The Walker Family Fued

A HT to Joel (one of our regular readers) for sending us this link.

Here's the basic gist as a Hollywood elevator pitch: Mother has daughter. Mother is incapable of loving the daughter. Daughter grows up and tries to be like the mother. Daughter tries to win mamma's love. Daughter realizes that momma has betrayed the daughter her entire life.

Guys, to us this sounds like the classic chick flick. Pop in Terms of Endearment and hand the wife the tissues. The only part that is missing is that a Hollywood-ending requires the Mother finally love the daughter as the daughter dies a terrible death. In this story, that is not happening.

This is real life. Real lives have been ruined and this is taking place in public for the entire world to see.

The mother in this story is Alice Walker. The famous author. Her works includes, "The Color Purple". A women who was involved in the civil rights movement, had the first interracial marriage in the state of Mississippi and is a prominent feminist.

The daughter is Rebecca Walker. Rebecca is also a prominent feminist and author in her own right. She is now going public with the story of her mother's ongoing treatment of her.

Rebecca is currently 38 years old. This puts her towards the leading edge of gen-x. For the sake of argument I will put forward that what she is experiencing now is not just the betrayal of her mother but the betrayal of her generation. She was living out the lies not just fed to her by her mother but fed that were fed to the entirety of gen-x as it was growing up.

Before I begin I want to remove a couple of cards from the table. Those cards are race and gender. I will confess, I am a middle aged white man (OK, an angry middle aged white guy. It turns out most of us middle age white guys are pretty pissed right now). I do not, nor can not, understand the issues on an internal level. I did however grow up in this time period that I am writing about and know my experience of it. I believe that where the stories of all our lives overlap we can find the issues that are facing a generation; in this case gen-x.

The issues that come from this story are issues of family, what it is to live the gender you are and the "consciousness raising" that we experienced as children.

Since this is a blog about exposing baby boomers hypocrisy and misbehaviour, let's start off by categorizing Alice Walker into her generation. She was born in 1944. This is two years too early to be a baby boomer, however, this places her in a position that the baby boomers always claim as their own. Other examples of this group include all of The Beatles, Jimmi Hendrix, Janis Jopin, etc. Fill in the rest. (I know I only named musicians, it just the easiest group to pull from.)

This group of folks provided the ideas, the basic actions and the framework that boomer based their lives on. When the baby boomers were listening to ideas being offered to them they did not hear this stuff and go, "That's a load of B.S.". No, they embraced it and based their lives upon it.

Alice Walker is part of the group that actually did some of the things that the baby boomers looked up to and tried to emulate. In 1965 she was a civil rights worker in Mississippi. That's where she met and married Rebecca's father, Mel Leventhal.

This sounds like a brave women. Someone who would take action and did things that could be looked up too. For people like this the question arises, when do you stop doing good and start doing harm? Do the good things you have done elevate you to a place, give you credence, so that now your bad ideas can ruin others?

I believe the answer to this question is yes. Alice Walker was elevated to a place that allowed her to do and say things that had negative consequences. Like many people in this position she has a cadre of people that protect her and boost her ego. This allows her to live in a bubble world. A world, to put it succinctly, where her shit does not stink.

This is not a good place for anyone to be in. It insulates you from the real world. Causes you to loose perspective and with a cast and crew surrounding you creates an echo chamber of your own greatness; deserved or not.

Let's she how Alice Walker's ideals influenced her relationship with her daughter.

From the Daily Mail:

You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.

Just a note here. You see Rebecca, a lot of women were brought up to believe this. It was shoved down their throats. The movies, television and print media droned this message on and on. Look at the characters that were on TV during the 70's and 80's.

We had Maude, One Day at A Time and Alice. Just to name a few. The later two were single moms trying to make it on their own after their no-good husbands abandoned them and their children.

My mother's feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn't even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery. Having a career, travelling the world and being independent were what really mattered according to her.

I love my mother very much (x-er: You should question why. Love is a choice. To choose an abusive relationship is unhealthy), but I haven't seen her or spoken to her since I became pregnant. She has never seen my son - her only grandchild. My crime? Daring to question her ideology.

Well, so be it. My mother may be revered by women around the world - goodness knows, many even have shrines to her. But I honestly believe it's time to puncture the myth and to reveal what life was really like to grow up as a child of the feminist revolution.

Yes, please it is time to shatter this myth. We now have two generations that have come of age since these ideals have become mainstream. More on that too come.

My early childhood was very happy although my parents were terribly busy, encouraging me to grow up fast. I was only one when I was sent off to nursery school. I'm told they even made me walk down the street to the school.

