Alice's Daughter

I saw the film The Color Purple when I was a high-schooler. I don't recommend the movie -- aside from the indecent content, the characterization of men as irrelevant (at best) and oppressive (routinely so) is a sad affair.

So I was fascinated to come across a recent article by Rebecca Walker, the author's daughter. As a girl Rebecca was treated as a burden (at best) and betrayed (routinely) by her mother, a womanist luminary who professed that having children enslaved women. Rebecca describes growing up with Alice the unwilling mother, who simultaneously protested the dehumanizing truculence of others and inflicted psychological and emotional cruelties of her own on an insufficiently actualized daughter.

Rebecca's article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1021293/How-mothers-fanatical-views-tore-apart.html

Caveat: Rebecca has made unfortunate decisions of her own -- e.g. children are vulnerable and dependent for a number of years, and they need the stability of a home where the parents are bound perpetually in marriage; thus the "father-as-partner-rather-than-husband" scenario is another dark dream that Rebecca needs to wake from. The long-term vulnerability of children is one reason why marriages should be permanent -- which isn't to say that there aren't times (e.g. infidelity, alcholism, abuse) when it's necessary to call it quits, only that deliberately having children when there is only a casual, non-permanent relationship of convenience is unfair to the kids. Militia est vita hominis super terram.