Babies and Fish

This post may annoy some, but I guess that just always goes without saying

This week I have not been feeling well (like AT ALL), so I’ve watched an inordinately long list of films and shows (3). One I pretty much slept through (had already seen it anyway) the second was a recommendation which I enjoyed in a what is happening here?? Is this a comedy?? Interesting points! kind of way, and the third was a desperation watch, as I had a grisly headache and fever but couldn’t sleep and just wanted to distract myself. I just punched play on something. Anything.

In order:

1. Sliding Doors

2. The Triangle of Sadness

3. One Husband Three Wives

In my fevered state, covered in 5 blankets, these three screen-things melded together in my already melted brain, knocked around, and left me with some associations I’d like to explore. Hence, this post (calling them “stacks” just feels weird. I don’t know).

I won’t delve deeply into the plots in general because that’s boring (and what I’m gleaning from my 6 year old’s profound philosophizing is that boring is THE WORST—I don’t necessarily agree but…another post).

What I do want to discuss is the theme of specific role dependence and whether or not it is inherent, period.

This is a short post so, by it’s nature it’s going to deal with this somewhat superficially, but I’m making an effort to catch at least some of the important threads.

Now that I’m typing this, I’m like, duh this is obvious (yes people, I hear your thoughts!). OF COURSE we are all dependent on each other.

But hold up, there, babe. Yes, I’m talking about an obvious big-picture issue, but not that obvious or that big-picture.

The issue I’m looking at has to do with Fish and Babies (but not baby fish).

So.

Each screen-thing bandies about (what an awful old-timey phrase—I also greatly dislike and disapprove of the old-timey phrase old-timey) the topic of gender roles (or just roles, but gender plays a part) and dependence.

• Sliding Doors’ main theme addresses the fact that a minute detail can change your entire life (while it simultaneously proffers that major life events cannot be avoided and are already written). Gwyneth Paltrow’s boyfriend is writing a novel, supposedly, but is actually mostly having a boring* and stupid affair (which is probably a good match as he seems to embody both qualities himself) while Paltrow works a job—where she is apparently regularly devalued by the Old Boy’s Club—to support him. In this film, he is dependent upon her financially, and doesn’t want to lose her loyalty so he can continue (in so many words and at least is partially his motivation) to live parasitically off of her while only being detrimental in return. My own synopsis, obv.

• The TOS blatantly highlights the topic of a woman’s dependence on a man in terms of pregnancy/children and then inverts traditional gender roles and asks the question: who and what is valued when money isn’t a thing? (spoiler alert: survival skills and those who have them—and—extrapolating here—people who can Baby because…survival of the species).

• OHTW is a reality show about plural marriages (sister-wives-esque I guess, although I never have seen that so why am I even bringing it up?). Anyway. In their society, the women birth the babies (obv again) and then raise them (also the wives sometimes have jobs but they are then dependent on at least one of the other wives staying home with ALL the kids—which I will tell you at least ONE wife is not cool with—I see you, Marina.) Meanwhile, the husband rotates his time between his job, his wives, his kids, and acquiring more wives and kids (huh…).

So all this made me think a lot about all of this, and mostly about whether dependence is obligatory. I know, this theme is not new for me, I’ve written about it before—because as a woman with children, it’s always been present for me in one form or another. Also because it’s just a Real Thing. Maybe also it’s just an obvious part of our culture, but sometimes I like to repeatedly question obvious things, okay?

Obviously (so much obviously happening in this post) we are all dependent upon each other (not just the human species) and on the people (and animals and plants etc. and the earth) who came before us. But the way we set up our society is fascinating. I’m looking at individual units of dependence in individual relationships and in the same time, the bigger picture of that. In our society, money is the thing, man. And if you get pregnant, have kids and raise them, your earning power is just point blank squelched by… let’s just say a lot. I’m not saying earning money is more important than raising children (actually I mostly feel the opposite), but in our current culture you really generally do need both. And uh…we as a species can maybe survive without money but definitely not without Babies.

But is someone always fucked?

Babies and Fish.

Those who have and raise the Babies and those who catch the Fish.

In our current culture incarnation, career is one of the main valuations of esteem. It just is. So is money, sometimes, relatedly. So in general, lots of times, women are fucked. Or the stay at home dads (more in a moment). Not always of course.

Men, who generally bring in more money (see same link: history and current stats) and don’t watch their careers upended, paused (and thus their pay also paused re paycheck amount/promotions etc.—opportunity cost—when they do go back to work) or simply ended by childbirth and childcare, are generally not fucked.

But what are we talking about here? Let’s break it down.

1. Current cultural valuation

2. Ability to survive

Both.

**And by fucked, I mean put in a really difficult if not impossible position.**

Let’s just assume we all get that there are blah blah, trust fund women, women who started amazing careers and could retire and then have babies—theoretically this is possible?? But they still need help with said Babying. Okay. However, women often (I’ll hazard it’s the majority of the time) must be dependent on men (or some other kind of financial intervention) so that the woman can eat AND raise their children. Biological tendencies such as producing all of the mom hormones when pregnant and after birth confound things as well. Some women have a great, mutually beneficial arrangement with this dependence and couldn’t be happier. Some have no one to catch fish for them while they raise babies (a way more than full-time job) and are in the impossibly, not only unsatisfactory but excruciating, position of catching fish AND raising babies—whether they want to or not—and are often forced to violate what their bodies are telling them to do.

We are just looking at an A + B = C situation here. Except, coincidentally, that it is lives we’re talking about here.

We’re talking opportunity, investment, ROI and opportunity cost. But this is no Wall Street.

Unless I’m wrong, it seems to me that Babies and Fish is pretty much a zero-sum equation because of that other pesky variable…time. Drat. There’s only so much of it. So no, even if you work from home and have all your children with you, there’s a price to pay—the more fish you can catch in the least amount of time is the what-you-will-pay-spectrum-game here.

For men, I suppose, there is also a zero-sum game in which they also might not want to participate. Perhaps they’d rather spend more time with their children—so the mom brings in the fish. Perhaps the classic stay-at-home-dad pays a little in societal valuation—but come on, not really. The SAH dad is rejoiced! Appreciated! Anointed! Admired! Gushed-over! He should probably have a medal—I’m agreeing—it’s just that moms should too and….crickets?

Or both partners take turns. Or they both do half and half. Or they both mostly fish and someone else raises their kids. Or they both raise the kids and live in a shelter. ←I’m talking about people with no family or other support. Which I am fortunate not to have to deal with. But not everyone is me.

I’m not going to address gender anything here—I’m just referring to whoever fishes and whoever babies, and traditionally who does what, because to continue in our current society, both most happen.

So at the end of the day, I think the answer is that someone must be dependent on someone else to Fish when Babies. If there is no support for the mother, the price is either poverty or government or other support (e.g.. stripping, anyone? But you still have to have someone be with the babies!)—I know, all of it gets dicey.

And obviously if the system was set up differently (e.g., money did not = everything survival/valuation) it would be, well, different.

I think the down and dirty of it is this: Whoever Babies needs someone, at least for awhile, to Fish, and whoever Fishes…. uh, can call the shots. There’s the rub. At least where we are right now. And so yes. Dependence at least for a period of time, is generally obligatory. And in general, it is still women who are fucked.

I promise I’m not trying to be doom and gloom. But it’s just an equation, right? Do I have it wrong? Is Feminism, so great in theory, simply not addressing the Babies and Fish equation adequately?? Not that it’s anyone’s fault…it just IS, isn’t it? Isn’t it just part of the very fabric of our society? Still?

What are your thoughts????

*The worst type perhaps.