From The Philosopher, vol. 112, no. 2 ("Violence")
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All too often, public-facing philosophy is laboured, overly literal and boring. Institutionalised academics trot out heavy-handed think pieces in a bid to make their otherwise esoteric concerns seem relevant (and, presumably, worth institutional funding). Genuinely engaged philosophy, philosophy that starts with the real world rather than abstract theory, is harder to come by. Happily, this book from Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, is of the rarer, more valuable variety. It is an extended meditation on the perennial question of parenthood – and why one might pursue it – but grounds its discussions in considered analysis of contemporary culture, including millennial ambivalence about the future and the collective dumpster fires of capitalism and patriarchy. It is engaging, rigorous without being tedious, and carefully structured. It is also a model of co-authorship, with a remarkably coherent shared voice, as well as distinct narrative perspectives (in the introduction and conclusion). Structurally, the only annoyance is the absence of an index.
One of the strengths of the book also makes it a difficult one to review. Rather than expunging themselves from the text (the passive voice is a particular vice of academic writing), Berg and Wiseman are present throughout, reflecting on their experiences of children and parenthood. In the introduction, “Under Pressure”, Wiseman offers us insights into her worries and ambivalence about pregnancy. In the conclusion, “Hello From the Other Side”, Berg writes movingly and incisively about her daughter, and the trials and tribulations of motherhood. They interrogate their own experiences; their lives and their philosophical practice are interwoven. This is, I think, how it should be, but it complicates critique. The job of a reviewer is to examine and sometimes problematise a text, rather than cast judgement on the life choices of its authors, but when life and work are intertwined the latter becomes a risk. The risks are higher still when the reviewer is, like me, a cis-gender man writing about the work (and lives) of two women, within patriarchy.
The question of “who gets a say” is a central problematic in the book, which explores the peculiar decision-making processes that can lead individuals to become pregnant.
In some ways, the question of “who gets a say” is a central problematic in the book, which explores the peculiar decision-making processes that can lead individuals to become pregnant. In relation to reproduction, it is a question obviously accented by gender and sex. My own decision to reproduce has a different valence to decisions by people who actually have the capacity to become pregnant. My views (as a man) about whether we should bring babies into existence has a different weight in a world where reproductive rights for women have never been a given.
The fact that a man’s views on this (indeed on any) subject might be weighted differently doesn’t mean men should be silent here. In chapter two, “The Dialectic of Motherhood”, Berg and Wiseman point out that the historical struggle for reproductive liberation, which aims to protect women’s voices and agency, has unintentionally resulted in an unhelpful asymmetry in the decision-making process: “When it comes to deciding whether or not to have children, men are too often let off the hook…” (129). To an extent, then, this review is an attempt to put myself back on the hook.
What is it to want to have a child? Certainly, there are external pressures to procreate, which the authors lay out carefully in chapter one, “The externals”. Pro-natalist institutions (the Church, the State and so on) work to naturalise the idea that making babies is part of a happy life. Wanting to have a child is “natural” (and therefore good). The objections to this form of pro-natalism are both persuasive and pervasive and need not be repeated here. Moreover, according to Berg and Wiseman, such external pressures are, perhaps, felt less keenly now than they once were, at least by some subsets of the (North American) population. Looking at statistical and qualitative research, they identify what appears to be a growing acceptance in middle and upper-income America that parenthood “just isn’t for everyone”. As such, what was once expected (reproduction, regardless of ambitions) is no longer.
In chapter three, “Analysis Paralysis”, they give an interesting overview of the “literature of domestic ambivalence” (141), which captures the affective fall-out from this societal shift. Parenthood is no longer a social expectation, so the decision to parent has come to rest with individuals (primarily, they say, individuals with wombs). This creates a particular millennial malaise, which figures as the subject of the often auto-fictional texts by authors like Rachel Cusk, Sheila Heti, and Rivka Galchen discussed by Berg and Wiseman in the chapter. Medical technologies and shifting social attitudes make child-free (yet sex positive) lives a genuine possibility, so our generation is forced, often in isolation, to reckon with the confusion: to procreate or not to procreate? We are called to assess the pros and cons of baby-making, with compelling arguments on both sides.
It’s not hard, for example, to feel the force of the anti-natalist arguments offered by David Benatar (whose work makes an appearance in chapter four, “To be or…?”). The world is a determinately terrible place (politically, ecologically, spiritually), so it seems actively immoral to bring children into existence. Then again, Berg and Wiseman ask, what is it to submit to this all-encompassing pessimism? It has what Maggie Nelson calls a “punk allure”, but isn’t a stable point of political purchase. Most of us want to make life better, safer, more bearable and meaningful for ourselves and others; we aspire to ethical and political uplift for humanity in the broadest sense. For Berg and Wiseman, the anti-natalists like Benatar are giving up on this project. There are good reasons to resist the pull of nihilism.
There were moments when I felt Wiseman and Berg were slightly ungenerous in their reading of the ambivalence literature, much of which is beautifully and delicately ironic and witty (I am an avid re-reader of Heti’s Motherhood). The same is true for their analysis of climate fiction (“Cli-fi”) doomerism, which features in chapter four, and of which they are more than a little dismissive (for the same reasons that they dismiss Benatar). I was thrilled, however, to find them fellow fans of Torrey Peters’s brilliant and breathtaking Detransition, Baby, and happily surprised to see they had quoted the self-same passage underlined in my own copy of the novel. The story focusses on an “erotic and, potentially, familial” love triangle, in which the novel’s characters – some trans, some cis – consider and reconsider what it is to be a mother and to want a baby. The passage in question (too long to quote in this review) captures one protagonist’s response to the question: why do you want to have a baby?
There are so many reasons, but most of them are so simple, so embodied, that they feel inadequate to the question. She likes to hold children. To smell a baby’s hair. To soothe a crying infant and feel his little frame let go of rigid fear to settle in her arms… (quoted on 155)
The fact that this character, Reese, is a trans woman accents both the question and the answer. “Because ‘family’ is not a given for the trans and queer characters in Peters’s novel, wanting a family raises questions for them that most of the cis white ‘motherhood ambivalence’ female narrators do not venture to ask: What about motherhood is unique, and uniquely desirable?” (147) The point is well made, and encourages readers to ask why queer families and queer family formation are not more prominent parts of this book. There are moments when, intentionally or not, Wiseman and Berg appear to slip into the forms of heteronormativity they themselves (alongside Adrienne Rich and bell hooks) critique. To claim, for instance, that men are “too often let off the hook” when it comes to the decision to parent, is to obscure (though not erase) the long and frequently painful history of queer folk, including gay men, who are both unable to make babies themselves and demonised for their love of, and aspirations towards childcare.
Irrespective of philosophical arguments, babies will still be born. Many of these babies will find themselves alone in the world, in need of parents
The book has a compelling shadow, an argument which is never quite made; it lingers in the background because of an understandable (if avoidable) focus on biological parenthood. The decision to “have children” is, of course, historically connected to the decision to reproduce, to procreate, and reproductive labour has been (and continues to be) a site of extreme and brutal exploitation, which requires both reparation and remedy. Nevertheless, “having children” (with all the proprietary connotations that phrasing carries) is not the only way to become a parent. Too much space is given, I think, to the oddly macho, nihilistic posturing of the anti-natalists; I doubt anyone is really under the illusion that child-making is going to stop. Irrespective of philosophical arguments, babies will still be born. Many of these babies will find themselves alone in the world, in need of parents. Tina Rulli, David Friedrich and Veromi Arsiradam have all written extensively about the importance of including non-biological parenthood in these discussions, arguing that there is a pro tanto duty to adopt pre-existing children rather than to make more – and I wish Berg and Wiseman had drawn more on the growing body of literature on alternative parenting (adoptive, foster, kinship, multi-), which are too often seen to be a “last resort” for those who can’t conceive.
The connection between “being a parent” and “making babies” may have loosened had there been a greater focus on the social critiques from Black liberationist and Black feminist thought (although there is some of this in chapter two). Patricia Hill Collins, like bell hooks, has written powerfully about the politics of “othermothering” in Black American communities in the 80s and 90s, and examines the way such traditions challenge the monopolies of care that characterise neo-liberal private families. More recently, Alexis Pauline Gumbs has pointed to the anti-propertarian potential of “polymaternalism”, where every child has many mothers of any gender. Sophie Lewis, another fierce and challenging writer (given surprisingly short shrift in this book), has drawn many of these critiques together to argue that the celebration of “biogenetic babies” is a function of capitalism. I think Wiseman and Berg are sympathetic to the thought that “making babies” can be disconnected from “becoming a parent”, but there are points where they bundle the two together. In her conclusion, Berg tells us that “bringing forth and nurturing life” is the most literal way to affirm human existence (232). I can see why nurturing is an affirmative act (and I agree that it is), but why must “bringing forth” babies, which can be unintentional or forced, be an assertion of the worthiness of human life?
What makes this book so tantalising are the allusions to alternative parenting arrangements, which sidestep the issues of heteronormative coupledom
What makes this book so tantalising are the allusions to alternative parenting arrangements, which sidestep the issues of heteronormative coupledom (e.g. finding, in the same individual, a good co-parent, a romantic partner and a best-friend (67)). This is one of the reasons Peters’s Detransition, Baby is such a triumph; its protagonists are engaged in unpicking the rights and responsibilities of different kinds of parents, biogenetic and otherwise. It is also one of the reasons I would have loved to hear more from Berg and Wiseman about Lila, to whom What Are Children For? is dedicated, and who features prominently in the acknowledgements. Lila is Berg’s biological daughter and also, significantly, Wiseman’s god-daughter. I feel uncomfortable dwelling on such personal relationships (for the reasons outlined earlier), but they are, I think, a proper part of the book and an indication that there is much more to be said about what “parenthood” might mean, even by the authors’ own lights. To what extent should we take “god-parents” seriously as parents (and what role does “god” have here)? What Are Children For? demonstrates that Berg and Wiseman are excellent co-authors – and friends – and joined in their shared love of Lila. Their relationships – with each other, with Lila, with their romantic partners – form the book’s framework, and I just wish they had shown us their working.
A prismatic text, which draws together different research methods and findings, I would recommend Berg and Wiseman’s book to anyone looking for an engaging and incisive route into this subject – especially older millennials (like me) with a penchant for late-90s, early-2000s pop-culture references.
What Are Children For?: On Ambivalence and Choice by Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman is published by Macmillan.
Adam Ferner is a freelance writer and child support worker living in North London. He has a PhD in philosophy from Birkbeck and has written several books on the practical benefits of thinking philosophically as well as a collection of philosophical horror stories. His new book, Unhappy Families: Childcare in a Hopeless World, is published by Agenda. Website: https://adamferner.com
From The Philosopher, vol. 112, no. 2 ("Violence")
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