Rebecca vs. Alice Walker: The Cobbler's Children have no Shoes

SO I guess Rebbecca Walker didn't send her Mom, Alice Walker a Mother's Day card with some gas money stuffed inside. I have heard people mention in passing on other blogs that Rebeca and Alice Walker have some "issues". I can completely understand the whole concept of the daughter going in the complete opposite direction of their Mother, quite common. I have this complex about being on time to events( MY RELATIVES KNOW WHY!!!). There are two sides to every story... actually three sides: Yours, mine, and the truth. How old is Rebecca Walker again?:

You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale. SOURCE

Mama, I make you blissfully happy don't I?

I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle.My mother's feminist principles coloured every aspect of my life. As a little girl, I wasn't even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a maternal instinct. It was drummed into me that being a mother, raising children and running a home were a form of slavery. Having a career, travelling the world and being independent were what really mattered according to her. Source

This has a certain "NO Wire Hangers" feel to this. That traveling the world get old. Two weeks abroad and you start craving fast food.

I love my mother very much, but I haven't seen her or spoken to her since I became pregnant. She has never seen my son - her only grandchild. My crime? Daring to question her ideology.

You sure it wasn't the part about you writing a book or giving interviews criticizing her? No, you had to do something else other than that.

But, while she has taken care of daughters all over the world and is hugely revered for her public work and service, my childhood tells a very different story. I came very low down in her priorities - after work, political integrity, self-fulfilment, friendships, spiritual life, fame and travel. SOURCE

This sounds kind of like that old adage "The Cobbler's children have no shoes." All you have in life is family at the end of the day as far as I am concerned. What that looks like is up to you. Sure I poke at the parental unit, it's part of my charm, but I can't imagine painting my mom out to be Joan Crawford, but then again, I wasn't raised to believe my Mother felt I was a millstone.

So what happens to the radical feminists in their old age??? No seriously, I know some radical feminists who read this blog. Explain that part of the puzzle. Once you are old and infirm and cannot take care of yourself who looks after you? Not that having kids is any guarantee or thats any reason to have children, but isn't the whole circle of life thing that we exit the world pretty much the way we came into it.?

Are children a millstone? Even if they are a millstone, should a parent tell them? Is Alice Walker "Mommy Dearest?" Or should Rebecca get over her childhood issues and develop a writing career independent of telling the world not to listen to whatever her mother says?

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