I think I’ve mentioned my deep and abiding loathing for checklists before, usually in the context of the “mommy wars” crap: “I babywear and EC and homebirth and no-vax, and (only) if you do all those things I can be friends with you”, etc. Hate. It. I mean, I could rattle off a checklist that would win me most crunchy/AP pissing contests, but really, what does that tell you about who I am, or even how I parent? Almost nothing. I know a lot of women who wouldn’t fair near so well on such a checklist comparison, but are definitely better, more patient parents than I am.
The topic of checklists came up for me again today, in the context of how much we want our kids to be like us when they grow up. And I thought about my conflicts with my own mother over some choices I’ve made in my life, different choices than she would have made, and the conflicts almost inevitably came up when we were focusing on the specifics — the checklist — rather than on the underlying values that the choices reflect. When we did look past the specifics down to what made me make the choices in the first place, we inevitably found common ground that had gotten obscured by the superficial differences.
And that’s the thing: I loathe checklists, I find them close to or worse than useless in discovering any truths about another person, but that isn’t the same as saying that what we do doesn’t matter. What we do, the choices we make, do matter, but I care far more about the process of how decisions are made and the values they reflect than I do about the end specifics. Processes and values are only so, so loosely reflected in checklists, which are all about the end specifics; they are shadows only, if that, especially when there are so many forces outside of our control acting to limit and shape and constrain and dictate what choices we even have available to us.
But I can’t just say that our choices don’t matter, because I do care about the values: I find that I’m going to get along best with other parents who care about attachment with their children, and who care about the environment, and want to teach equality and empathy to their children, and who try to live both authentically and joyfully. And I want the Boychick to grow up valuing justice and social responsibility and simple living and creativity. I think attachment parenting/biologically appropriate parenting and environmentalism and feminism/anti-kyriarchy are inherently good things, things I am passionate about, things I will promote and defend and that I think are worth investing in, and I’m not going to write them off in the name of being “tolerant”, or “unjudgmental”, or what-have-you.
But there are so many ways that those values can be reflected in one’s life, and so many ways life can interfere with their enactment, that a checklist is of so little value in figuring out what a person’s actual beliefs are. And even when there are differences in the beliefs, there is almost always some commonality that can be found once we stop going down our checklists and start actually seeing the person in front of us.
I find it’s hard to remember that sometimes, because the end result, the specifics, are what we outwardly present to the world, and it’s so tempting to use them as short hand, both with our friends and our kids: “she breastfeeds, check, he made it into a good college, check, they use a baby bucket, fail, she wants to be a cheerleader, fail.” No. The real stories will usually surprise those who rely on the external checklists, and they will always be more interesting and revealing. If you want to really know a person, know whether they might be a good friend for you, whether you should be proud of this person you helped raise, toss out the checklists and prepare to spend some time actually listening.
Of course, the kyriarchy doesn’t want us to do that. No, patriarchy and consumerism and racism train us and encourage us and try to force us to focus only on the superficialities: the color of skin, the bits between our legs, the cars we (don’t) drive and products we (don’t) buy. They create the checklists, and make us create our own checklists, and try to ensure we never go beyond them, never dig deeper, never make real connections with other real people.
So destroy the kyriarchy: throw out the checklists. Take the time to look past them. It’ll be worth it. And it’ll be revolutionary.
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
The check list can be a great way to break the ice and start the conversation, but like you said you have to go deeper than the superficial on the surface crap.
Okeedokee, I’m going to try this one more time before I give up and duct-tape my mouth shut (duct-tape my fingers together?). (And by the way, what I wouldn’t give for Blogger to have an edit-comments feature. Maybe it’s time to move on up? Or maybe my brain needs an edit-thoughts feature. Think there’s an upgrade for that?)
Yes, the superficialities can absolutely be great icebreakers, and are useful in that they might lead to uncovering whole underwater glaciers of similarities and compatibilities (or was that the wrong metaphor?). But, because what’s underneath the water might or might not be accurately reflected by what’s underneath, relying on those external indicators — the checklist boxes — can lead us into making colossal (Titanic, if you will) errors, writing off people who might be perfect for us (or getting into fights with our kids over things we should be happy for them about), or having us cling to groups that aren’t really good for us (or ignoring that our straight-A student is also an anti-feminist selfish weanie).
