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. 😉😘
Yes!! Oh my gosh thanks for saying this Sue! I actually think about this all time- it’s wild how frequently guilt will come for just doing my own thing with the kids are around. I feel like I have to squeeze all my stuff into their screen time bc when they are around I have this idea I NEED to be spending quality time with them. The question I ask myself when I feel this is “would my mom have felt guilty over this?” NO! Or even better “would my grandmother?” DEFINITELY not!
There’s an organization (www.letgrow.org) that attempts to unpack how we got to this point where mothers (ok, parents, but mainly mothers!) are supposed to ensure constant adult supervision of even teenage children, and tries to advocate for increased childhood independence. It’s really, really difficult! I want to send my kids out to just play with their neighbor friends, but their friends are all at summer camp, because most parents both work. So while they’re happy to play outside or ride bikes together, there isn’t anyone else to play with. And then they come in and want me to find them something to do. And I would happily let my older child explore her town IF she had a friend her age who could join her, but since she doesn’t have anyone else who is home…
We are not giving kids the independence they need and deserve, and it’s also exhausting for parents.
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.
I am so very sorry to hear about this unfair experience within the church. Sounds like that religion sucks more than anything. May joy find its way to you and yours.
Thank you for this article. I’m a mother to three now and am sorry to say I am one of the miserable ones. I love my kids with all my heart and I feel anchored in purpose, but I feel unhappy and exhausted much of the time. I want so badly to be able to just enjoy my kids! They are beautiful, hilarious, and so so brilliant. But, I think you nailed it with the high expectations low support. Growing up I had two grandmothers, both who I love very much, but one whom I really enjoyed visiting. So much so that I cried nearly every time I had to leave her house until I was seven or eight! My maternal grandma had a lot of antiques at her house and I always felt on my toes there. My paternal grandma, when I apologized to her for the pretty flowers my toddlers picked last month, chuckled at my plight and said, “well that’s what flowers are for! Let them pick as many as they want.” I wish I had more people like this in my life. It seems like everywhere I go I can’t relax. There is always someone trying to subtlety teach me how to do it better or feeling uncomfortable when my kids giggle too loudly, and I’m always running behind them making sure they don’t pick the pretty flowers. I want to relax and enjoy my kids but I feel so isolated when it feels like nobody else can relax around kids either.
I think this is a great observation: "it feels like nobody else can relax around kids either." We don't make space for kids in our society and the burden of making them either invisible or impossibly (and probably unhealthily) well-behaved falls disproportionately on women. How will anyone accept what's realistic for children and parents if they never see it acted out in public spaces? We want an Instagram existence for parents with young kids, not a messily genuine one that we can honestly look at and decide whether or not we want to buy in.
And, as Celeste says, there are massive (sometimes incomprehensibly so) differences in the parenting experience that depend heavily on the availability of money and resources.
I think the advice I would give to my daughters (raised within the LDS culture) is to not expect that motherhood is the end all be all. Don't be surprised if being a mother (especially a SAHM) is not feel fulfilling and worth it 100% of the time. Being a whole, complete person is much more than having your whole life revolving around the role of mother, and it's ok to want other things for yourself in addition to motherhood like your own career. To me the payoff of motherhood increases dramatically as your kids get older. The early years are HARD. The reward comes in the long game as you raise successful, self-sustaining humans. Motherhood adds a richness of life, and teaches valuable insights I wouldn't have otherwise.
I feel like I basically write about this topic every day in some form! Like you I grew up w motherhood as an ideal. Now that I actually have a 5 yo I know that the reality is that it’s v challenging.
I always say I’m not sorry that I have a child. She’s one of the best things ever to happen to me. But I am resentful that we live in a society that makes mothering and parenting so hard. It makes the experience worse than it should be for everyone, including children.
If you have enough resources and want a child then do it!! But also fight like hell so that conditions are better for families and esp women and children everywhere.
So well written! You truly have a gift with words! As for motherhood, luckily for me there seems to have been more good than bad over the years so I consider the experience worthwhile! (Also noted though is that I’m not willing to make a “pros” and “cons” list just in case I’m wrong! LOL).
Marriage was hard (my daughter is now 19) due to a covertly abusive spouse. The counter parenting, the subtle and insidious attacks against my psyche. Once it got bad enough and I learned more about it, I escaped but barely.
Motherhood was a breeze for me compared to that marriage. However, the abuser did definitely make it harder.
