Out of the mouths of …

I’m not sure if I have enough of a readership to get a decent number of comments on this thread, but I’m going to try, as I think that this post is one that will benefit far more from comments than from whatever I might post.

My mother – who is pretty good about not sending forwards – sent me a forward with the text below.

I’m an atheist, and I was a bit irritated by the title and the first four questions. I don’t like the idea that questions like this reinforce the story that a god made people. Although that only really matters if this question & answer set up is real – I always doubt these things.

However, I left in the irritating title & first four questions for the sake of completeness, and also because I actually quite like the idea of people made out of string! But maybe that’s just me?

I’ll let you read it before I subject you to any more of my own thoughts (the emphasis is all mine, though):

WHY GOD MADE MUMS…

Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions:

Q1. Why did God make mothers?
1. She’s the only one who knows where the sticky tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

Q2. How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring.
3. God made my Mum just the same like he made me. He just used bigger parts.

Q3. What ingredients are mothers made of ?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men’s bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.

Q4. Why did God give you your mother and not some other Mum?
1. We’re related.
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people’s Mums like me.

Q5. What kind of little girl was your Mum?
1. My Mum has always been my Mum and none of that other stuff.
2. I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

Q6. What did Mum need to know about Dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
3. Does he make at least $800 a year? Did he say NO to drugs and YES to chores?

Q7. Why did your Mum marry your Dad?
1. My Dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mum eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My Grandma says that Mum didn’t have her thinking cap on.

Q8. Who’s the boss at your house?
1. Mum doesn’t want to be boss, but she has to because Dad’s such an idiot.
2. Mum. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mum is, but only because she has a lot more to do than Dad

Q9. What’s the difference between Mums & Dads?
1. Mums work at work and work at home and Dads just go to work at work.
2. Mums know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but Mums have all the real power ’cause that’s who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend’s
4. Mums have magic, they make you feel better without medicine.

Q10. What does your Mum do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don’t have spare time.
2. To hear her talk, she pays bills all day long.

Q11. What would it take to make your Mum perfect?
1. On the inside she’s already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. You know, her hair. I’d dye it, maybe blue.

Q12. If you could change one thing about your Mum, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I’d get rid of that.
2. I’d make my Mum smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

Not sure about you, but my reaction to this was basically: ouch, ouch, hahahaha OUCH (etc etc).

My overarching thought: and thus, are gender stereotypes born.

The bits that I’ve bolded in the quote are, as you may have figured, basically the parts that give me pause in terms of gender (and other!) stereotypes.

I’ve bolded all of Q6 because of the unspoken assumptions behind it: (1) all kids have one mum (no more, no less); (2) all kids have one dad (ditto); (3) the mum and dad are married to each other; (4) mum needs to know stuff about dad before they get married – but all dad needs to know is that mum’s a woman (because anything else that’s relevant is contained in the definition of “woman”).

But in general, essentially what bothers me is the picture of A Mother that we have here: she’s the one in charge of the house (while Dad works); she’s the one in charge of the kids (the implication being that Dad’s just a playmate); she’s mostly nice, but the fact that she’s in charge of the house and the kids means she’s occasionally mean (ie teaching you how to do the right thing is mean); she’s always on duty.

Plus there’s that weird power dynamic thing, contained in Q8 (about “who’s the boss”), and then answer #3 to Q9. I don’t really have time or space to unpack all of that, but it seems to me that it feeds directly into that awful trope that women have power because they control men. On the one hand, it’s nice to think that kids maybe do feel that women have some real power, by virtue of the picture of the world that they get. On the other hand, is that really what the answers to these questions means?

And the even bigger objection: the question assumes that there has to be “a boss” in the first place!

Obviously, even if this thing is real, the picture painted is coloured by whoever selected the questions & answers to include in the email that got sent around. So my objections have to be read in that light as well.

As I said above, this sort of thing seems to me to be more appropriate to play with in comments – so, if you’re out there, have at it!