My first blog post ever !
How exciting!
I have to admit however that I was a little hesitant to hit send….I have a tendency to (over)worry (standard Cancerian trait) about where my writing will end up in the blogosphere and the world wide net. I guess a big part of me wants to ensure I am connecting with an audience of readers I hope will appreciate and value the posts I am putting out into this world.
My hesitation also stems from the fact that I have two very distinct writing voices….one that is more academic and political (proudly left leaning and feminist) and the other being more literary, personal (often very self-revealing) and disjointed in the way I narrate a topic. Although both voices are representative of my authentic and sincere self-– I did wonder which writing voice to use for my introductory post.
I have decided to just write without thinking about IT too much and leave it to my readers to decide which voice they are hearing.
So …..
My name is Linn…which is a self created moniker from my given name Linda. I decided to change my name about a decade ago to reflect exciting new transformations that were happening to me professionally and personally. I did not want to abdicate my parent’s chosen name too much as it held a herstory of cultural heritage, being that it was the English version of the Polish Linka . I decided on a name that would be “similar but different” and held personal meaning. And I took the “similar but different” vein even further by deciding on Linn vs Lyn (an English Literature graduate, I have this “thing’ for hononyms)
The Norwegian actress and film director, Liv Ullmann wrote a memoir in 1977 simply and eloquently entilited Changing . While many young girls were given either a complicated and boring "This is your Body" manual or a copy of Judy Blume’s Are You There God? Its me Margaret (albeit, a favourite of mine, too) by their mothers upon a certain age , my mother gave me Liv Ullman’s personal story of womanhood on the occasion of my 10 th birthday and on the year of the memoir's world wide publication.
I can still remember unwrapping the book eagerly (I knew it was a book and this in and of itself was thrilling for me …a passionate reader). And I can still recall turning to the dedication page- Ullmann had written “To my daughter, Linn” and underneath that line, my mother had written in her fanciful scrawl and utilizing her Yorkshire dialect – “To my daughter, Linda….luv Mum xoxo”
That book changed my life!
It was the most honest and soul-searching writing I had ever read. It was about being a woman, an artist, a lover, and a mother. I imagine if it was to be published today, it would be termed a “momoir” and relegated to a parenting shelf at a big box bookstore as opposed to being given its ideal prominent location- the front window !
At the time I received that gift from my mother, I never imagined how that book would predate and foreshadow the life I would lead as a woman, as an academic, as a mother and as a writer. I also never knew until many years later that my mother was reading and discussing that book at the time of her gift giving with her Women’s Book Group- meaning a Feminist Consciousness-Raising Group during the heart and heat of second-wave feminism.
Changing is chockful of meaningful insights into the ways in which both men and women have been limited by traditional views of masculinity and femininity. Ullmann’s view of the relations between the sexes belongs to a feminist ethos that insists that the liberation of women will also free men. Strangely, it never appears on many Introduction to Women’s Studies reading lists. Odd too that it was never mentioned once during my own undergraduate and graduate university courses in Women’s Studies.
Some may argue that its omission in the feminist canon was because it was at variance with certain (mis) understandings of second wave feminism - that this movement suggested women cannot be free until they are free of men.
Furthermore, there was- and still remains- further (mis) understandings about the connections between motherhood and feminism….more specifically the potentially empowering relationship a woman has to her experience of mothering.
Indeed the central relationship in Changing is between Ullmann and her daughter Linn- her “love child” with Ingmar Bergman.
(Added thoughts: don’t you just love the term “love child” as opposed to the oft-used term “bastard”???…I hope to address my own experiences of mothering a “love child” in future posts about the patriarchal dictates of the institution of motherhood versus the empowered and feminist experiences of “actual and lived" mothering)
Ullman returns again and again in her memoir to the subject of maternal guilt- how a woman should and can reconcile seemingly opposing conflicts between art/work and mothering. Interestingly, the term now used in the media and popular culture about what I (and Ullman) would agree is a false construct of such a dichotomy is the mommy wars.
Myself and other current researchers of feminist motherhood would debunk such notions of inevitable maternal guilt , while at the same time acknowledging the possible (but potentially empowering) experiences of what Rozika Parker has termed “maternal ambivalence”.
I also love that the Norweigian translation for “maternal guilt” is "bad conscience” !!!!
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And so you may be wondering where I am going with this long and winding post about my name change???
Just over a decade ago, I made a decision to change my name to reflect the awe-inspiring transformations that were happening to me in my personal and professional life. I chose the name “LINN” and that name change remains both extremely serendipitous and profoundly meaningful.
ALL of my work, research and writing is about feminist motherhood.
I am also the feminist mother of a 10 year old son.
In 1977, Adrienne Rich announced in her classic text, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Institution and Experience, the following statement: ""We were conspirators, outlaws from the institution of motherhood; I
felt enormously in charge of my life"
I am a proud and defiant MOTHER OUTLAW…. this is my blog.....and I have a logo and T-shirts too!
Portrait
of the Artist as a Mother: Visualizing the Unspoken, consists of
presentations by Canadian visual artists: Jennifer Linton, Jennifer Long and
Lindsay Page. Through their individual practices in photography, drawing and
video, these artists create work that challenges the myth of motherhood as
celebration and seeks to open up a dialogue around the aspects of this
transition that are, in a variety of ways, unspoken. 
There is one
moment I remember very clearly from my own early years of motherhood. Pushing my
carriage alongside another new mother I had recently met in my neighbourhood,
we attempted to have a casual conversation about diapers and sleep deprivation above the din of her daughter’s shrill
crying (my son just happened to be asleep at that time). We approached the
top of a steep hill and this woman abruptly stopped herself in her tracks. I
looked at her directly and with my eyes
invited her to “ just say it, sister!” She spoke her
truth: “ I kind of feel like I just want to push this stroller down the hill!” I simply replied
with three words- “I hear you”- and
advised her to go ahead of me taking my son and that I would continue behind
her at a comfortable distance with her
daughter. She knew that she was not alone
in her experiencing of such
contradictory feelings. And I knew that I
had found a true friend.
In a panel session entitled “Public Schools and Private Money: The Fundraising
Dilemma”, discussions highlighted the “desperate times call for
drastic measures” notion whereby short on money for everything
from math workbooks to pencils, public schools are seeking corporate sponsors,
promising them marketing opportunities and access to students in exchange for desperately
needed donations. Of course, we all know that many public schools are
struggling financially and with the threat of closure due to decreased
enrollment. We also are aware that several schools are seeking alternative solutions
which include big money corporate sponsers entering the schools, using our
children as salespeople, and essentially moving from bake sales to big business.
Of course, Doucet-and myself, too in this post -are not saying that women who are currently the primary caregivers of their children should not take advantage of additional sources of income that can be accomplished from their home base. My own mother operated several small businesses-child care provider, house cleaner, and Tupperware salesperson, to name a few-while she was home with her young children.
This Mother Outlaw has to wonder: When will our streets be truly safe for everyone to “saunter” and “street haunt” without such worry?
I believe some of the best blogs about feminism and motherhood are those which do not declare themselves to be unique creations; singular births. To me, the best blogs in this area of focus are those that believe in the power of communal thinking … "so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice" as Virginia Woolf stated in A Room of One's Own.
