More on othering the mother.

Mar 17, 2015

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My post on "I don't know how you do it" as an othering statement got a little bit of traffic and commentary. Most of the quotes are from Facebook, so I'm not going to attribute them (unless one of the original writers should happen to read this followup and ask me to).

Some people felt that the "othering" is not necessarily a form of dismissal, but more "an acknowledgement of the skill set of someone"else that I seem to lack:"

We're talking about the skills that can and do develop out of necessity in times of necessity. The statement is, I think, more a statement about grace and hope – the hope that there are skills out there that I don't have; that there is grace for surviving… I'm not saying that it is something that should be said – because it does grate and feel like othering.

See, now, to that I would say that IDKHYDI is not the appropriate observation to make (out loud) because in this case it's not true. The writer of this observation does know "how that person does it," or at least she has a theory: out of necessity the skills develop. She calls it grace and hope. IDKHYDI is a statement of hopelessnessShe has put herself in that person's shoes and imagined "if I had to, I would be able to do that." This is the antithesis of IDKHYDI, which is a statement of hopelessness.

Others said as much:

If you think about it, there's a falseness to it in even those cases, though. After all, you admit you *do* know "how they do it"–by developing a skill set, by working hard, by surviving, by giving some things up (or having them taken), by relying on other's support, by making different choices. So it might actually help to mentally rephrase that into a more accurate statement: "I admire what you are able to accomplish."

Another suggestion offered was that "IDKHYDI" is sometimes simply true: the endurance is incomprehensible. A reply (not from me):

[T]here are situations where "I could never do…" can be accurate self-assessment. Given my neurological limitations, for example, I could never do anything that requires a great deal of quick memorization.

Of course, that's not usually what is meant by that statement. Usually what is meant is "I could never prioritize that goal the way you do."

And I think that's exactly right about what's meant. Another friend of mine jumped in to agree with this and added, that yes, that is what IDKHYDI means:

For everything from "I could never be a stay-at-home mom" to "I could never be monogamous."

That led to the reply:

I was thinking of fitness and diet when I wrote that, since that's where I've caught myself thinking, "I could never…" when the truth is really that it's not a priority to me now… I want to say "I could never" because being faced with differing priorities can be uncomfortable; I may admire them, but that challenges me to examine my own.

"I could never…" allows me to acknowledge the accomplishment without being challenged by it.

And some pointed out that yes, you can come up with examples where "IDKHYDI" (or its cousin, I could never do what you do) is literally true. (There's that plausible deniability again!) But most of the time it's not:

People say these things about all kinds of accomplishments that are not really incomprehensible–or are very easily answered (I don't know how you become such an accomplished pianist. Oh, it takes several thousand hours of dedicated practice? Good to know.

Someone asked me,

Out of curiosity–do you think "othering" is a verb that refers to intent, to something objective about the situation or statement, or primarily to effect?

That did get me thinking.

+ + +

Possibly people who find themselves being "othered" feel all kinds of ways about it. I think the dichotomy is that in any given situation a person can either be "special" or she can "connect with" others.

Sometimes that is a choice: I can choose to be special, or I can choose to connect.

Otherwise it is something done to a person: I can choose to connect with you, or I can choose to identify you as special.

The difficulty in discourse is that the dichotomy exists irrespective of whether "special" means especially admirable or especially deficient. Either way the identification as "special" is evidently preferable to connection. And what was consciously intended as admiration, even if unconsciously a sort of exercise in identity strengthening, can sometimes read as rejection.

More insidiously, the ambiguity inherent in the statement means that the rare person who consciously intends to invalidate someone else by deliberately othering her has a cover story to exploit. Or maybe that is less insidiously; maybe the bigger problem is created by the legions of people who really don't mean to say anything hurtful or alienating but wind up doing it anyway because they Just. Don't. Think.

Most of the time, however, I believe there are conscious and unconscious components to it. The othering is itself the conscious part: A conscious, however faint, identification and decision to verbalize "you are a different kind of person from me."

The fact that it is often a hostile and defensive choice of verbalization (compared to alternatives that would display curiosity, attempt empathy, or seek commonality) is, I believe, largely unconscious.

+ + +

I will not disagree with the notion that many people are just trying to say something neutral or kind when they pull out IDKHYDI. I stand by my statement that it is an instance of othering, at least unconscious, and frequently the othering is deliberate and conscious though it be without conscious malice ("you are special"). I think magical thinking is part of it sometimes (you are different from me and that reassures me that I will never be in your situation) and desire not to be challenged is part of it sometimes (I could never) and part of it is sheer tribalism (you're nuts, lady). The ambiguousness of the intent makes IDKHYDI akin to, if not as serious a social problem as, othering statements in the context of racial and gender differences. The ambiguousness provides plausible deniability that will be accepted as innocuous by members of the speaker's "tribe" and further serve as a marker of exclusion for those who object to the label. ("People like that are so sensitive, I was only trying to be nice.")

