How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart (Alice Walker's daughter, the cost of feminism)

Mail Online ^ | May 23, 2008 | Rebecca Walker

[heartwood]

I read Alice Walker's account of letting her 14 y.o. daughter sleep with her boyfriend in their house and then taking her for the inevitable abortion, a prideful, and paranoid account. Later I read of Rebecca's becoming a pro-abortion activist in her twenties.

Thank God she has found some healing and sense of what we were made for - even if she still has a way to go.

[vpintheak]

How sad.

[AnAmericanMother]

Why in the world don't they marry, if "Glen" is such a good father?

Like you say, she's got a ways to go. Poor kid.

[livius]

Very sad.

[GourmetDan]

Henry Makow regularly writes about the destructiveness of feminism at SaveTheMales.com.

[GOP Poet]

Wow. Thank God for this blessing of a child--her clarity, her truth, her lesson. My heart went out to her reading this and to many in my generation and on as this is the story of many of us--some never able to have children for many of the reasons she mentions in her personal essay. Many left with the bones of previous abortions and the emptiness of never being able to have them too late. Many left with too much loneliness and self indulgent mothers, talking about what a weight the child was to them in the name of 'honesty and friendship dictated by feminism'.

This stance--taken not only by Alice Walker but many more of her mindset--has caused more than devastation, it has wiped out a huge possible population that never got a chance at a first breath and huge populations of women and men that were brainwashed to think they were free when just the opposite was true. They were and are instead locked in mental, spiritual, and emotional cages by the brainwashing of small gods that think they are the true one.

This child grown to an adult has shared a truth that is a great gift. I hope many get the chance to read it. May God continue to bless her and her family.

[swmobuffalo]

Makow also believes that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a real thing, too.

[GourmetDan]

Then ignore him and encourage others to do the same.

I don’t care.

[thulldud]

Why in the world don't they marry, if "Glen" is such a good father?

Among other things, it could be an aftereffect of her own parents' breakup. Divorce has long reaching effects on the children, contrary to what we were all told in the Seventies.

Kids that come from an intact home have much less trouble committing themselves to marriage, because they expect to succeed at it. Also, an intact home gives the child a chance to experience emotional intimacy without being threatened, while children that are being shuttled back and forth between warring divorced parents and other assorted relatives have to develop a sort of protective shell that becomes an encumbrance in later life.

I could go on, but Judith Wallerstein is the name to look up for information on this topic.

[fish hawk]

It’s a miracle that she was not aborted. Her mother needs her nuts removed surgically.

[AnAmericanMother]

I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.

Divorce is VERY bad for kids. My generation was the first to have lots and lots of divorces (born in the early 50s). I can see the fallout among people my age.

Even kids whose parents don't get divorced are affected, as the parents of half the kids they know suddenly split up, and they sit around waiting for the shoe to drop on THEM.

But that doesn't mean that the kids shouldn't get married, even if they need to get counseling or whatever to get themselves up to scratch. Deliberate single parenthood just perpetuates the problem. Bastardy was stigmatized for eons for a reason. It's bad for kids too, just in a different way.

[daniel1212]

Sad is the word. Her mom is obviously driven by resentment, which is a killer. As is abortion, and which is part of rebellion against God’s good laws, in which the Creator also made sex for marriage for good reason.

[Inspectorette]

You're right. Sad to say, my older daughter and her boyfriend, who have been together 12 years, own a home and a business together, show no inclination toward getting married. Both sets of parents were divorced, and I feel terribly guilty that this may have affected her in this way.

His mother would also love to see them marry, but what can we say.

[Think free or die]

My own mother was certainly never as strident in her feminism as Alice Walker, but her views made for a tough childhood for me. I think she was trying to be helpful once, when she told me that academic studies had shown that women with one child somehow managed to juggle their careers and family responsibilities, while those with two children were just "ruined". As a second child, I was hardly thrilled with her report. I spent a lot of time alone as a child. Mom tended to ignore me or plop me in front of a record player with opera records while she stayed busy elsewhere. I don't have any recollection of her ever reading a book to me or playing a game. As soon as my older brother was in school, she went back to school herself and left me with a succession of neighbors during the day.

