Is Modern Day Motherhood Worth It?
What is up with all the negative motherhood talk? Is it really that bad? What is good about it?
Three days ago I was walking my usual 1.25 mile loop. The sun was shining, the pines were singing and the headphones were playing one of my favorites- the Shameless podcast1.
The hosts- Australian business women Michelle Andrews (30) and Zara McDonald (29) are both married. Both are trying or thinking of trying to start having children.
Both are terrified.
Here’s a snippet of their conversation this week:
Michelle: "I keep being swamped with content that motherhood will be terrible for my mental health, terrible for my body, terrible for my marriage. And I want a baby. I really do. I am happy right now. I don't want to sacrifice my happiness that I have now for a question of will it be worth it? None of you can actually tell me why [it will be worth it]."
Zara: "I've been battling this for years.... I want people to tell me what they love about it. I don't see that anymore. I understand wholeheartedly why I don't see it, but I really want to know what that love is like. Why do people go back for more and have another child?"
Michelle: "...Like where are the women, please I'm begging you if you are happier or just as happy in your marriage after having a baby or multiple babies, can you tell me that? Because I actually don't see that anywhere and I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that our generation- this group of people who are on the cusp of motherhood- the vast majority of people I know are terrified…”
Zara: “Yeah I completely agree with that. Completely. Emphatically I don't know anyone actually right now who isn't terrified of motherhood...."
I paused the podcast. I walked with naught but my brain for company for the duration of my walk trying to parse out my thoughts on this as a mother of four.
Gals, I’m sorry to say I am one of those moms in the comments of your social media feeds “speaking negatively” about motherhood. Or rather, offering empathy to those who are.
I will tell you what I love about motherhood. I will. I promise.
But first a little backstory. I began motherhood with the exact opposite perspective of you two- Michelle and Zara. You hear nothing positive about motherhood. I heard nothing negative.
I grew up Mormon. My husband and I got married six months after we started dating at BYU.
We eagerly jumped into parenthood without any reservation. The only wisp of motherhood negativity that floated my way was that I would get fat. All else seemed such trivial, silly little nothings compared to the hearty feast of joy, fulfillment and purpose that awaited me in becoming a mother.
Perhaps it is not a surprise that these expectations did not exactly serve me well. The loneliness shocked my system like an ice bath. I asked myself again and again what I was doing wrong.
I wish I knew that I happened to be mothering in a moment in history when societal expectations for mothers are at an all time high and support for mothers is at an all time low. I wish I would not have wasted so many years blaming myself for my own exhaustion and loneliness.
I don’t want to add to the list of parenting terrors here, but I do want to point out that neither set of extreme motherhood expectations serve us: either all the good without the bad nor all the bad without the good.
Neither paint the full picture.
What do I love about motherhood?
I love the mischievous look in my 6 year old’s eye when he is about to tell me an inappropriate joke that makes no sense. I love how he leans forward like a rocket when he is about to run. I love the feel of his little body on mine when we lay in the hammock and read books together. I love pretending to be scared when he jumps out of the same bush on every neighborhood walk we take.
I love how my 10 year old asks to pet every single dog we come across on our walks to and from school. I love watching his perfect face in the rearview mirror as the wind blows through his hair when he rolls down the window on car rides. I love how completely obsessed with guinea pigs he is. I love how tightly he hugs me every morning.
I love that my 12 year old never says no to a walk. I love how she stops to notice leaves, bugs and flower petals I never would have. I love how she is always in the middle of a crocheting project to gift one of her friends. I love how she taught herself to crochet on YouTube. I love learning how to draw faces from an online course I bought with her. I love reading the stories she writes.
I love baking with my 14 year old while belting out Taylor Swift. I love learning to play the same harp songs right alongside her. I love reading the same books and her busting into my room mouth agape when she comes across a twist. I loved melting into a pile of goopy sap watching her bravely sing in her middle school talent show this month. I loved discovering recently how many facts she knows about black holes.
What do I love about my marriage in motherhood?
I love how my husband can disarm a sibling fight with humor, how effortlessly he can lesson the tension with a joke.
I love how he learns the words to Taylor Swift songs, not because he likes her music, but because she is important to his daughters and wife and he wants to be able to sing along with us.
I love how he sends me texts from his phone’s photo memories that pop up so we can reminisce on fun family trips and how cute our kids were as babies.
I love how patient he is with our son when he can’t sleep.
I love how instinctively he takes over without thought of reward when he can tell I’m spent.
What do I hate about motherhood? About marriage during motherhood?
Since you’re already inundated with motherhood downers, I won’t illuminate them here. But I feel I must mention, the list is just as long.2
So which side wins?
The question “is motherhood objectively worth it?” is the wrong question. There is no such thing as objective when it comes to motherhood.
Are you doomed to a life of misery if you have kids?
No more than I am doomed to a miserable week next week.
The right question is “do I want kids?”
There are a million valid reasons to have kids, but if you don’t want kids, that should be the strongest consideration.
There are a million valid reasons to not have kids, but you want kids, that should be the strongest consideration.
There is no shortage of societal pressures, historical gender norms and lack of support for care work that make motherhood difficult.3
And honestly, I wish I knew about those before becoming a mother.
If I had a time machine I would go back and do a lot of things differently. I definitely would not have quit work immediately after getting my Master’s degree to stay home with my kids. If I could go back I would choose to work at least part time. I would have asked for WAY more help and offered myself WAY more grace.
But even if I did have a time machine, I would choose to have my four kids every single time.
If you’ve got thoughts- please share them! What’s your take on modern motherhood?
If you would like to read more of my thoughts on motherhood, may I suggest:
Why You Never Need to Feel Like a Shitty Mom
The commencement speech I wrote myself as my youngest enters kindergarten
And if you enjoy my work, please consider supporting it by becoming a paid subscriber and I will shower all the matriarchal blessings on you:
Actually I was listened to the paid version of their podcast- Shamemore. The episode is called The Late Twenties Switch.
Not things I hate about my kids, but things I hate about motherhood. I often say that I love my kids, but hate everything about 21st century motherhood- the cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring, social life organizing, entertaining, servanting, etc.
Important note here: there is a world of difference in the motherhood experience depending on racial, physical and socio-economic privilege.
Beautifully said! As a grandmother now, I observe that my daughters are far more burdened by the need to entertain their children through play dates and a myriad of holiday parties, events, and gifting. In my childhood, my mother could sweep us out the door of the neighborhood where we could roam for hours, and let us drop in for lunch, and finally call us in for dinner—much to our dismay because we were “just starting to have fun” in a game of kick the can. The internet has brought us in daily touch we friends we cannot actually touch. The play dates are across town, and mothers are the link in this logistical nightmare. So if one is contemplating motherhood, find a not-so-hip ranch house in a not so cool neighborhood where there will be plenty of children next door or down the street. 😉😘
Motherhood sux. We have a 21 year old with significant mental illness and cognitive disability. All the promises made to me through temple covenants were lies. All the work and prayers. Faith. Homeschooling. None of it saved him. He has been methodically and wholly abandoned by our faith culture. Unwanted because he is an un-achiever. In the LDS able-ist culture there is nothing more lonely than: not having enough children, not going to college, not serving a mission, not getting married. Every conversation is about these singular topics. When you aren'tdoing these things, when your child is not doing these things, you do not exist.We are, his is invisible.