Suddenly, many have pointed out the same thing: that a large part of the debates of the 1920s were about the BB crisis and childbirth, about women’s aging, about meat mountains and the middle class, about local mothers, about a new desire to preserve gender differences or to regret children. They are led by women and like to revolve around private and family life. And the fact that the discussion so often touches on motherhood shows that it is still a greatness that we women, whether we like it or not, need to relate to.
What would my mother have said?
She was born in the 30s and grew up with a single mother. Grandmother came from a poor farming family in inner Skåne and worked at a milk bar. When she became pregnant, it turned out that her father already had a family. In order for her to be able to support herself, he bought confectionery Idun in Hörby for her and after that they had no contact. Grandmother went to a midwife on Öland who helped women who “ended up in an accident”. When mother was born, a wealthy couple came who wanted to adopt her but they had to turn in the door after a definite no.
Grandmother was small and thin but protected her child like a wolf. She raised a daughter who became interested in fashion, sewed her clothes, longed to leave, eventually became a dental nurse and met my father, who a couple of years later made his debut as a writer. Mom was at home with me and my siblings for fifteen years before returning to her professional life. When I had children myself, it felt as if she had gone before me, as if I had her safe movements in my body and that there were, as it were, prepared passages in the air.
My mother died of a rapid breast cancer at the age of 53 and my life was broken by grief. She had skipped a mammogram. She said so often that she was happiest when she was with the family, but sometimes I think she would never have missed that survey if she had not always been so eager to listen to whether Dad could write in his study or if we children had a good time on our side.
She almost never put herself first.
About mother on the culture pages had read about experiences, lessons and thoughts reminiscent of her own she had not believed her eyes. During her life, it was almost impossible for events from the more private or intimate sphere to be the starting point for intellectual discussions in public.
It is a big step forward that it has changed. The fact that many of the debates in recent years have been about women-coded topics shows that today there are so many women who write, create opinion and research that they obviously pursue and debate issues that they themselves are interested in. And that we have long since passed the stage that all marginalized groups go through when they begin to take place: the demand for loyalty. Now women put forward hard and sharp arguments against each other, and that’s healthy.
Can it be too much? Aftonbladet’s Johanna Frändén (20/5) expressed the other day some lead over the last year of debate and rightly wondered where the men had gone: “It is as if their increasing responsibility for every other week, babysitting and parental leave has not aroused a single political thought.” In a reply, Victor Malm stated (Expressens 22/5)that he himself did not feel like writing about hereditary hair loss or age impotence and saw a depressingly weak growth of male cultural writers.
Here it is important to keep in the hat. I’m sure we’ll see a backlash against articles based on more private experiences. This is completely in line with the usual tendency that when women increase in number, it is felt that they are taking over. But also because we are moving towards a darker and mobilizing future with national conflicts that have major political, economic and climate consequences. In more troubled times, old hierarchies re-emerge.
Then it is important not to back down. To simply refuse to agree with the old division between what is important and unimportant, serious and unserious, public and private. For the truth is that everything human can be the starting point for reflection and analysis. And in the long run, the equalization of status between different subjects is the only way to get even men to start moving more freely between what – incorrectly, but okay then – is called the small and big world.
Mom would have liked that. I can see her in front of me with the newspaper when she cycles home from the public dental care to eat her lunch file. She had felt at home in the modern media landscape where one can draw as much existential or political conclusions from NATO as from motherhood.
So congratulations to all mothers. Today is Mother’s Day. Celebrate that your lives have become more visible.
Read more chronicles by Åsa Beckman here, for example “You do not have to talk openly about regretting your motherhood” or “Why are more fun novels written about women and sex in Malmö?” Also subscribe to her newsletter where she chooses five favorite articles every Monday.