Free Baby Love by Rebecca Walker

children is also the norm in countries like France, but completely unavailable in the United States. New parents have to work long hours to even have a shot at affording excellent child care.
    It’s hard to understand why our country, one of the wealthiest in the world, seems to care so little about its children. Even from a purely capitalist point of view, you would think that well-looked-after, well-educated children would ensure a competent workforce and stable populace. And studies show that women are able to be more productive with this kind of support, so it’s not like we’d lose half the GDP. Rachel thinks it has to do with the low expectations of families in America. Women have been getting six weeks to three months for so long it seems normal, an unquestionable standard.
    But I think it also has to do with our cultural ambivalence about the role of biology in women’s lives, and how it has been used to suppress and control women. For generations, women have been portrayed as the weaker sex, more emotional and less physically capable than men, and so biologically unsuited for positions of power. In response, women have said no, we aren’t biologically anything at all. Shaped more by culture than anatomy, we can be anything we want to be. Tactically, this was a smart move. If women are inherently the same as men, we deserve equal treatment under the law.
    Women gained a lot of access using this strategy, but on some fronts, it may have backfired. Case in point: If men and women are inherently equal, and men don’t get “special treatment” like extended paternity leave and on-site childcare, why should women? A question that leaves most infants in the arms of hired caregivers instead of their mothers. This strategy has also left women somewhat ambivalent about maternal desire. Is it a biological yearning that should be denied in the name of sameness and women’s empowerment? The whole polemic puts women in the ridiculous position of wondering whether wanting a baby is proof that women actually are the weaker sex.
    I think that parental, rather than maternity, leave is a good way of negotiating this point in the public sphere. We avoid the potentially divisive and ultimately unknowable question of whether women are fundamentally different from men by saying that both parents need and deserve to take care of their children.
    But what if we are fundamentally different? Before I got pregnant I would have vehemently rejected this idea. Now I’m not so sure. Now I might try a different tactical approach: Do men and women have to be the same to be treated equally?
    I left Rachel’s house thinking about what it really means to cut taxes in this country. It means that the bond between parents and children is not supported with programs like extended parental leave, and children’s psychosocial and intellectual development is neglected in the absence of decent child care. It also means that many people can’t afford to have children at all, let alone provide them with what they need to succeed.
    In a country, a world, as rich as ours, this is unacceptable. Reflecting on what this process has meant to me already, in terms of experiencing what it means to be human, I can’t help but feel that having children should be a right, not a privilege.

June 23
    I met with my midwife Sonam again today. She tested my urine by having me pee on a stick that changed colors, took my temperature, measured my uterus, and listened to the baby’s heartbeat with the Doppler, talking to me about baby stuff the whole time. She suggested I start doing prenatal yoga, gave me the names of a couple of teachers she likes, and told me to eat wild salmon and leafy greens. I told her that all I want to do is wander from room to room, have sex, eat, and sleep, and she laughed. That’s okay, she said, but remember, labor is a marathon: You have to train. Shoot. You mean I can’t just lounge around my boudoir for nine months?
    We talked a little