Most women end up entrapped (especially after the arrival of children) with abusive spouses and don’t fully realize it for years. We have to be honest about this with our girls. I wish it weren’t so but it’s a harsh reality. 🌺
Same same. Also I was a bit lost purposely-wise before having kids. It maybe should not have been the reason I chose to have kids in that moment, but going through the hard parts of early motherhood did help me grow and give me more clarity. When you have no time for yourself it’s easier to see what you want. Sometimes I fantasize about being childless so I can focus on my creative goals, but if I never had children would I ever have found the clarity and confidence to declare those goals? It’s a chicken and egg problem. I am the me I am now because of them (at least in part).
Well, what is the meaning of life? For many it has something to do with love. And for many there is no love like the enormous, world ending, sweetest love that we have for our child. Who then grow to be beloved adults. Who adore us blindly as children and care for us so deeply as adults.
Who is most important in your life? Is your mom on the list? Do you want to be loved the way you love her?
Even the most successful and important of us … most of the quality of our life is determined by the people who really know us and love us and family is frequently the most durable of those bonds. Whether you have people who love you to spend your life around often determines how happy you are.
I think it’s a mistake to pathologize the desire for love. I’ve seen people write how selfish and stupid and wrong it is to have a baby to have someone to love/be loved by - we’re supposed to only have children from a pure unselfish desire, give them everything and expect nothing. That’s not human.
Me personally, I never felt a loss of soul or identity and can’t relate. A loss of time and freedom absolutely. But it’s temporary and to be endured while attempting to appreciate the parts inexplicably bound up with that loss which are sweet and that you will miss.
It’s mostly hard. Mostly trash. There’s moments so beautiful that can only be experienced as a mother. But they are short. Fleeting. They are uniquely fulfilling.
You will cry. You will be fucking exhausted. Your soul will crack open and pour out.
I only have 1 child. He’s going to be 22. We were married 5 years before we managed to have him after trying for several years.
I was working full time. He was working… some of the time. Turns out he was looking to be flexible and expected a housewife…whilst also needing me to be the primary breadwinner while he was trying different career hats on.
It was HARD.
EXHAUSTING.
He never changed a diaper.
He never bathed him.
He never cared for him in the house alone so I could get out for a little alone time (God forbid).
The baby suffered from colic the whole first year. He acted like o was doing something wrong (can’t you get him to stop crying?)
By year 2, he decided he needed space. I was too demanding. I needed to lighten up.
We divorced in year 4.
Some would say I didn’t choose a proper mate. Some would say my expectations of him were too high. All I know is it got easier without him AND harder without him.
That said, as hard as it all was, I know my purpose in life was to bring this boy (man!) into the world. He is my greatest gift and my greatest success.
Yes, and some commit suicide, drug themselves, soft-drug (antidepressants) themselves, overeat, overdrink, daily go a little crazier than yesterday----why not just live a great single life and be happy?? Why insist on latching yourself into a patriarchal arrangement? Read Zawn Villines on Domestic Inequity and get your eyes opened, folks. I adore my kids but I profoundly, deeply, intractably regret the decades of my own life that I utterly surrendered to the domestic gulag. I went in there willingly, and lost everything else. Being poor as a divorced older woman---after the husband you slaved for for 30 years dumps you for a woman half his age--- is no joke, ladies, and you should wake up and figure it out. This is a ROTTEN DEAL for women, starting with the physical dangers and wreckage of pregnancy and ending with the financial devastation of divorce. I was never warned and was told it was wonderful and great and fulfilling and joyful to be married with kids---but wow was I gaslit. Look, anything hte culture has to push this hard cannot be a good deal. No one has to force chocolate and beach trips on us. But they have to work really hard and do a lot of romantic nonsense and lies-by-omission to sell marriage and kids.
Check out @chanwiththeboys on Instagram. She’s a SAHM who’s never at home and the purpose of her page is figuring out how to bring kids into typically not kid centric spaces. She’s helped me branch out of my comfort zone.
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. 😉😘
Yes!! Oh my gosh thanks for saying this Sue! I actually think about this all time- it’s wild how frequently guilt will come for just doing my own thing with the kids are around. I feel like I have to squeeze all my stuff into their screen time bc when they are around I have this idea I NEED to be spending quality time with them. The question I ask myself when I feel this is “would my mom have felt guilty over this?” NO! Or even better “would my grandmother?” DEFINITELY not!