Can some one explain to me how that is not child abuse?

When I was eight, my parents divorced. From then on I was shuttled between two worlds - my father's very conservative, traditional, wealthy, white suburban community in New York, and my mother's avant garde multi-racial community in California. I spent two years with each parent - a bizarre way of doing things.

Welcome to the world of Generation-X. Yes, your experience was bizarre but not abnormal. No-fault divorce was part of the work of feminism. It ensured that half of the kids growing up in this country came from broken homes. Marriage is hard. It is not an easy road. And baby boomers especially wanted the easy / quick road. It was all about them.

I had lots of friends growing up that had all sorts of bizarre arrangements. A week here a week there. Thursdays and Sundays at one house; etc.

But, while she has taken care of daughters all over the world and is hugely revered for her public work and service, my childhood tells a very different story. I came very low down in her priorities - after work, political integrity, self-fulfilment, friendships, spiritual life, fame and travel.

My mother would always do what she wanted - for example taking off to Greece for two months in the summer, leaving me with relatives when I was a teenager. Is that independent, or just plain selfish?

Narcissistic comes to mind.

Again, this wasn't just your mom. She just had the money to live these dreams. A large number of boomer parents put their goals and pleasure before their families. It was part of the, "Follow your bliss" philosophy the permeated the 1970's and 1980's.

According to the strident feminist ideology of the Seventies, women were sisters first, and my mother chose to see me as a sister rather than a daughter. From the age of 13, I spent days at a time alone while my mother retreated to her writing studio - some 100 miles away. I was left with money to buy my own meals and lived on a diet of fast food.

Welcome to the world of latchkey children. (Do a search on the blog, I've written about it before.)
It did not matter if you were from a broken home or not. If you were from a broken home both your parents had to work. There were separate households to maintain. If both your parents were still together then they were both at work. There were luxuries that were required. Two cars, cable TV and a house with three bathrooms. These were needs that had to be met.

The next part of the story is a real horror.

But the truth was I was very lonely and, with my mother's knowledge, started having sex at 13. I guess it was a relief for my mother as it meant I was less demanding. And she felt that being sexually active was empowering for me because it meant I was in control of my body.

Now I simply cannot understand how she could have been so permissive. I barely want my son to leave the house on a play-date, let alone start sleeping around while barely out of junior school.

A good mother is attentive, sets boundaries and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.

Although I was on the Pill - something I had arranged at 13, visiting the doctor with my best friend - I fell pregnant at 14. I organised an abortion myself. Now I shudder at the memory. I was only a little girl. I don't remember my mother being shocked or upset. She tried to be supportive, accompanying me with her boyfriend.

Although I believe that an abortion was the right decision for me then, the aftermath haunted me for decades. It ate away at my self-confidence and, until I had Tenzin, I was terrified that I'd never be able to have a baby because of what I had done to the child I had destroyed. For feminists to say that abortion carries no consequences is simply wrong.

My own daughter is thirteen. I can't even begin to imagine how anyone could conceive that this is good for a kid.

As a child, I was terribly confused, because while I was being fed a strong feminist message, I actually yearned for a traditional mother. My father's second wife, Judy, was a loving, maternal homemaker with five children she doted on.

Kids need boundaries. They do not need to be so tight that the kids suffocate. But they do need to know there are limits to what is acceptable and unacceptable and the freedom to explore within those limits.

Let's fast forward a few years. Rebecca goes onto become a voice for, "Third wave feminism". She writes, teaches etc.

This leads me to ask, WTF can a 20-something tell you of life and how to live it? Think back to your twenties. What the hell did you know?

As I read about Rebecca I wondered what was this, "Third wave feminism."

Here's my take on it. (Remember, angry middle aged white guy.)

Back some time ago, women had no / very limited choices in life. They could be, wives, mothers, teachers or nurses. That was it. Needles to say this pissed off group of them that did not what to be in one of those categories. Who could blame them. This is after all, supposed to be the land of the free.

So they fought for change. Good for them. After years of hard work women could finally be Astronauts, pilots, corporate executive, senators, supreme court justices, etc. The world was opened.

To affect this change they built up organizations; in schools and non-profits. These organizations were at war. They were in it to win it.

And win it they did.

Except, the organizations were still at war. They went on to attack not just the status quo that men had created but they started to attack the very nature of what a man was. Again, look to the images that the media send men of our time.

