children and a very particular can networks and for particular people. And in order to become peacemakers that somehow mothers have to identify with quite different and often anomie children and people. And that's something that. I'm come out of maternal thinking itself. I do think there's a basis in maternal thinking if mothers come but a basis of maternal thinking for a

kind of particular identification with other mothers because mothers do have to identify with their children and their children are very very different from them and that the data file with children or friends sometimes you can sing weird threats to their children and some others do in their own work have to learn to identify with it and connect with and speak a voice give voice to differences without breaking connection. But still it's a tremendous leap to be able to say I identify with your child when your child is the child of somebody you take as the enemy or your government is the enemy. Here people take a family that's right within maternal thinking I think the biggest challenge of maternal thinking and can and cannot be put down to women's power in the world. I think the other biggest thing is that women have over the years trusted to the authority of government for

them to make decisions about danger and have not looked closely enough at alternatives to violence and where those dangers come from. And that does have to do with powerless. Our guest this morning is Sara Ruddick. She teaches philosophy and women's studies at the New School for Social Research is she is the author of the book material thinking toward a politics of peace. When they were talking about some of the ideas contained in the book if you perhaps have some thoughts that have been triggered by some things that we have said you'd like to express your own opinions or perhaps ask some questions. You're welcome to do that we just have about 10 minutes left in our program this morning. The number at locally 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We do have a caller here on the toll free line. I'll talk with him now. Yes I don't like crying. I guarantee you the face of you right out. I am right here.

But every case is a mother. I can't get no heat. Planning in its own right which can be given to him or her in the schools and I'm referring to the private schools. I think there there is a lot of nurturing in learning that it's now needs for life and I even see that. I know it is the schools I went to great lengths and thank you. I see that even surveys in the same language it doesn't yes but it is a large family and he's very careful about the school seek their analysis of it because he knows that they're there going to be curious. You know given that he guesses. Sorry the fact that they need to know when the learning for Elaine which is

often the mother again. Would you not agree. Yes I certainly agree with that. I mean mothers there is mothers need schools mothers need doctors mothers need all sorts of people to support and supplement and expand their work. I think teachers is very interesting because a lot of peaching of children has a maternal element and a lot of teachers are in fact mothers who have engaged in maternal thinking and think maternally. But teaching isn't the same as as maternal thinking and what teachers do is certainly different from and that's a scary and expanses on others. The one thing I'd like to see is a more fruitful alliance between teachers and mothers especially mothers of young children. Well I think very often you find teachers can be quite contemptuous of mothers and their insights into their children and can even make mothers feel rather terrible and incompetent. So I'd like to say that I believe that there should be a very strong alliance

between mothers and teachers all along the line and the teachers are absolutely necessary. And again especially the teaching of the teachers of young children are under rated and underappreciated just as mothers are. It is like an alliance between the teachers. You do take it you man this responsibility and feel of a role that the mothers of the police officer the teachers take over for eight years in the elementary school that is in the college. Yes it is you just can't have you know to drop them off but it's just a nice little bit there. Maybe 56 children in the class itself is something it's key to vegetate How can she do it you know. Now it has to be and I mean it's not the black mothers drop out and teachers take over and as we kind of continue alliance and most people's children aren't in private schools I

don't and and I think that that believes it's not just mothers need teachers that mothers need neighborhoods and they need community. Oh yes and they need city governments who are committed to providing the schools. Let's say that this is this is a problem that's growing and it's because I don't live in Chicago. Point well but there's a problem there. We get over it. Yeah it's human. They're working and you know I think Oh thank you. They work with you. OK well I thank you for your call very much. I have somebody else who is holding on here and I want to make sure that we get to them before we end up running out of time let me go over to our ally number one for another caller. Hello. Hi I miss you but I'm ashamed to admit that I missed the first part of the sense that you may have covered this but it's in the context of what

what you just said about women sometimes surrendering power to the authorities. The government and I guess my comment comes from a young Catholic mother I know who's like uber mom and she brought this argument against abortion and to me that it's a way it's violence done to women and children. But I then I Pat and I was just wondering what you thought about that I'm not really sure how I feel about it myself. And I appreciate any input. Well about what I call the right. I feel very strongly I feel that birth giving should be a chosen project and that a woman who engages in birth should engage in it knowing its particular pleasures and its particular responsibilities and should make a commitment to that project. Anybody who takes away

