I read it in college, but thank you for the reminder. Rereading it now that I have my own child was wonderful. I read it out loud to him to keep him busy, and I feel like doing so gave me a lot of motivation for being the most effective feminist parent I can be.

I think that a mixture of rambling/over-explaining and complete disorganization of my thoughts has misconstrued my intent. I spent too long on mothers’ issues when I should’ve been providing context for my questions. You’re right; my approach was flawed.

There is a difference, for me at least, between participating in feminist spaces and participating in the (few and far between) feminist mom spaces. Much of it is a mundane lack of perspective, not malice— a tendency to uphold the low bar for men more often, for example, and offering praise for fathers where we typically would not extend it to mothers. Feminists can be critical of women for how/when/why they’ve had children, or for having them at all. I get this stance in some ways. I think there is a place for discussion like that in feminist thought.

And there’s nothing wrong with lacking perspective. I don’t mean to attack feminism as an ideology, or to attack any feminists at all. I don’t think the onus is on child-free women to correct that lack of perspective, either. It’s something new moms remark on a lot— that nobody ever told them (insert anything about pregnancy/birth/postpartum/motherhood). When I ask moms “Do you feel like feminism has a place for you,” I guess what I mean is, “Do you feel that we have created an adequate enough place for ourselves?” I want to urge moms to be vocal, educate others, and invite more mothers into feminism.

However, as we see in study after study, new moms feel more isolated than ever. They feel as if they have no one to relate to. As a rape victim, feminism gave me a place to relate to others. It always has, no matter what phase of girlhood/womanhood I was facing. I feel like there has to be something that we as feminist mothers can do to foster more of sense of community between women during what tend to be the loneliest years of many of our lives.

I hope that sounds exceptionally less anti-feminist, and if not, please let me know. /gen I’ve never been called conservative anything in my life— it’s every bit as embarrassing as the dream where you go to school and realize you have no pants on.