So that leaves us with a dilemna. If you add children into the mix, the stakes change. Yes, saving the world is the most important thing, but do you follow through on that if it means risking your child.
This is the dilemma of the working parent writ large--how do you balance the needs of the child with the demands of the world outside? The established road in genre has been to neuter the woman in question, making her stereotypically hyper "feminine", overly emotional and overwrought, her existence centered around the child.
Your standard Scully. *sigh*
But I think even the people who perpetrate these assassinations of character are uncomfortable with doing so--hence the child becomes The Child, and it's welfare gains extra importance. He's the key, or the one, or everyone and his brother wants to harm him.
It rationalizes the narrowing of the woman's character (she hasn't gone soft, she's just fighting a different fight!), but it also has the converse effect of downplaying the dramatic potential inherent in *actual* childrearing (these babies are always so well-behaved!) and making it even more obvious that the woman has been shifted totally out of character.
This SOP backfires because it misses the point. The point is that a strong person becomes even stronger when they have people who are depending on them. Because they have to. The point is that the dilemma between the needs of the child and the demands of the world cannot be resolved, it can only be dealt with by constant negotiation. Because both cannot be satisfied.
Yes, I think it can be done, but it requires that we re-think some of our most cherished illusions about motherhood.
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Long-ass comment warning...
Date: 2003-09-17 01:56 pm (UTC)This is the dilemma of the working parent writ large--how do you balance the needs of the child with the demands of the world outside? The established road in genre has been to neuter the woman in question, making her stereotypically hyper "feminine", overly emotional and overwrought, her existence centered around the child.
Your standard Scully. *sigh*
But I think even the people who perpetrate these assassinations of character are uncomfortable with doing so--hence the child becomes The Child, and it's welfare gains extra importance. He's the key, or the one, or everyone and his brother wants to harm him.
It rationalizes the narrowing of the woman's character (she hasn't gone soft, she's just fighting a different fight!), but it also has the converse effect of downplaying the dramatic potential inherent in *actual* childrearing (these babies are always so well-behaved!) and making it even more obvious that the woman has been shifted totally out of character.
This SOP backfires because it misses the point. The point is that a strong person becomes even stronger when they have people who are depending on them. Because they have to. The point is that the dilemma between the needs of the child and the demands of the world cannot be resolved, it can only be dealt with by constant negotiation. Because both cannot be satisfied.
Yes, I think it can be done, but it requires that we re-think some of our most cherished illusions about motherhood.