in my view now anyone who takes away or even diminish his her capacity to thoughtfully choose and take responsibility for a project not only endangers her but often also her infant who may not get the care from a in fact even be assaulted by drugs or whatever. That would be given an infant if a birth giver were told very early that this was a choice with pleasures rewards and responsibilities. But that must be thoughtfully made. The other thing I do feel about the abortion controversy and I feel this very very strongly. I also feel that people like me and people like your friend must somehow learn to talk to each other about what we feel and to respect the differences between us and the ways we came to those differences. So I don't want to put my view which is that which I hold strongly in March for organized for and so on in a

way that is disrespectful to your friend or to you or to anyone who has a different metaphysics really who believes that abortion is the murder of a person I don't believe that and I and as I say my whole way of thinking is quite different namely that birth giving must be a chosen project and that finally only a birth giver can make that choice because only He can take care of yourself in the ways that are necessary both for her own good and for her and that's good. And that she will do that in consultation with anyone that can help her make that choice and she should be able to turn I would hate to see and I think that choice alone but she should be able to turn to whatever teachers and counselors parents. Never can really listen to her struggle to have it to make that choice thoughtfully. Hope that gets at the question of the caller were very short on time and my lines are full and I would like to again try to include one or possibly two more people before.

OK now be very short. OK we'll go to next to line number two. Hello hello. Yes I thank the speaker for having done her homework and women's studies and how she's explained it's a very comprehensive view not simply just a list limited to abortion I don't think I don't know if the speaker is aware of this community's status on women's studies that we have it both at the university and at Parkland. I took a course at the university and that cost just on cars comes to about $750 and most home anchors and I'm finished with raising children cannot pull out seven hundred fifty dollars for a college. So we also have a junior college era community. College Park class and they are offering four courses and they are also giving the end credits. This is a critical time as to whether the director of the women's studies program at Parklane is going to be no

longer hired in August 23rd is a meeting of our current board of trustees that we've elected and our Parklane president. And I'm wondering how maybe our speaker can direct and to the question of why a director would be important for people to get to more than just the formal classes to be able to get community offerings that are made that we women who have been alone raising our children haven't had an opportunity. Well I certainly think a director of women's studies and women's studies itself is an enormous blessing for women and men and that it does provide a place for women especially to come to understand their lives in the world. The options that have they have the roads that have been blocked and can be opened and that they can come to

thoughtfully make the choices they need to make about mothering about birth giving about fighting in the military about policies in the workplace health care in the workplace about the environment all of those places all these things are done in women's studies in a way that I don't think they're done anywhere else for women and by women. One more caller will be able to take here on our toll free line. Hello. Hi. You were talking about mothers not be instinctively equipped to rear children and today's mothers are often ignorant about our roots but historically when our society was more traditional instance basically. The extended family was there were a bunch. It was it was abundant knowledge and and in dealing with new mothers I find that new mothers still look to their mothers only child with the knowledge that later in the Charlie Stevenson they want their mothers to butt out but butt when they're faced with a new baby they often turn to their mothers

for advice on how to read this new baby. If you find that yes and I think as I said before I think that that girls especially learn maternal thinking because they identify with their mothers and to some extent have learned it by the time they have children but only to some extent. And boys who identify with their mothers have had men fathers who have been mothering have also learned it and have up to a certain extent. The only thing is I hate to say this too. Confidently because whatever I do if I were in an audience people would come up and tell me that their mothers were terrible. I certainly believe I learned so much from my mother. That would have been mothering would have been impossible without what I learned from her. So I agree with you that it's there. I still think that in women's studies programs in the schools that we need to understand the institutions of mothering and the way mothering is idealized and the cost that

women mothers especially have to pay for mothering that needn't be. And and we must change the social conditions of mothering I think we must stop there because we're out of time. Thank you very much Professor Reich for talking with us today. We thank you. Our guest is Sara Ruddick. And if you're interested in reading some of her thoughts you might take a look at her book maternal thinking toward a politics of peace. Beacon Press is the publisher.