Baby boomer men embraced this ideology. The tried to get in touch with their feminine side (before they even found out what their masculine side was all about). They were told, "it's OK to cry". It's, "OK to wear pink". (Guys, don't wear pink. It doesn't prove you are a man because you are, "man enough to wear it". It only shows that you are trying to make someone else happy. I never in my life heard a boy say something along the lines of, "wow, that is a great shade of pink!") (Sorry, I digress. But this is a blog so I guess I can do that once in awhile.)

Feminism entered into what I will call, "The Echo Chamber" stage of it's existence. It's major goals were pretty much accomplished. It was now time walk the walk. A new generation of women came along and called themselves the, "second wave". Then Rebecca Walker came along and declared women her age the, "third wave".

Except who did she declare it to? Well, to other feminist. Those ones in the organizations that are still at war. Feminism is now writing for itself and fighting within itself and these, 'intellectuals' are the only ones that know they are doing it.

I conducted a scientific survey. I asked my wife if she ever hear of second or third wave feminism. She said, "No."

My wife has a B.A. in accounting and chooses to stay at home with the kids. She also home schools the kids. These are all things she agonized over because growing up she heard that she should not want these things. She was told she should be a high powered corporate executive and if she didn't want that then something was wrong with her. My wife heard those things the same way Rebecca Walker heard them.

But back to Rebecca's story. Time goes on. She writes about how women should be, not even knowing herself what she truly wants until the time arrives when she decides she wants to be a mother.

Although I knew what my mother felt about babies, I still hoped that when I told her I was pregnant, she would be excited for me.

'Mum, I'm pregnant'

Instead, when I called her one morning in the spring of 2004, while I was at one of her homes housesitting, and told her my news and that I'd never been happier, she went very quiet. All she could say was that she was shocked. Then she asked if I could check on her garden. I put the phone down and sobbed - she had deliberately withheld her approval with the intention of hurting me. What loving mother would do that?

Worse was to follow. My mother took umbrage at an interview in which I'd mentioned that my parents didn't protect or look out for me. She sent me an e-mail, threatening to undermine my reputation as a writer. I couldn't believe she could be so hurtful - particularly when I was pregnant.

Devastated, I asked her to apologise and acknowledge how much she'd hurt me over the years with neglect, withholding affection and resenting me for things I had no control over - the fact that I am mixed-race, that I have a wealthy, white, professional father and that I was born at all.

But she wouldn't back down. Instead, she wrote me a letter saying that our relationship had been inconsequential for years and that she was no longer interested in being my mother. She even signed the letter with her first name, rather than 'Mom'.

Now, I can relate to this. When I called my mother to tell her she was going to be a grandmother, my mother replied, "I'm OK". Yes, my mother was, "OK" with the milestone in life of becoming a grandparent. Though my mother at least loves her granddaughter.

Let's take a look at how another feminist relates to this story. This is from a piece in Salon titled, "The Mother-Daughter wars" (mdw):

Ah, Rebecca. My mother, a traditional stay-at-home mother, also withheld her approval when I told her I was pregnant. Hallmark greeting cards aside, this is not an uncommon dynamic between mothers and daughters, and it can get a lot worse: For example, mothers can savagely criticize their daughters' child-care practices, sue for custody of their grandchildren or testify against their daughters in court on behalf of ex-sons-in-law. They can also refuse to relate to their daughter and their grandchild.

Still, Rebecca's interview is too sad to bear, and although I, too, have written about my troubled relationship with my mother, I did not have the heart to do so in a major way while she was alive. I waited until after her death to do so -- and still I feared that I was both committing a sin and tempting fate. Exposing your mother's nakedness in public, breaking publicly with the only woman who ever gave birth to you, is a tabooed, ungrateful, desperate, perhaps dangerous and always complicated act.

Author Phyllis Chesler is basically telling Rebecca that this behaviour is OK because it happens to lots of soon to be new mothers.

Ms. Chesler then goes on to add:

Still, given her age, Rebecca could never have experienced how odiously motherhood was once forced upon women and how all other options were closed and what courage it took to reject the commandment to marry and mother.

What she is saying is something along the lines of, "You see Rebecca, no matter how much pain you are in, it does not matter because you did not suffer these other indignities that I also did not have to suffer." It sounds like to me the Ms. Chesler is trying to put Rebecca in her place. (And we thought only men could do that to women.)

Back to Rebecca:

It's been almost four years since I have had any contact with my mother, but it's for the best - not only for my self-protection but for my son's well-being. I've done all I can to be a loyal, loving daughter, but I can no longer have this poisonous relationship destroy my life.

