Excellent article.
I've had lots of thoughts around the concept of motherhood - I am a mother, and I have often been conflicted about the whole thing in relation to the progressive world we live in.
I went to an all girls grammar school - the worst sin any of us could have committed was to say we wanted to have children. It was seen as a betrayal of the superior education we were privileged to have if we didn't want to go out into the world and forge a path on a par with men, scaling the dizzying heights of career success and becoming independent before even thinking of having a child and being able to afford childcare because heaven forfend if you wanted to raise a child yourself.
For this reason I had a termination at 19 while at college because it was unthinkable to have a child in that situation. I then had a miscarriage at 21. At 25, freelancing, I fell pregnant again and my kneejerk response was to go for termination. And I realised that was not what I wanted AT ALL. I was framing my decisions on the way the world would negatively judge me, not on whether I felt ready, willing and able to raise a child. Which I realised I did.
I found it irksome when every HCP referred to me as "Mum" rather than my name before and after birth - but that was the arrogance of youth - I have since realised that they can't remember and retain every name, and "Mum", in retrospect was not diminishing, more a recognition of the new role I was in.
Recognition of motherhood is important. While one deeply feels for those women denied that experience if they want it, and we should show respect and sensitivity to their situation, we can't just deny that mothers also exist to protect feelings.
The whole biological terminology thing to avoid apparent distress to a relatively small number of people with ever deepening and increasing needs and thought processes and identities really does say that half the population should diminish themselves yet further to be "inclusive".
The most galling thing is that for the most part, all along, we've been saying "identify as anything you like and live your best lives - crack on" but the reply is always "that's not good enough - you must accept our terminology for you, while we object to you making any comment or judgement on anything we say or do, and our terminology for ourselves is only ours to decide".
My son is 26 now, and I lost my Mum this year. Knowing that I am essentially filling her role of family "matriarch" both humbles me and scares me. Losing her has made me re-appraise the importance of the social role of motherhood, and the way that quite often it is that which is the glue of our families and wider society.
That is not to say that differently presenting people cannot fill those roles and do a good job of it, but at a fundamental level the language we use to describe the roles and functions of a mother has been adequate for a very long time. Dehumanising biological labels have a profound effect on the psyche, and if one has a complicated relationship with the concept as a woman already, it further removes the joy and pleasure associated with motherhood - at least, it does to me.
Becoming a mother is not a mechanical process.
Women still struggle with achieving independence, and still do not have full bodily autonomy without judgement.
In my more mature years my consideration of feminism is that it is about women having the same freedom to make life choices that men do. And society is becoming regressive - we're being told we can't even choose how we are referred to during the most personal and intimate periods of our lives. It is, quite frankly, ridiculous and infantilising and dehumanising.
Where the hell ARE we going with all this?
