The Terror Dream
I am reading The Terror Dream by Susan Faludi. It is an amazing, necessary book. She posits our response to 9/11 as a reenactment of the fantasy of the male protection and the domesticated, vulnerable female. This sends my thoughts on the Baby Boom in another direction.
She says: “In the aftermath of the attacks, the cultural troika of media, entertainment, and advertising declared the post-9/11 age an era of neofifties nuclear family 'togetherness,' redomesticated femininity, and reconsititued Cold Warrior manhood. 'Security moms' were said to be salving their fears of terrorists by sticking close to the heath and stocking their pantries with canned good and anthrax antitdotes, while suburban dads were stockpiling guns in their families’ linen closets. Scared single women, the media held, were reassessing their independence nad heading for the alter; working mothers were ‘opting out’ for the protected suburbs.”
So, to what extent is the Baby Boom I am observing (and am participating in) a reenactment of a fantasy of domestic security of the nuclear family? (Shades of the hallowed, reviled 1950s—the distant shadow-memory of my generation, the time before the Time that Decided Everything: the 1960s.) The protective father, the vulnerable mother, the imperiled little girl? I see the track marks in my own psychology clearly enough. Maybe the question becomes: What is the power of the thing—family—in our culture? How much of it is build on collective illusion, a fantasy? (Certain things said to us come back to me—things that Josh and I puzzled over. “Now you don’t have to worry about the world or anything else. All you’ll care about is her.” Or, on a Congrats greeting card, “Now you are a complete family.”)
She says: “In the aftermath of the attacks, the cultural troika of media, entertainment, and advertising declared the post-9/11 age an era of neofifties nuclear family 'togetherness,' redomesticated femininity, and reconsititued Cold Warrior manhood. 'Security moms' were said to be salving their fears of terrorists by sticking close to the heath and stocking their pantries with canned good and anthrax antitdotes, while suburban dads were stockpiling guns in their families’ linen closets. Scared single women, the media held, were reassessing their independence nad heading for the alter; working mothers were ‘opting out’ for the protected suburbs.”
So, to what extent is the Baby Boom I am observing (and am participating in) a reenactment of a fantasy of domestic security of the nuclear family? (Shades of the hallowed, reviled 1950s—the distant shadow-memory of my generation, the time before the Time that Decided Everything: the 1960s.) The protective father, the vulnerable mother, the imperiled little girl? I see the track marks in my own psychology clearly enough. Maybe the question becomes: What is the power of the thing—family—in our culture? How much of it is build on collective illusion, a fantasy? (Certain things said to us come back to me—things that Josh and I puzzled over. “Now you don’t have to worry about the world or anything else. All you’ll care about is her.” Or, on a Congrats greeting card, “Now you are a complete family.”)
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