AIBU to think that as a society we expect too much from mothers?

[NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting]

The 8 month sleep regression is hitting us hard, so I might be more sensitive than usual as I’m exhausted.

However, as I try and resettle my baby, I can’t help but question how women are expected to do it all. How are women expected to give 100% of themselves to motherhood, 100% in their careers, 100% to trying to maintain a social life/being a person outside of motherhood and 100% of themselves to help running the home. The maths doesn’t add up and I feel like along the way of empowering women, things have changed but to just expecting women to do more than what’s actually manageable.

I think the first issue is the length of maternity leave and how long it’s financially supported (plus the ridiculously little amount maternity pay actually is).
Why can women take up to 12 months off, but only paid for 9 months? One of my arguments for a longer, financially supported maternity leave is that our babies need to get their main source of nutrition from milk for the first 12 months, so why doesn’t society support women being off for that long? There’s probably more arguments in the emotional support of babies being raised by their parents, instead of childcare, but too tired to look into this.
Luckily, we saved enough before having our baby to support me being off for 12 months, but baby needs me right now at 8 months and I can’t imagine putting them into childcare at 9 months, or even earlier.

The other issue I’m struggling to wrap my head around is how I’m expected to go back to work and give 100% whilst trying to be a mother. Parenting is exhausting, relentless and I can’t picture my life where I’m meant to give my all to work whilst trying to give my best to my child. Surely something will have to give, but with the cost of living my career can’t slip as we need me working, so naturally it’s seeing less of my child by working full time and having them be raised and looked after by nursery.

So, AIBU to think that as a society we expect too much from mothers? Surely there’s a better compromise than the current set up of maternity leave and more support from employers towards parents?

A lot of posts are mentioning my lack of me talking about my husband, but he does fairly split things. Our responsibilities in the home are often split, encourages me to meet up with friends without the baby and he steps up, so I can’t complain but I do still think there’s an expectation for mums to have it all together and do it all.

It can't be a surprise that your life, that was already full with work and hobbies, was going to be even further stretched once you added a baby into the mix?

You can't give 100% to every area of your life, it's not possible.

You will have to compromise a bit with your parenting, your job and your social life until your child is older.

Obviously, your dh will have to do the same.

My husband and I are both teachers. I am second in department and my husband is head of department. We both work full time. We split everything half half. And when I was on maternity he would definitely be up in the night resettling the baby during school holidays.
He needs to do more.

Women are expected to parent as if they don't work, work as if they don't have kids.

Exactly.

To me my maternity leave was a lovely break. I was ready to go back to ft work after 9m but I loved having the time with my children. If I was a man I'd be jealous of that.

From where though? If you have a supportive partner then no you don't need to do it all. Some people are very vocal about martyring themselves- oh I haven't slept for weeks, didn't have a shower until my child was 3 years old, what you're going out with your friends and leaving your baby. It is challenging going back to work, it will be for him too if he genuinely shares the load of sick days etc.

It’s shit and I’m angry.

Women are expected to parent as if they don't work, work as if they don't have kids.

I agree with this, but the bit that needs to change is the expectations on men.

Men are not expected to ‘parent as if they don’t work’. They are barely expected to parent at all. Men are expected to work as if they don’t have kids - and so they do.

We need to expect more of fathers - we need to expect them to be equally as tired as new parents as mothers are, equally as willing to inconvenience their careers by asking for flexible working to do childcare and emergency leave to care for sick children or go part time.

The world of work is a capitalist set up, and the only way to get it to give more of a shit about social concerns not profit is if the whole workforce is affected by an issue. If 50% of the workers don’t want to speak up in case they’re also disadvantaged by parenthood, then women will continue to be screwed over in the workforce.

But we can help ourselves too. Kindly, expecting 12 months of paid leave because babies drink milk for 12 months is unrealistic. They’re not exclusively breastfed for 12 months. Shared parental leave isn’t perfect but it’s there and we should use it and putting the onus back on mothers only for 12 months is regressive. Some of the other things on your list are internal pressures - the house doesn’t need to be spotless, and you absolutely should make time for a social life as well as work and being a parent, and your husband should have the same expectations.