There’s an organization (www.letgrow.org) that attempts to unpack how we got to this point where mothers (ok, parents, but mainly mothers!) are supposed to ensure constant adult supervision of even teenage children, and tries to advocate for increased childhood independence. It’s really, really difficult! I want to send my kids out to just play with their neighbor friends, but their friends are all at summer camp, because most parents both work. So while they’re happy to play outside or ride bikes together, there isn’t anyone else to play with. And then they come in and want me to find them something to do. And I would happily let my older child explore her town IF she had a friend her age who could join her, but since she doesn’t have anyone else who is home…
We are not giving kids the independence they need and deserve, and it’s also exhausting for parents.
For MOTHERS.
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.
I’m so sorry Elizabeth- that sucks. And you’re totally right - LDS culture ignores those who don’t fit the mold or reach the benchmarks. The worst.
Thank you for reading the words I want to say out loud.
I am so very sorry to hear about this unfair experience within the church. Sounds like that religion sucks more than anything. May joy find its way to you and yours.
I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Sending you love and strength.
Thank you for this article. I’m a mother to three now and am sorry to say I am one of the miserable ones. I love my kids with all my heart and I feel anchored in purpose, but I feel unhappy and exhausted much of the time. I want so badly to be able to just enjoy my kids! They are beautiful, hilarious, and so so brilliant. But, I think you nailed it with the high expectations low support. Growing up I had two grandmothers, both who I love very much, but one whom I really enjoyed visiting. So much so that I cried nearly every time I had to leave her house until I was seven or eight! My maternal grandma had a lot of antiques at her house and I always felt on my toes there. My paternal grandma, when I apologized to her for the pretty flowers my toddlers picked last month, chuckled at my plight and said, “well that’s what flowers are for! Let them pick as many as they want.” I wish I had more people like this in my life. It seems like everywhere I go I can’t relax. There is always someone trying to subtlety teach me how to do it better or feeling uncomfortable when my kids giggle too loudly, and I’m always running behind them making sure they don’t pick the pretty flowers. I want to relax and enjoy my kids but I feel so isolated when it feels like nobody else can relax around kids either.
I think this is a great observation: "it feels like nobody else can relax around kids either." We don't make space for kids in our society and the burden of making them either invisible or impossibly (and probably unhealthily) well-behaved falls disproportionately on women. How will anyone accept what's realistic for children and parents if they never see it acted out in public spaces? We want an Instagram existence for parents with young kids, not a messily genuine one that we can honestly look at and decide whether or not we want to buy in.
And, as Celeste says, there are massive (sometimes incomprehensibly so) differences in the parenting experience that depend heavily on the availability of money and resources.
I think the advice I would give to my daughters (raised within the LDS culture) is to not expect that motherhood is the end all be all. Don't be surprised if being a mother (especially a SAHM) is not feel fulfilling and worth it 100% of the time. Being a whole, complete person is much more than having your whole life revolving around the role of mother, and it's ok to want other things for yourself in addition to motherhood like your own career. To me the payoff of motherhood increases dramatically as your kids get older. The early years are HARD. The reward comes in the long game as you raise successful, self-sustaining humans. Motherhood adds a richness of life, and teaches valuable insights I wouldn't have otherwise.
EXCELLENT advice Kelly! 👏👏👏 thank you for offering it!
I feel like I basically write about this topic every day in some form! Like you I grew up w motherhood as an ideal. Now that I actually have a 5 yo I know that the reality is that it’s v challenging.
I always say I’m not sorry that I have a child. She’s one of the best things ever to happen to me. But I am resentful that we live in a society that makes mothering and parenting so hard. It makes the experience worse than it should be for everyone, including children.
If you have enough resources and want a child then do it!! But also fight like hell so that conditions are better for families and esp women and children everywhere.
So well written! You truly have a gift with words! As for motherhood, luckily for me there seems to have been more good than bad over the years so I consider the experience worthwhile! (Also noted though is that I’m not willing to make a “pros” and “cons” list just in case I’m wrong! LOL).
Hahahaha I almost typed up a list of what I hate about modern motherhood and then was like ummmmm better not 😂😂😂
Beautifully written article!!
This is a beautiful post Celeste! 🥰🤗🙌
Thanks Mary ❤️❤️
Marriage was hard (my daughter is now 19) due to a covertly abusive spouse. The counter parenting, the subtle and insidious attacks against my psyche. Once it got bad enough and I learned more about it, I escaped but barely.