So yea, absolutely if I see someone at the park with a wee baby on her back in a wrap (or lovely pit hair peeking out from under her tank top, or a rainbow bumper sticker on her bio-diesel volvo), I’m going to sidle over to her and strike up a conversation in a way that I wouldn’t with someone bottle-feeding an infant in a baby-bucket. And I might even be “right” to write off the bottle feeder, because unless there’s an underlying story there (special needs infant and the mom’s on chemo, as an example), we probably don’t have much in common, at least in parenting philosophies.
But the point is more that, well, you can’t judge a book by its cover, I guess. I really do look for friends who value breastfeeding, and attachment, and environmentalism, and women’s rights, and that’s not going to stop anytime soon, so this isn’t an exhortation to just love everyone kumbaya (although, y’know, do); rather, it’s just a reminder that I can’t tell who cares about attachment just by checking off a list of what they did with their kids. One of the most attachment-minded women I know almost never used a carrier, did use a bucket in a stroller, had her breastfed, pacifier-addicted baby on a schedule, and bought both a crib and a bassinet before her child was born. She’s an AP-checklist fail. But I swear to high holy heathen heaven, she is a better, more attached mom that I am, even if I could get a near-perfect score on stupid crunchy quizzes and she couldn’t. And I love her to pieces.
And I can think of a dozen more examples, for every label you care to name. People might surprise you. They regularly shock the shit out of me, mostly in fabulously awesome ways.
That’s my point.
I see what you are saying (in both your blog and comment) and I agree. I’m torn, personally because I see the “checklists” as just a simple way to define yourself. It’s a few quick terms so people can see what you’re all about, what your interests are, etc.
“knitting feminist fulltime parent, Wiccan science-minded woowoo massage student, queer-identified male-partnered monogamist, body-loving healthy-eating fat chick, unmedicated sane and stable bipolar”
Is that not a checklist?
So I do think it’s superficial, but I can see why people do it. As a new parent, I had my AP-checklist ALL over my MySpace page because that was my LIFE at the time. Now that my daughter is nearing three, I’m not breastfeeding anymore, I’m moving her into her own room, I don’t wear her as often… but most of all, I have interests outside of my child now whereas then I really didn’t.
I think I became very wrapped up in the checklist mentality then because I was so convinced that what I was doing was RIGHT and may have blown off some “AP-fail” parents which may have resulted in excellent friendships had I not been so superficial. I am proud to announce that I am no longer making that mistake. I met a mother about six months ago that I instantly bonded with and it was months before I even noticed the MAJOR differences in our parenting because it just wasn’t important enough to compare. What would be the point besides to judge her, you know?
(Sorry this is so long, I’m sure half of this is unnecessary, lol. I can get kinda wordy at 5am.)
I suppose you could call it a checklist, although it’s explicitly designed through juxtaposition of things our culture deems “opposites” (full time parenting and feminism, bipolar and stable, fat and healthy eating) to both tell you something about me and demonstrate that there’s a lot more to me than meets the eye. What I DON’T have up there is the type of checklist that wins me crunchy contests: EC, GD, AP, babywearing, cosleeping, home/water/autonomous birthing, no vax, no circ, go organics, full term breastfeeding, no poo, etc, blah blah, and so on. Those are checklist items, and I avoid them whenever possible.
I will, however, happily talk about and promote biologically appropriate infant care, environmentalism, simple living, feminism, etc, because those are values I care about. I’m just not a fan of labels, and really not a fan of checklists.
(The difference between checklists, labels, and values: “I EC, EBF, GD, UC, babywear and cosleep” is a checklist statement. “I’m an attachment parent” is a label statement. A values statement is best made without words, and demonstrated by the way one treats one’s child, both in moment-to-moment interactions and in big-picture decisions. This is why values are the most important to me, and require the most time and investment to discover — but they’re also the most authentic.)
This is why I often talk about attachment parenting being a frame of mind. I hate it when I see people say “I couldn’t breastfeed, so I’m not an attachment parent” or “I have a bad back, so I use a stroller, so I’m not an attachment parent”. People worry too much about the checklist that defines the label, rather than focusing on the values.
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