It is really really hard those first years of being a working parent when your baby is little. Your feelings are understandable. But life’s not perfect and childcare at 9 months (which doesn’t have to be nursery, btw) is not a terrible thing, honestly.

Make sure your DH is a true 50% partner in parenting and life. That’s the thing to concentrate on.

I think this realisation that life will never be the same hits hard. Despite what we are told as a mother you just cannot do it all unless you have a lot of money and help. For me it was work, hobbies and social life that took a back seat. I worked part time while DCs were younger which stalled my career and meant we just scraped by financially. The message to young women needs to change, yes you can aim high in your career but plan for a big adjustment when you have children.

I am not sure what you think the solution is, OP?

FWIW, I went back FT when dd was 6 months, but I was able to work very flexibly around dd's needs and DH pulled his weight so that we shared stuff between us. We had a nanny for 20 hours per week and shared the rest of the time between us. I was able to carry on breastfeeding for another 2 years after that, and dd never even had expressed milk in a bottle as she was too bloody fussy!

It was hard work after going back to work, of course, mainly because dd was a dreadful sleeper, but actually I enjoyed having the balance between lots of time with my dd and time at work, my own identity etc. I would have welcomed a longer funded maternity leave, yes, but going back was OK in the end.

Personally, I think we need men to step up more and share the load, and we need employers to be more flexible so that parents - not just mothers - can work things around their family commitments more easily. Longer paid maternity leave would be lovely - personally, I did experience mine rather like an extended holiday after the first couple of months - but I am inclined to think that it might actually be better instead to extend paid paternity leave in order to encourage more men to step up and do their fair share.

@NameChangeAsICouldBeOverReacting I agree with pp that you're placing too much on what you think 'society' expects rather than focusing on how you and the other (equal) parent of your child decide to carve out responsibilities.

You have choices. More than women in any previous generation. I would have loved to have had the option to transfer some of my ML to my dh... I think it would have been great for all of us, me, him and our dc. It wasn't an option back then. I would have loved 6 months ML. I would have loved dh to have 2 weeks paternity leave (so would he!) I would have loved some - any! - free hours of childcare. None of those existed- and this was only comparatively recently. But then I remind myself that compared to my mum I was lucky because at least I was able to return to work, whereas when she had me there was next to no regulated childcare. And of course she was better off than her mother who was expected to give up work when she married.

Society has moved in the right direction- massively. The framework is there to make decisions about how you want to share roles in your own family. If you feel you have to give 100% to everything - kids, work, home - then that's your perception and pressure you're imposing on yourself.

Dh and I are now heading towards our 60s, our kids are adults and I feel we did a pretty decent job of sharing things as much as we could, and tbh if we were having babies now, society is structured to make that much easier.

we expect too little of men.

Absolutely! men are superhero's for doing the bare minimum when it comes to parenting. He couldn't possibly share night wakes because he just could not be tired. He can't dress/bath/feed baby because he's just no good at it, can't do the housework because he's no good at it.... endless excuses. Do not expect less.

Meanwhile the ingrained misogyny still has women tearing each other down at every opportunity. Even on this thread OP is getting condescending, PA comments about breastfeeding. It doesn't matter and we should be supporting each other.

OP, you give what you can to whatever needs the effort. Some days I feel like I'm trying to give my all to parenting and working and failing at both, other times I feel like I'm nailing one or both. And that's a fairly common feeling IME. Everything else just fits in when I can, while dc are small that's fine.

I dont think society expects too much of mothers ( or parents in general) I think the issue is more that some mothers ( and parents in general) dont understand the commitment they are undertaking when they decide to have a baby, and the amount of hard work involved takes them by surprise, and some even feel hard done by -

Raising a baby is a huge job, and people shouldn't undertake it unless prepared to commit to it 100% - it has always been like this, and always will be, throughout history, prehistory and in every culture on the planet

I do still think there’s an expectation for mums to have it all together and do it all

But luckily you get to be part of the change because you have a supportive DH so you can model not doing it all, but doing your fair share.

Work cares about your performance in work - they’re paying you, fair enough, that’s the trade, money for a day’s work. They expect your focus, fair enough. In work time you aren’t parenting.