While I'm sure my mother's remote style didn't do me much good, I'm grateful that I was nurtured enough to have children myself. Our two sons are the joy of my life, and indeed, have brought Mom plenty of happiness in her old age as well.

Good for Rebecca Walker; she's obviously travelled a great distance, and it's good to see her write about it.

[thulldud]

Not knowing the exact situation, I wouldn't presume to advise you. I just point out that our children are spiritual beings of the same order as ourselves, and we have precious little enough "control" over them when they are young. And then they grow up and move out.

You can't manipulate your daughter, but maybe you can clear the air. Most people who go through divorces know that something is amiss, but they put on a brave face and act as if all is well. The stigma that used to attach to divorce now is directed at anybody who admits that it wasn't the greatest thing they ever did. The kids know better. Trust me. Even if they don't say so.

Again, I don't know the situation. I can only say for myself that if I were faced with something similar, I have a resource to call upon that would make facing it a real possibility, and without which I would be completely lost.

[yellow rubber ducky]

Rebecca wrote of her mother teaching her that children were a burden, a millstone around a womans neck.

How sad that she grew up no doubt thinking that she herself was a burden, a disaster that ruined her mothers life. (She never said that that’s what she felt, only that she was hurt when she read her mothers writing.) That is child abuse, plain and simple.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

There are a number of people out there who I call “poison parents”. They exist for several reasons, but mostly because they project that which is bad in their lives on their children.

1) The child is a taker. I can no longer have fun, have a good job, travel, get married, go to school, etc., because of the child. They ruined my marriage.

2) The child will be what I couldn’t. These are the typical stage parents, willing to drive their children into a nervous breakdown to achieve the greatness the parent never did. They know if their kids work hard enough, they’ll make a million and give it to their parents out of gratitude or something.

3) I’m worthless and rotten, so I will either inflict that on my child, or I will abandon them so I won’t.

4) The experimenters. Let’s see if my 4 year old kid likes marijuana and whiskey. They’ll be 5 soon, that’s old enough for sex.

5) The pure sadists, physical, emotional and intellectual. They live to hurt the child in any way they can. They will give them a pet until the child bonds with it, then kill it. The beat the child, the demean the child, and they fill the kid’s head with endless messages of despair.

One word of advice to the author.

Give up on the idea of her ever being a good grandmother, because she won’t, and could harm your child as well. She will go to her grave filled with envy, bile and loneliness, because that is the life she has made for herself. It is what she expects, and wants.

Instead, find a surrogate grandmother who dearly loves children from the bottom of her heart, and is in pain because she no longer has children around her she can love. Such people bring forth love like the Sun brings forth light.

Doing so will bring joy to two lives.

[Wildbill22]

The 1960s culture was caustic to the family and family values in the US. I am glad to see that the family has survived, but with a cost.

[heartwood]

The sad thing is, there was a time when Alice Walker knew how much healing and wholeness a child could bring with its unconditional love. She writes about being ashamed all her life by a blind, marked eye:

I am twenty-seven, and my baby daughter is almost three... She studies my face intently as we stand, her inside and me outside her crib. She even holds my face maternally between her dimpled little hands. Then, she says, as if it may just possibly have slipped my attention: "Mommy, there's a world in your eye."..."Mommy, where did you get that world in your eye?"

For the most part, the pain left then...Crying and laughing I ran to the bathroom, while Rebecca mumbled and sang herself to sleep...that night I dream I am dancing....whirling and joyous, happier than I've ever been in my life, another bright-faced dancer joins me. We dance and kiss each other and hold each other through the night. ... She is beautiful, whole, and free. And she is also me.

And alas, too much of the focus is about her, the parts ellipsed even more so. No, Alice, your daughter is not you, but a precious gift, and there was a time when you almost knew it.

[informavoracious]

Wait ‘til we see the fallout of the poor children in the upcoming gay “marriages” — the next crop of little pawns in their parents’ selfish agenda.