Motherhood was a breeze for me compared to that marriage. However, the abuser did definitely make it harder.
Most women end up entrapped (especially after the arrival of children) with abusive spouses and don’t fully realize it for years. We have to be honest about this with our girls. I wish it weren’t so but it’s a harsh reality. 🌺
Same same. Also I was a bit lost purposely-wise before having kids. It maybe should not have been the reason I chose to have kids in that moment, but going through the hard parts of early motherhood did help me grow and give me more clarity. When you have no time for yourself it’s easier to see what you want. Sometimes I fantasize about being childless so I can focus on my creative goals, but if I never had children would I ever have found the clarity and confidence to declare those goals? It’s a chicken and egg problem. I am the me I am now because of them (at least in part).
Well, what is the meaning of life? For many it has something to do with love. And for many there is no love like the enormous, world ending, sweetest love that we have for our child. Who then grow to be beloved adults. Who adore us blindly as children and care for us so deeply as adults.
Who is most important in your life? Is your mom on the list? Do you want to be loved the way you love her?
Even the most successful and important of us … most of the quality of our life is determined by the people who really know us and love us and family is frequently the most durable of those bonds. Whether you have people who love you to spend your life around often determines how happy you are.
I think it’s a mistake to pathologize the desire for love. I’ve seen people write how selfish and stupid and wrong it is to have a baby to have someone to love/be loved by - we’re supposed to only have children from a pure unselfish desire, give them everything and expect nothing. That’s not human.
Me personally, I never felt a loss of soul or identity and can’t relate. A loss of time and freedom absolutely. But it’s temporary and to be endured while attempting to appreciate the parts inexplicably bound up with that loss which are sweet and that you will miss.
It’s mostly hard. Mostly trash. There’s moments so beautiful that can only be experienced as a mother. But they are short. Fleeting. They are uniquely fulfilling.
You will cry. You will be fucking exhausted. Your soul will crack open and pour out.
This. All of what you wrote.
I only have 1 child. He’s going to be 22. We were married 5 years before we managed to have him after trying for several years.
I was working full time. He was working… some of the time. Turns out he was looking to be flexible and expected a housewife…whilst also needing me to be the primary breadwinner while he was trying different career hats on.
It was HARD.
EXHAUSTING.
He never changed a diaper.
He never bathed him.
He never cared for him in the house alone so I could get out for a little alone time (God forbid).
The baby suffered from colic the whole first year. He acted like o was doing something wrong (can’t you get him to stop crying?)
By year 2, he decided he needed space. I was too demanding. I needed to lighten up.
We divorced in year 4.
Some would say I didn’t choose a proper mate. Some would say my expectations of him were too high. All I know is it got easier without him AND harder without him.
That said, as hard as it all was, I know my purpose in life was to bring this boy (man!) into the world. He is my greatest gift and my greatest success.
And you will lose significant parts of your identity
And when you attempt to get your identity back, you will be judged criticized and called selfish.
By this point, you will be so dead inside that you won’t care.
You will be willing to leave your own children to save yourself and will consider doing so.
Some do.
Yes, and some commit suicide, drug themselves, soft-drug (antidepressants) themselves, overeat, overdrink, daily go a little crazier than yesterday----why not just live a great single life and be happy?? Why insist on latching yourself into a patriarchal arrangement? Read Zawn Villines on Domestic Inequity and get your eyes opened, folks. I adore my kids but I profoundly, deeply, intractably regret the decades of my own life that I utterly surrendered to the domestic gulag. I went in there willingly, and lost everything else. Being poor as a divorced older woman---after the husband you slaved for for 30 years dumps you for a woman half his age--- is no joke, ladies, and you should wake up and figure it out. This is a ROTTEN DEAL for women, starting with the physical dangers and wreckage of pregnancy and ending with the financial devastation of divorce. I was never warned and was told it was wonderful and great and fulfilling and joyful to be married with kids---but wow was I gaslit. Look, anything hte culture has to push this hard cannot be a good deal. No one has to force chocolate and beach trips on us. But they have to work really hard and do a lot of romantic nonsense and lies-by-omission to sell marriage and kids.
Check out @chanwiththeboys on Instagram. She’s a SAHM who’s never at home and the purpose of her page is figuring out how to bring kids into typically not kid centric spaces. She’s helped me branch out of my comfort zone.