By Amy Wagner
Introduction
My matrilineal line shows a pattern of economic hardship, rural lifestyles, self-sufficiency, determination, weathering of hardship, and overcoming. My maternal grandmother lived as an Alaska Bush Pilot’s wife and mother and homesteaded in Alaska in the early years of its statehood. My mother came from the same humble beginnings. This paper will cover through an autoethnographic and matricentric feminist lens, the topics of rural motherhood, grandmotherhood, and resistance to the intergenerational trauma of poverty. The theme of accepting rather than blaming, and healing/overcoming will be explored.
Autoethnography
We are all products of our time and culture. My maternal grandmother lived much of her life in rural Texas and Alaska. She grew up in a rural part of central Texas, where she and her family worked in agriculture, later moving to the city of Austin. She finished school in 11th grade around the time of the start of World War II. Her upbringing was influenced by some level of economic disparity for much of the time.
Women in rural culture may benefit from increased social connectedness and reliance on neighbors, but may face increased isolation due to difficulty with transportation and “travel work” (Jackson et al., 2011). My grandmother sought out opportunities for connectedness in Alaska through her church, military, civic, and community networks. Her engagement with community life despite hardships is a trait I have cherished and sought to incorporate into my own life.
The Alaskan bush is an informal term that includes rural areas of Alaska, frequently removed from roads, sparsely populated, and inclusive of native populations and wildlife, though there is not an official definition of either the “bush” or “rural” (Shurval, 2009). In “Bush Pilots’ Wives,” LeNora Conkle (2000) interviewed my grandmother Elaine regarding her life as a “bush pilot’s wife.” Though this lens of being identified as a wife of another is inherently paternalistic and patriarchal, my grandmother demonstrated a strong sense of independence and agency during this time. She drove herself and her young son from Austin, Texas to Fairbanks, Alaska on the remote, unpaved Alcan Highway in a Volkswagen Beetle in May, 1964 with only $150 to meet up with her husband there who had gone up earlier.
While her husband was traveling in the Alaskan bush for extended periods on various hunts, rescue missions, or mercy flights, my grandmother managed the household and was employed as a clerk at the military base (Conkle, 2000). The family lived in a rural homestead for a time with no clean running water, or trash service. She mowed her own lawn, drove the garbage herself to the local dumpster, filled jugs of water from the local fire station for drinking, cooking, and bathing, did laundry at the military base and showered at the local high school swimming pool in North Pole. She dealt with unforgiving cold weather, dark winters, and lack of access to high quality health care. She persevered with a strong if somewhat stoic attitude to get the daily tasks done.
While amenities were few, Elaine kept her spirits high. She raised her children (and later part-time her grandchildren) with love, care, and affection. When my twin sister and I lived with her, and it was too cold to go to the high school to shower, she would boil water on the stove and give us a sponge bath. She cooked peach cobbler to maintain her Texas heritage in Alaska, and though money was tight, would “splurge” on Kentucky Fried Chicken on occasion to make sure we had a special treat.
My mother also dealt with financial challenges. She received scholarships for college but later dealt with underemployment while living in rural areas due to lack of opportunities. A later divorce presented additional financial hardships. She also maintained a vibrant spirit while getting her master’s degree as a single mother, despite the financial difficulties. As an example, my mother rode the bus with us across town to attend an art class she had sought out scholarships for with an art teacher working on her graduate degree who became a lifelong family friend; this relationship has influenced me to this day. The artist, Karen Keifer-Boyd, is now a professor of Art Education and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. These lean years are the ones I look back on the most fondly; though we had very little, we had family togetherness and a plethora of community mothering to help raise us.
In addition to the support of my mother and grandmother, these “other mothers” provided resources that enabled my twin sister and I to overcome the effects of poverty, including not only financial poverty, but also that of social connectedness and isolation. Upon reflection, my mother purposefully sought out these community mentors to co-mother and provide resources. These co-mothers included art teachers, childcare workers, neighbors, church members, extended family members, classmates, and others. It truly “takes a village.” These women provided a type of social capital that helped us to resist poverty in many ways (Buck-McFadyen, 2014, p. 370).
