As I’ve said before, many Western women are functionally schizophrenic. If you are a man who has married a sweet, even-tempered woman only to find yourself  living with a feral, foaming creature who needs medication or a strait-jacket, you are familiar with what I say. If you are a woman who in the aftermath of her wedding day feels as if she has undergone a form of demonic possession, you too know what I mean.

Here’s the reason for this prevalent psychiatric phenomenon. Everywhere she goes, a woman is told to pursue her native talents until she has converted them by hard work and sheer wizardry into some impressive professional feat, perhaps chief of brain surgery at a metropolitan hospital or, at the very least, third grade teacher. But she must not be just any third grade teacher. She must be a teacher who so dazzles a community with her energy that she is appointed Educational Curator of the World.

At the same time, in daily news reports, a woman is told the truth. And the truth is that her children will be unhealthy, stupid and unruly if she, or some very attentive and highly-paid servant, does not pay abundant attention to them. The truth is her home will be a mess and her marriage will be a war zone if she does not have a personal staff or devote a great deal of time to these things.

The media have no problem with feeding women this pack of contradictions. In fact, they love contradictions. These inconsistencies create anxiety and psychological dependence. People keep returning to the same sources of news to try to sort it all out and to ease the very anxieties the media have fostered.

Here’s a perfect example of what I mean. In this recent story  in The New York Times, Jane Brody, a woman who spent years bragging about her ability to effortlessly juggle career and family, reports that is essential for mothers to talk to their babies from birth. I agree. It is important for mothers to talk to babies. Babies are not baggage. Babies are not toys. They are human beings, often filled with curiosity and the frustrated desire to communicate.

But, nowhere does it seem to enter the lofty brain of Dr. Jane that this contradicts almost everything else her paper tells women. Where is a woman supposed to get the time or the mental freedom or the advanced know-how to do this gabbing with babies? Where does a modern woman learn the slightest thing about babies before an obstetric nurse places her first child in her arms? Babies? The word is never breathed during her four years of higher education unless she plans to make money from expertise in the subject by becoming a teacher, psychologist or pediatric nurse. It is never mentioned during years of pre-marital, non-procreative sex. By the time she has a baby, she is more likely to be in a state of incapacitating awe, so foreign is this little creature to everything she has learned. This state of reverence is responsible for many silly things parents do today, such as asking their three-year-olds if they want to go to bed or what they want for dinner.

Jane is concerned that cell phones are distracting women from talking with their babies. Millions of women have been so distracted from their natural proclivities that they don’t even have babies and yet Jane is worried that cell phones are destroying maternal instincts. The article does suggest that nannies talking to babies are an acceptable substitute. I wonder if Jane has ever walked around the Upper West Side of New York on a weekday and observed the expression of the nannies pushing strollers. Most of them look so bored with their charges they resemble zombies or prison inmates standing in the mess line.

Jane says:

I recently stopped to congratulate a young mother pushing her toddler in a stroller. The woman had been talking to her barely verbal daughter all the way up the block, pointing out things they had passed, asking questions like “What color are those flowers?” and talking about what they would do when they got to the park.

I admit, it must be wonderful to be personally congratulated by Jane. You know that famous gesture in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where God reaches out to touch Adam’s hand? It must feel something like that. As for how this young mother will reconcile all the contradictions she is fed, that’s not Jane’s department. Although she could probably recommend a good medication.

Please follow and like us: