On birthrates + Bruenig

Why everyone got mad at a NYT columnist and why I can't stop defending motherhood

This is a free mini-issue of Letters from a Catholic Feminist because I am bored and already on maternity leave, since my lazy child-in-utero was supposed to be here already. Feel free to share and consider subscribing.

Over the weekend, New York Times columnist Liz Bruenig wrote a personal essay about why she was happy she had children at a semi-young age.

I resonated with much of her beautiful essay. I also got married young-ish (23) had kids young-ish (24) and am, as she wrote, still learning that “ you are not something you discover one day through trial and error and interior spelunking; you are something that is constantly in the process of becoming, the invention of endless revolutions. You never know who you are, because who you are is always changing.”

Lest you think I’m some kind of diehard Liz Bruenig devotee, I’m—well, not. We surely don’t vote for the same people. If you sat us in a room together, I think we’d bond over Catholicism and kids and writing, and probably still walk away thinking the other ones dream tax scenario is a bit whack. In that very article, there’s a bone or two I could pick with what she suggests would solve the spiraling US birthrate. But I enjoy reading nice prose from smart, gracious people that I disagree with, and Liz Bruenig often falls into that category. 

I’m not galloping in on a white horse to save the New York Times columnist from Twitter anger. She’s quite honestly right—who gives a shit what people are saying on social media? She writes for the New York Times. I have a few hundred people reading an online newsletter and a handful of books. She does not need my defense. We are all so very Online and maybe we should all just x out Twitter and keep bees instead. But I find the reaction to her piece emblematic of bigger trends, both in the way we view motherhood and the way we view online discourse, and I think those trends are worthy of conversation.

I’m always wary of contributing to online battles over articles because they’re often way, way, way overblown. If you’re going to write an essay for the internet, be it the NYT or a personal blog or anywhere in between, you can go ahead and expect people to have reactions to it. I can’t stand when someone posts something clickbaity and then has a meltdown because someone says something mean about it. Liz isn’t crying people are picking on me and I don’t mean to portray it as such. People are perfectly within their rights to critique an article and to discuss its merits or faults. But what was odd to me about this particular incident was that the many, many, many complaints didn’t seem to be about anything she actually said. 

Instead, it was more like this (paraphrasing to protect the Not Innocent, but just barely): Liz Bruenig needs her ass whooped. Liz Bruenig needs to uplift marginalized writers. Liz Bruenig needs to check her privilege. Liz Bruenig needs to realize her life isn’t that attainable. Liz Bruenig needs to stop acting like she’s the only woman who’s ever had a kid. Liz Bruenig is going to have an “I forgot to be young” meltdown in a few years.

So the problem, you see, is not with Liz Bruenig having kids, or writing about it. The problem is with Liz Bruenig. 

Bruenig, however, is the exact kind of person you’d think we’d want writing about motherhood. She’s someone who highlights the difficulty of raising children in a society that often doesn’t view motherhood as something worth financially supporting. She’s someone who has written numerous articles in a national paper about the need to uplift diverse voices. She’s someone who has continually acknowledged the varied circumstances in which people become mothers. (And, for the love of God, this piece was in the New York Times. It’s not exactly the Daily Wire. You can’t flip two pages in the Times without an op-ed waxing on the importance of checking your privilege or uplifting the marginalized. Let’s not act like the New York Times is this hotbed of writing on the plight of the upper class white male). In that very essay, she writes about how there are very good reasons to not have children young, and highlights the financial difficulties of childbirth and raising children! She calls out her own position of financial security! These are the exact kinds of conversations we need to be having. So why are people so angry?

It’s been acknowledged time and time again that our church tends to talk about women solely through the lens of motherhood, and that that simply shouldn’t be so—that women are not only mothers and that many women aren’t mothers at all. This is a valid argument, but again, this is a personal essay on a timely topic. You can’t expect any singular essay to fully encompass a writer’s beliefs. You need to look at the totality of their work before rushing out to insist they Ignore This or Don’t Do That. (And I know this from experience. How many times did I publish a podcast episode on infertility only to have 5 women email me that hyper fertility is a cross, too?!? How many times did I share an interview on poverty only to have 7 women comment why don’t you ever talk about NFP?!? How many times did I post on literally ANY topic only to get a DM accusing me of “silence” on the latest media event du jour?)

