Motherhood is killing me in so many ways
How capitalism and individualism is ruining motherhood
As Mother’s Day drew closer this year, I noticed the usual anticipation of the holiday many of us throughout the world celebrate. The children love it as they get to shower mothers and grandmothers with crafts including the classic handprint artwork and the numerous “all about mother” fill-in-the-blank pages. The day is not quite complete without the gifting of a plant of some sort. And let’s not forget breakfast in bed or the most rushed and unrelaxing brunch at a local restaurant. At least that’s the American experience.
As I thought about this, I also thought about how society has abandoned parents, and especially mothers.
We have all had at least one job that seemed to suck the life from us. You know the feeling. The anxiety and depression leading up to the return to the work week. The dread of knowing it’s only 11:15 am on Tuesday with the whole damn week left to go. The sinking feeling followed by heart palpitations when you hear your boss’s voice. The procrastination and deliberate avoidance of checking your email one more time. And the deep, deep desire to rise up in anger, curse everybody in sight and throw shit across the room.
This is how I feel about motherhood sometimes. Not because I don’t like my children, but because I get overwhelmed and overstimulated by them. It’s because much like the scenario described above, I am not supported in a way that fosters productivity as a person but especially as a parent.
Most parents won’t admit this, but we are better parents when we spend less time with our children. We have not evolved to care for them in the capacity that we do now. Research somewhere supports this, not that we need that validation.
Many parents already know the stats about how we out here working the hardest and longest shift in the world. We don’t need a study to confirm anything. We already know!
Unlike a corporate job, there’s no chance to leave work at work. Even when we leave home to work a paid job, we have to plan around the children's schedules. The phone has to be nearby because the school nurse or daycare may call at any moment. The deadline for sending money for the teacher’s gift is due at 2pm. O,r the babysitter had emergency and had to leave early or worse, can’t come at all. There goes the whole day! And if you’re like most working-class folks trading time for money, you better plan on picking up extra hours or clients to make up for that loss in revenue.
It’s a lot to manage for two people, and even more for one person. I don’t know how single parents do it but I guess the response is similar to that of any parent, you just do what you gotta do.
We are all living in survival mode. This is not healthy.
As a person who enjoys teaching in the wellness space, I am well aware of what survival mode does to a nervous system. Chronic stress is responsible for all the things from chronic pain, heart conditions, hormonal imbalance, allergies, and yes even death (these conditions will come for you if you don’t address them).
Parenting can even lead to or trigger PTSD. I am not even being dramatic, either. Some of us have had traumatic pregnancies or birth experiences. Some of us have had extreme hormonal imbalances that not only affect milk supply but also our already sensitive mental and emotional health.
And if this wasn’t already depressing, anxious parents lead to anxious children. Today’s children are more likely to experience a school shooting and are constantly reminded with the associated active shooter drills. There’s also the social media anxiety that comes with access to smartphones. They deal with this on top of burned-out-at both-ends parent(s) at home.
I know what some of you might be thinking. Nobody forced us (at least most of us) to have kids, and we certainly have a choice in the things we allow and don’t allow. This is all true. But unlike our ancestors, we are facing new challenges previous generations did not have to face.
Scott Galloway explains some of these challenges in his recent TedTalk.
And, we are doing all of this with little to no support.
Only a few generations prior, a home was multigenerational. The responsibility of raising children did not fall on biological mother and father, it was the responsibility of the whole family— aunties, uncles, cousins, etc. In many places and cultures, it was the job of the community or village.
Today, with individualism and capitalism on the rise, homes in North America consist of parents, children, and for those who can afford it, hired help. Since most of us can’t afford all that, we are forced to do without. That’s where stress and burnout enter the picture as now we are expected to do the work of the village.
This is why stories of unconventional communities and families go viral. Not just commune or ecovillages either. Imagine relatives all selling their individual homes to live together in one big family home. Or a group of like-minded families buying all the houses in a cul-de-sac to create their intentional community. We are desperate for a change and cling to any hope for a potential solution.
As a society, we are decades, maybe centuries, away from a collective solution. In the meantime, though, can we please have more compassion and grace for parents? Especially those with neurodivergent children, or who are neurodivergent themselves. And single parents too.
If you are a parent, I see you, I feel you, I hear you. Let me remind you that you are the most important person in your life. Yes, you! So take care of you FIRST, even if you feel guilty. That guilt, that’s not you, that’s society’s voice programmed there to make you feel bad. You’re not bad because you love yourself enough to want a break. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your little humans either. You’re human and you need your time for sanity and survival.
Do what you gotta do, even if that means finding some friends to create that community with.
Perhaps we can take a lesson from some of our friends, the trees. Peter Wohlleben in one of my favorite nature books, The Hidden Life of Trees sums up the idea that we are only as strong as our weakest member.
“If a tree falls in the forest there are other trees listening. This is because a tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it. Every tree, therefore, is valuable to the community and worth keeping around for as long as possible.”