So what if, instead of IDKHYDI, we sought and acknowledged common ground? What would that look like? Humans are adaptable, we are capable of changing our priorities, and we are capable of intense focus on our identified priorities — all of us are. We don't have to think that we would choose the same priorities in order to praise someone for doing the hard work that makes their priorities happen. Why on earth must we always get defensive when faced with someone who has done nothing more aggressive to us than arrange her own priorities in a different way?

+ + +

Later, on Saturday morning, I thought of an example. I was trying to get to the weekday (well, Saturday — not Sunday, I mean) eight o'clock Mass at the parish in the first suburb to the south, but I'd been sluggish in getting out of bed. I was slurping down an espresso at 7:21 a.m., Italian-style, standing up in the coffee shop, hoping that this would get me under the wire for communion if the homilist wasn't too brief; and wondering how people (especially ones with small children) ever manage to get to a weekday morning Mass every single day. I'm a morning person and it seems insurmountable.

And yet I know that people do it. Because they have different priorities (thank you, Facebook commenter).

No — wait — they don't have different priorities, as if specially gifted people wake up and find themselves in possession of the appropriate priorities.

They make from the situation they are in, priorities that fit into that situation and that satisfy their values.

So in my imaginary dialogue with The Mother Who Is Something Like Me Except That She Goes To Weekday Masses More Often Than Only Once In A While — okay, really it's a monologue —

— I could say: I don't know how you do it.

Or I could stretch my imagination just a teeny bit and say: "Gosh, I think that if I were going to make it to an 8 a.m. Mass every day, instead of only once in a while, I would need to buy an espresso machine for my kitchen. What's your secret?"

That doesn't shut down a conversation — at least not on purpose. It might start one. I think it's better. But it's probably not the only way.

Comments

4 responses to “More on othering the mother.”

Jenny

March 17, 2015

” I stand by my statement that it is an instance of othering, at least unconscious, and frequently the othering is deliberate and conscious though it be without conscious malice (“you are special”). I think magical thinking is part of it sometimes (you are different from me and that reassures me that I will never be in your situation) and desire not to be challenged is part of it sometimes (I could never) and part of it is sheer tribalism (you’re nuts, lady)”
A succinct description of the problem with the phrase and why the recipient often feels like a zoo animal on display.

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Melanie B

March 22, 2015

I think if I were to make it to daily Mass more than once in a blue moon I’d need to have an 8 am Mass available somewhere close by. Because 9 am, while easier to get to, would eat too much into the school day. I’d have to figure out how to get the kids to squeeze their school work in before lunch, in other words starting almost from scratch in developing new habits for the whole family. And I’d have to fight the temptation to stay and socialize after Mass. There might be other things I’d have to tweak too. Right now it’s really hard for me to imagine making it work given my constraints and I’m generally bemused at how other mothers who seem to be in a situation that is analogous to mine manage to make it work. My shorthand for that has been, “I don’t know how they do it.”
I do follow the logic of your argument as to why the phrase is alienating, but I still find it springing to mind when confronted with something like the above example because, like most people, I tend to think and speak in stock phrases. I suspect the phrase is here to stay precisely because it is a shorthand for a much more complex statement, for a more complex thought process that I don’t always feel up to engaging in. People like conversational shortcuts, even when they are imprecise. Otherwise why does the guy passing me on the street say, “How’s it going?” when he has zero interest in stopping to have an actual conversation about how my day is going?
I guess I have always taken “I don’t know how you do it” as the same kind of annoying conversational tick. It’s the default filler to stand in for the mental work of having a conversation about “how you do it” especially when people are just trying to make small talk and don’t really want to have an actual moment of connection. So that leads to another question: does every conversational exchange have to lead to connection? Is it ever ok to just say, I’m tired and I don’t feel like trying to find something creative to toss into the conversational ring? Ok I probably shouldn’t be leaving this comment now because I am feeling tired and a bit cranky. But this is why I find small talk draining, having to analyze everything I say to try to determine how it will come across. So often its easier to just sit back and let everyone else do the talking. When I open my mouth I stick my foot in it so why bother anyway? Who knows what other conversational gambits are in someone else’s pet peeve file.
I suppose my take away is that we should try to avoid the expression in our own speech, but to give people who use it the benefit of the doubt rather than to be hurt or annoyed. To me, though, it goes in the same category as the ubiquitous, “You’ve got your hands full,” and “Are they all yours” which in my experience have never been meant as anything but sympathetic but which always feel othering. But then I guess I’m trying to resign myself to the fact that simply by having five kids I am “other” to most people I meet outside of Catholic circles. And even in our parish we are the definite outlier when I can hear people talking about being “done” after two kids while I ‘m standing in the church entrance.

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Anne

March 30, 2015

I really love this post, and the last one. Thank you! And, particularly, as I’m heading into the dark days of Holy Week, it’s an interesting lens as I think about Jesus. He is the ultimate Other. I would never have done it the way he did it. I don’t know how or why he does what he does, although I constantly struggle to try.

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bearing

March 30, 2015

Anne: Great point!
I’m loving your blog (Preventing Grace) since I recently was introduced to it, by the way. I keep accidentally typing two g’s in the URL though 🙂

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