politics of heart

I've been reading Hilary Schlinger's Circle of Midwives, which concerns the history and formation of the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), which is the professional organisation that oversees my own education in this country, and through which I will become credentialled as a direct-entry midwife (or, to use MANA's term, as a CPM -- Certified Professional Midwife). Reading the book has reminded me to say 'out loud' on my own blog that, despite appearances, I don't want to be a midwife only because I get to be around cute babies and determined women.

I want to be a midwife because I see the 'personal' as 'political'. Maybe one day I will have the wherewithal to declare myself a radical feminist/anarchist, but that seems too alienating a stance. In other words, I see little prospect in my future for the inflammatory, megaphoned war-waging that some of my foremothers in midwifery have shown in trying to achieve recognition for their profession despite widespread and persistent ignorance of what it is that they do. To me, being a midwife means being an activist in a way that is heart-to-heart, eye-to-eye, sharing my love and energy with mothers, fathers, babies, children, families -- with full conviction that my caring for them is also a political act. To me, there is a direct connection between the structures and politics of the public world and our private sense of ourselves, our intimate experience of being human. And it is in the merging of the two that I can identify myself as a midwife.