In non-work time, you need to split parenting, socialising, exercising and chores/adulting with your husband. Same as before, but with added parenting & chores/adulting that come with kids - childcare runs, admin etc. It’s a lot. But it’s just… how it is.

I think you are backtracking a bit. Your posts imply you are doing it all. He can’t hide his exhaustion, bless him as he is a teacher. So you do the exhausting stuff.

You need to reassess this imbalance. Just because he has an important job it does not mean he gets out of nights.

Yes it’s tiring but you could get through it if your husband stepped up more. Wfh is tiring too. Why do you not get more consideration?

You can either try and work as a team. Or if you cannot cope, then one of you reduces some sessions at work. Or you accept this is a tiring part of life and will pass.

Don’t discourage women from working when they have babies. That’s the last thing we need.

I hear you 8mo is an exhausting age for a breast feeding parent (I was working 2 days a week by then too). But things change quite quickly from after this stage onwards.
Although of course some babies might struggle still with food and sleep beyond one year, on average babies start to eat proper amounts of food and sleep through quite close to this time. With a good father/partner this means childcare can genuinely be shared equally.

I don't think society expects all that from mothers. I actually think society expects people to consider these things before they decide to have children. So when people do have children it is assumed that they had decided this was manageable and expects them to get on with it.

@WoefulLackOfEverything completely agree. The focus should be on women expecting (and in some case, allowing) their partner to share responsibilities. Not reducing women's opportunities by saying mothers shouldn't work, or shouldn't be expected to work in higher level roles.

So if chores and childcare are fairly split who is “expecting” you to “do it all”?
It sounds like this just comes down to you not wanting to return to work and you feel pressure to return financially and because most women do. Society isn’t telling you to do anything though.

I don't think you can fully know how tough having a baby is until you actually do it, though.

It's not how society sees mothers, it's how society expects fathers to act like we live in the Fifties.

Unless there is a significant shift how employers view fathers and are more flexible about them, it's up the the mothers to pick up the slack. Only when employers are ok with fathers take paternity and later parental leave, phoning in because their child is ill or taking time off for school events and don't expect overtime each day, then there will be less pressure for mothers.

I am very lucky, DH always pulled his weight, even when I was on maternity leave. He covers sickdays and doctor's appointments more than I do as his work is more flexible than my 9-5. He does business trips and doesn't blink when I do the same.

Too often I read here how dads are putting work and hobbies above their family life. So, it's the women who need to ensure their partners are standing up and not just accepting that the burden is on them.

@MrsBennetsPoorNerves I’ve no idea what the solution is. If I did, I’d run for PM and maybe, hopefully make the UK a better place.

I think if I had to take a punt it would be to introduce better maternity pay so parents can take off longer if they wanted, childcare that doesn’t cost as much or more than a mortgage (£1,300 here and our mortgage is £1,100 but we can’t move away due to work), lower pension age so grandparents can help out (a lot of my friends all have the same issue as our parents are still working FT), longer paternity because 2 weeks is a joke.

Yes, there’s shared parental leave but it doesn’t always work out the best solution financially.

This is actually why a lot of people aren't having children I think. Which causes problems of its own.

The thing is, OP, if your DH takes on a genuinely fair share of the load, then you really won't have to do it all.

The fact that your post is about mothers being expected to do it all strongly suggests that you feel that there is more expectation on you than there is on the father. Why is that?

Of course, I get that women may breastfeed etc, but surely then the father needs to step up in other ways to balance things out.

There are two equal parents. They should both share the load.

The fact that your post doesn’t mention fathers is very telling. The kid is half theirs yet clearly reading MN most don’t do anything like half. That needs sorting. By society, by the workforce but also by women! Who need to demand he does half. Not ‘help’ and not ‘babysit’ . You can BF and have him do everything else. But my God the posts on here would make your eyes water with women putting on washes a day after a section and cooking meals. We have to just stop. We are our own worst enemies too. Insisting it has to be done ‘our way’ . Part of that is down to mat leave - by the time you go back to work you have a routine and he doesn’t. I get this, and I’d love to see all men do a full month at home with no support. But failing that - we have to demand more or this will never change. Fathers are parents too