But her narrative—that self sacrifice can be a place for joy and self fulfillment, and that the choice to make that self sacrifice at a young age might be the right one for some people—is so unforgivably wrong to a certain subset of our culture. And it’s a small subset, to be sure, but a loud one. Surely, a woman couldn’t decide to be married in her early 20s. Surely, if she had children at such an age, she is full of regret, watching the world pass her by out the windows of her train car of oppression. Surely, one day, she’ll have a #tradwife breakdown. (A “tradwife” who…writes for an enormous media conglomerate.)

And if she did make those decisions, it’s only because she had money. Because she’s white. Because she’s religious! Because she’s American! Her life decisions are fine for her, not for me. (Again, she literally said this in the essay.)

Putting aside the fact that plenty of European countries with a myriad of generous family leave policies are also facing spiraling birth rates, or that the birth rate in the US is actually greatest among those making the least amount of money, why, why, why are we getting so mad at a woman having the ability to make the choice that was right for her and telling her story about it?

Here is what I’m trying to say: every single time Taylor Marshall opens his mouth about feminists and I get 10+ emails about it, every single time I have to explain yet again why I think Catholic feminism is a Real Thing, every single time Matt Walsh sends some stupid sexist tweet, I’m out here saying they’ve got it wrong, but this loud, angry, lost group is making them right, and that infuriates me. You demanding that you know what’s best for women is not anything different than Timothy Gordon doing so. You’re both taking out the importance of personal discernment, you’re both insisting that your way is the correct way, and you’re both leaving out large groups of people for whom the choice to have kids is nuanced and complicated. You’re both looking for easy answers in a place where easy answers don’t exist.

None of which, might I add, Bruenig did.

For so long, I’ve had people telling me that feminism is, quite simply, dead. At least, the type of feminism we’re aiming for, that welcomes all colors and salaries, that fights for equal opportunities for women, that tries to end violence from womb to tomb while upholding a Catholic belief system. Move on. Do something else. Keep bees (why am I a beekeeper in all of my get-off-the-grid fantasies?) Those people hate you—why bother? Humility, thy name was Claire when the other day on Instagram, someone semi-kindly pointed out that I’m not “influential” in the culture by any means. She was right! I am an ant in a culture of blue whales. I write fiction—I could just close up shop on the Catholic Feminist and focus on that. God knows it would be better for my blood pressure.

But I can’t. I keep beating that same drum, yelling that same simple truth: that women can decide for themselves what God’s calling for them is (and that they can write about it, too). I can’t shut up about things like motherhood in your early 20s being a valid choice. I can’t shut up about how to make motherhood an easier choice for people. I can’t shut up about the importance of prayerful discernment. I understand that I could grow this newsletter rapid-fire and get a damn newspaper column of my own if I was more willing to engage in the “feminists suck” angle. People love a woman hating on feminists. And your cruel, angry social media messages to a writer I respect would make it easy. But I can’t do it, because as much as you people on Twitter make me want to throat punch someone, there’s a greater truth at hand: I actually love you and desire your sainthood. I wish my religion allowed me to hate people but it doesn’t.

A cynical part of me wants to rant about self-care culture and how much of it is opposed to childrearing. Insert a Gwenyth Paltrow joke here, you know? But the truth is that I don’t think self care vs. selflessness is really what it’s about. It’s about choices. Absolutely nowhere in that essay did Bruenig say that her experience is accurate for everyone, or that her motherhood was under attack, or that your life is meaningless without kids. If you’re insinuating that, you’re mad at something that doesn’t exist. Here’s what you’re really mad about: someone else made a different one than you did, and they found happiness with it, and it ticks you off. Then they got paid a lot of money to write about it. If that’s you…I’d sit with that.

I am writing this at 40 weeks pregnant, by far the most pregnant I’ve ever been. For the next few months, I’m going to have a teeny tiny baby, one that will irk me in a multitude of ways and also cause me to randomly burst into tears out of love and affection. My main goal for these first few months is to soak up the snuggles and mainly stay the hell off the internet. And yes, here it is: the big fat Privilege Disclaimer. My husband has three months of paid paternity leave, which means this will be easier for me to do than it would be for others. But instead of wallowing in guilt about that, instead of hiding that fact or acting like it’s something to be embarrassed of, I’m going to continue writing in my little corner of the internet and advocating for more companies to realize the correlation between postpartum depression and paid paternity leave, and praying for more leaders in society to realize pro-life views should be paired with pro-motherhood policies.

But for now, I’m taking a cue from Liz Bruenig and clicking uponst the x.