I know many women are shocked by my views. They expect the daughter of Alice Walker to deliver a very different message. Yes, feminism has undoubtedly given women opportunities. It's helped open the doors for us at schools, universities and in the workplace. But what about the problems it's caused for my contemporaries?

Yes, what about the other problems that it has caused?

This is something that we dare not ask. No man can stand up and ask this. Watch the tidal wave of hate descend upon any one that dare stick his neck out.

This also happens to women who question what has happened or if the movement is on the right path.

Watch as Rebecca now gets attacked by her compatriots. Notice how she tries to spin the piece later on with this from the Huffington Post.

Instead, Chesler wants to draw in the personal differences I have with my mother. This appears to be opportunistic and ill-conceived, because the fact is the piece to which she refers is an inaccurate tabloidization of an interview I gave. No matter how much she would like to see the piece as factual and however sensational the article may appear, my father is not a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I never used the word fanatical to describe my mother's views, and so on.

If you gave an interview you said what you said. I notice that you did not claim that what you told them was not true. That you still have not spoken to your mother. That you feel betrayed by loosing out on various expeirences of motherhood. And that you were raised in what can only be considered an abusive envirnoment.

The sad fact is, if she takes a stand and sticks with it she will be ostricized not just by her mother but also by her friends and contemparies in the feminist movement.

Though she tries to spin the piece she cannot take back her own words. In the Daily Mail this is Rebecca's own conclusion:

The ease with which people can get divorced these days doesn't take into account the toll on children. That's all part of the unfinished business of feminism.

Then there is the issue of not having children. Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family. They say things like: 'I'd like a child. If it happens, it happens.' I tell them: 'Go home and get on with it because your window of opportunity is very small.' As I know only too well.

Then I meet women in their 40s who are devastated because they spent two decades working on a PhD or becoming a partner in a law firm, and they missed out on having a family. Thanks to the feminist movement, they discounted their biological clocks. They've missed the opportunity and they're bereft.

Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.

But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women's movement close ranks against anyone who dares to question them - as I have learned to my cost. I don't want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.

The fact is, it is not just an entire generation of women have been betrayed but men too. As we try to be supportive of the women in our lives. The women we watch become misserable as they try to, "have it all".

The fact is that you can't have it all. No one ever has. Not man or woman. Men have had to choose between family or career. Some still choose their career over their family. They usually end up divorced and lonely. That's the way the world goes.

In MDW, Phyllis Chesler had this to say:

The children of greatly talented public figures, as Alice surely is, are often sacrificed to the Great Work. The children can barely breathe in the shadow of -- usually it's the Great Man; in this case, it's the Great Woman. However, great men are allowed every excess and failure; great women are never forgiven for making a single mistake. Great men are allowed their female mistresses, male lovers, wife-secretaries, binges -- and they rarely see their children. Or they exploit and abuse them.

There are a couple of reasons why this paragraph is interesting.

First off, it excuses Alice Walker's behaivor. She is a great woman, and she is allowed to cast others off to a place in her shadow. Because she has done some great things Ms. Chesler allows her to treat her own daughter as trash.

We are supposed to accept this behavior from Alice Walker. Why are we supposed to do this? Look at the magicians slight of hand. The reason is, because that is what great men do.

Did you see how this piece went from being about mother-daughter problems to a full on frontal assualt about men. With judo like accuracy she turns the piece around and says that this is what men do.

Never once in the piece in Salon does the author say anything about the treatment Rebecca recieved as a girl. Never once does she say that it is inappropriate to condone a thirteen year old's sexual activity.

It basically tells Rebecca, in a lot of words with a lot of phsyco-babble, to get over it.

To requote Rebecca from above, "Even now, I meet women in their 30s who are ambivalent about having a family..."

As a generation we have been lied too. The baby boomers before us suffered for trying to live the life that was all about "me". It never worked. Their divorce rate was high. They are bankrupt because they are trying to paper over their lives with stuff. They have no money for retirement and after paying on mortgages for 20 years they are still no closer to owning their own homes.

That life didn't work. It still isn't working.

Here's a repeat of Rebecca's words:

But far from taking responsibility for any of this, the leaders of the women's movement close ranks against anyone who dares to question them - as I have learned to my cost. I don't want to hurt my mother, but I cannot stay silent. I believe feminism is an experiment, and all experiments need to be assessed on their results. Then, when you see huge mistakes have been paid, you need to make alterations.

No, it was not an expeirement. As I stated before it was a war. A war that has been won.

The problem with winning the war is; what do you do with the army when they come back home?