Author Rebecca Walker is exposing the biggest lie that old-guard feminists have sold to legions of women since Eve foolishly listened to that loathsome serpent. In her words: That being a mother and keeper of the home amount to “a form of slavery.”

"Holy Gloria Steinem, Batman!"

Ms. Walker, author of Baby Love: Choosing Motherhood After a Lifetime of Ambivalence, is the doting parent of a three-year-old named Tenzin. She is also a graduate of Yale University and is the daughter of Pulitzer Prize winner and self-described “womanist” Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple. (Her father, civil rights lawyer Mel Leventhal, has been divorced from her mother since she was eight.)

You may recall that Alice’s gritty book, dealing with life in the early 1900s for American black women, was made into a movie that featured none other than Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg, and was directed by Steven Speilberg.

Anyway, the British Daily Mail has published a take-no-prisoners interview with Rebecca (edited as a first-person essay) about what it was like to have a celebrated feminist, known for championing women’s rights all around the globe, as a mother.

Rebecca, now in her late thirties, says that during those tricky adolescent years, a young neighbor often looked after her. She existed on a diet of fast food so that her important mum could spend time writing in a studio located 100 miles away from her only child. As a little girl Rebecca was forbidden from playing with dolls, but Alice was “supportive” when her daughter opted to have an abortion at the age of fourteen because she believed that “motherhood was the worst thing that could happen to a woman.”

Not surprisingly, Rebecca admits to longing to be in the care of a nurturing woman who would have attended school events, taken her shopping, and not been so preoccupied railing against the patriarchy.

“A good mother,” she states, “is attentive, sets boundaries, and makes the world safe for her child. But my mother did none of those things.”

Yeah, this is a little too personal, and Rebecca has been lambasted – perhaps rightly so – for publicly exposing Alice’s shortcomings, while taking advantage of the Walker name to advance her career. (Rebecca changed her surname when she became an adult.) Another criticism: She disapproves of the casual divorce culture and thinks children should be raised by two parents, but Rebecca describes the father of her son as a “partner,” not a “husband.” She cheerleads for Michelle and Barack Obama on her blog and dubbed his ‘save the planet’ speech in Berlin as “so inspiring.”

Rebecca might have been ignored growing up, but she is now part of the intelligentsia. Committed to advancing social justice, gender egalitarianism, multiculturalism, and all those lovely-sounding causes the don’t-have-a-real-job Ivy League-educated utopians champion.

Yet it is that background – call it Rebecca’s left-wing street credibility – which affords her a platform (she has spoken on hundreds of college campuses) for her worthwhile message: that having a child isn’t collateral damage, but “the most rewarding experience of my life.” No doubt her strong critiques of the early feministas – which includes taking them to task for the way they denigrate men’s contribution to child rearing – will be listened to more carefully by ambitious Generation X and Y lasses, than, say, a Phyllis Schlafly lecture would be.

As for Alice Walker, she has never met her grandchild. Shortly before he was born (and this is almost laughable) she wrote her daughter a bizarre letter telling her she was “no longer interested” in being her mother. Rebecca hopes that the two will reconcile someday.

Alice, however, remains a consequential animal rights activist. She even composed a poem about suffering hens in honor of PETA’s campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken. To date, Ms. Walker has not disowned or distanced herself from her feathery friends.
 

Isabel Lyman holds a doctorate in social science and is the author of The Homeschooling Revolution (2000).