Note: This is in response to an article from the Wall Street Journal with the same title. Again, not linking, I am merciful. A Google search should pull up the article fairly quickly, though.
The traditional view of mothers have them as the gentler, more nurturing parent. The idea of motherhood involves bonding, caring, and nurturing. That the author of this piece turned to Machiavelli for parenting advice seems to subvert that. Mothers aren’t often viewed as the dominant parent, even though they are expected to take on domestic roles. At the heart of it, managing people is all about politics, so it makes sense that the most infamous political work would help a mom successfully run her household. Additionally, the stereotypical woman doesn’t scheme or plot, though certain sub-stereotypes of women do manipulate. Manipulation seems to be favored in men, but seen as a huge negative quality in a woman.
If Suzanne Evans’ home follows the nuclear family model, the wife would be the caretaker and the husband would be the provider. What roles are assumed or shared by each parent isn’t explicitly stated, but it seemed like Evans took on most of the caretaking roles herself; how her husband helped her, or which caretaking roles he assumed, aren’t mentioned in the article, which I find to be a glaring omission. In addition, how he wanted another child (as mentioned at the end of the article) makes me wonder if he had fully experienced or understood the frustration and difficulties his wife describes in attempting to raise the four children they already had. This strikes me as a concern that Evans handles well enough, at least so far as she described it (being such a personal matter, I wouldn’t expect transcripts of the conversations she likely had with her husband regarding the vasectomy).
I thought it was particularly interesting that she played her children off of each other--maneuvered them into competing with each other. It bothered me slightly when she wrote, “On the other front, Daniel, whose report card wasn't so stellar, got nothing, other than the shame of losing the competition—to his younger sister no less, as I reminded him.” There’s a connotation of “haha, you’re a boy who lost to a girl” in how this is written, and I’m not totally comfortable with the idea of shaming a boy who’s lost to a girl; I don’t think that was the author’s intent, but I think framing the competition as “boys v. girls” heads in a dangerous direction. I don’t think there’s anything particularly shameful about losing, and don’t believe that shame is a useful tool for correcting behavior. Gendering the competition between siblings doesn’t seem particularly helpful, either.
Overall, I do think Evans’ had the right idea in turning to a political strategy book in order to manage her home. Often, I think parents (mothers especially) are expected to magically come into knowledge about how to successfully raise children as soon as the child is born. There are certainly a great many self-help books devoted to helping parents raise their children, but Evans certainly gets credit in my mind for turning to a slightly more unconventional source for parenting inspiration.
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