Theoretical Framework
Social capital is defined as networks with high levels of trust and featuring mutual aid and reciprocity (Lochner et al., 1999) and has several types: Bridging, bonding, and linking, as well as strong and weak bonds (Bhandarai & Yasunobu, 2009). While difficult to measure, social capital is critical in the development of mothering “villages”/community mothering. These social networks allowed us to gain skills, experience role modeling of women who were mothers, students, workers, and artists, and gain access to educational resources that lasted throughout our lives. Previously inaccessible communities were made visible and lifelong connections were made.
Community mothering resists normative motherhood. Normative motherhood includes the dictates of individualization (mothering is viewed as the responsibility of one person), normalization (nuclear family is the sole mode), and idealization (unrealistic expectations of and for mothers; O’Reilly, 2021). Community mothering and co-mothering served as ways of resisting normative motherhood. In matricentric feminism, mothering is seen as a practice, and not an essentialist identity (O’Reilly, 2021); the practice of mothering can be expanded to non-biological mothers as well.
Andrea O’Reilly also describes feminist mothering as, “an oppositional discourse of motherhood, one that is constructed as a negation of patriarchal motherhood, seeking to interrupt the master narrative of motherhood and to imagine and implement a view of mothering that is empowering to women” (O’Reilly, 2014, p. 187). Both my grandmother and mother followed a path of feminist mothering. They sought out employment, even underemployment, such as secretarial work, due to lack of opportunities to improve financial circumstances, were willing to seek out maternal influences in the community and were able to parent both alone (due to remote work or divorce) and with a partner. Managing daily life in the wilderness itself showed a model of feminist mothering in which mothers were required to be adventurous and deal with harsh weather extremes with self-reliance and independence.
Poverty may be related to a lack of agency or power (Bussey & Wise, 2007, p. 232). Social networks and “safe places” can be a resource of empowerment to resist the oppression of poverty (p. 231). Community mothering is common in rural areas (Buck-McFadyen, 2014) and shows a resistance to patriarchal norms where mothering takes place solely by the mother in a nuclear family at home. Extended family plays a role as well; the grandmother hypothesis in particular, states that the long post-menopausal lifespan in women exists so that they can invest in their grandchildren (Hawkes, 2003).
Conclusion
While financial circumstances were not always ideal, the concept of blame for less-than-ideal circumstances cannot be placed in my mother line. The dominant culture (patriarchal, capitalistic, individualistic) narrative involves focusing responsibility on the individual for social issues rather than examining systemic barriers, such as lack of access to education, healthcare, amenities, and social support networks. The resistance seen by my mother and grandmother point to dealing with the challenges of systemic issues.
My own motherhood choices have been shaped by my matrilineal line. Limitations in family income have affected my determination to achieve the highest formal education possible and postpone marriage and children until financial stability was achieved. I worked my way through college with several part-time jobs, and upon graduation, sought to achieve career success to help provide financially for my own family. My husband has supported my working outside the home and seeking higher degrees to advance my professional life. In fact, a fear of poverty for myself and my children has been a driving impetus for many life choices.
While I have sought what is different in terms of education and finances, I have retained the strengths of my matrilineage. My work is balanced with a rich family life that has included extended breastfeeding, attachment parenting principles loosely applied, and importantly, the seeking out of community and co-mothering for my own two children, like what my mother and grandmother chose. In addition, the Alaska wilderness we all were raised in at least in part has influenced my own grit, love of place, determination, and hardiness. I have chosen to settle in an urban area of Texas, to seek increased opportunities for my own children. I believe it is possible to retain the “wildness” and grit of my rural maternal ancestry while moving forward to a life I perceive to have that is rich in opportunity for my own children and will give them a bright future.
In conclusion, there are many take home lessons from this life experience. Matrilineal heritage plays an important role in an individual’s mother’s life choices, experiences and inheritances. These inheritances include social capital, community mothering, and the relationships created through interconnected webs. Further investigation into how these influences affect individual motherhood choices is critical. By viewing these experiences through the lenses of matricentric feminism and feminist motherhood, a deeper understanding of how the maternal line influences motherhood can be appreciated.
References
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