To say portrayals of motherhood have become too negative?

[Mushroo]

Im coming to the end of my maternity leave, and it has been the best year of my life. Yes there have been hard days (and less sleep!), but overall, it’s the most content I’ve ever been. I love my LO so much, I feel like I have a real purpose and I look forward to everyday with her. It’s really been a blessing.

Now I’m not naive enough to think that it will stay like this, but so far, having a baby is by far the most rewarding and best thing I’ve ever done.

However, I very nearly didn’t have her! I’m a classic ‘high achiever’ - top uni, grad scheme, great job. All I’ve heard for years is how hard babies are, how you’ll never sleep again, it’ll ruin your body / life / freedom / career. Lots of blogs and tv shows about the relentlessness of parenting. No one really seemed to have anything positive to say.

For years and years I was terrified and even though I thought I wanted kids I kept delaying as it seemed there were limited positives to the early years.

Even when pregnant I thought I’d made a mistake as the rhetoric that your life is over is so strong and I was dreading a year off work with a screaming baby. I saw it as something to get through and then I would hopefully enjoy having an older child.

I actually now wish I’d had babies earlier and can’t believe I nearly didn’t have her. (Of course, if I hadn’t, I’m sure I’d have still had a great life!)

I know my experience isn’t universal and I’m extremely lucky, and lots of people do struggle, but AIBU to say that more people should talk about how great having children is? I spent years just hearing the negatives, and actually, for me, it’s been amazing and that never really gets spoken about?

I know a lot of people will say that the positives are inherently obvious, but for me they weren’t and I’ve been really surprised.

It probably helped I went in with very low expectations, and the negative / realistic portrayal are super important as it’s definitely not easy, but we shouldn’t hide away the positives?

FTMaz
Did you accept screening for abnormalities when pregnant? Do you agree with screening? Do you think it's OK for some people to decide to terminate if they discover a disability?
You seem to have fixated on an idealised version of reality. Your comment to the other poster about her views being shocking and terrible shows that you don't know enough or haven't thought enough about this. I understand that. Before I had my children it was inconceivable to me that my children would be born with complex needs that required care for the test of their life. Nor did I have a clue what would be involved. I like to think though that I wouldn't have judged someone who did.

I found the opposite.

I found it incredibly tough.

I had no support (not a lot of family and husband worked long hours) and the sleep deprivation almost broke me.

I love my kids, but I am a strong believer that it takes a village.

I didn't have that village, and I have high needs risk. It's a difficult combination and I have absolutely lost myself. My kids take everything from me and drain me of every single piece of energy I have.

My health has suffered as I have no time for self care, no time for exercise, no time to cook as I would like, plus their restricted diet means I often have to eat the same crap they are eating (as it is all they will eat) or not eat. I'm about a stone overweight, which is a lot as am short with a small frame, so I can feel r pressure it is putting on my joints.

The sleep deprivation has really affected my health. The years of reliance on caffeine and sugar to keep me awake during the day has taken a toll.

My career has suffered as I have lost my ability to focus and concentrate and have no motivation or capacity to continue progressing.

My friendships have suffered as I just don't have any energy for socialising.

Relationships with the same family I have are ok but distant. Hardly see them, as I can never go alone (no childcare) and when I take the kids my family members struggle. They are just too high energy and high demands, and they fight with each other a lot. Reying to leave always results in meltdowns and crying and it's excruciating knowing that relatives are desperately wishing we would just fuck off. Relatives can only deal with them in very small doses, so we just don't see them much.

My marriage has suffered badly but is limping along.

So yeah, I'm glad you've found it easy, but no, it is far from a universal experience.

And the above difficulties I have? My kids have no health issues or disabilities or SEN. Throw that into the mix and it can be infinitely harder.

So despite all the difficulties I have, I am grateful because I could have it much harder.

This is similar to my experience too (although I’m not a high achiever and always wanted to have a child, I didn’t put it off at all)
all I’d heard was people saying how hard but rewarding it was, I thought holy moly how am I ever going to cope. But it’s been easy. I think it’s important people talk about the hard parts (because bizarrely there still seem to be people who say I didn’t know it would be hard) but also those people who do find it hard need to recognise that’s not everyone’s experience. You can have a non traumatic birth. You can love the fourth trimester. People do get their bodies back with no effort. Breast feeding isn’t hard or painful for everyone. There’s so much scaremongering with motherhood it’s disgusting

I completely completely agree with this and have been saying this for a while. I think a few years ago it was the opposite but things just seem to have gone too far the other way eg on social media with lots of people being honest about motherhood. I’m TTC now and feeling more scared than anything else about how hard my life is about to become. I think people assume you know the good bits and want to warn you of the not so good bits, but would love a bit more balance!

Wow how rude
the mother did not say they resented their kids or didn't love them and accept them and she's simply allowing some venting to take place in What should be a safe space
What she is going through is so hard none of us can really understand it frankly and it's ok to not love being a mum whilst still doing your best for your kids and still giving them love and attention!

I think it is absolutely OK to acknowledge you’ve been privileged enough to enjoy motherhood for the first few months of your first baby’s life. I always maintained the same view myself.

However, I think it is also vitally important to acknowledge your privileges that have enabled that enjoyment. Motherhood will be experienced differently by everyone - and rather than feeling it was portrayed negatively, I actually felt quite humbled when I empathised and listened to the challenges other people faced and knew I was exceptionally lucky.

Mothers face workplace discrimination (which I have gone on to experience) and many women face life altering impacts upon their health (mental and physical) and a complete lack of support network or stability - due to circumstances completely outside their control.

In the current climate, socioeconomic disadvantage at unprecedented levels, experienced disproportionately by mothers due to high childcare costs, cost of living and stagnant wages - also can make life feel intolerable to many. No matter how much they love their children. They may be forced to work longer hours and face chronic stress.

I would argue that in many cases, motherhood is still idealised and the care and domestic work women disproportionately undertake, fails to be recognised and valued by society. It is good we have a discourse on this and I worry by simply claiming people should be positive about motherhood, we can go down the route of toxic positivity.

I hope you continue to enjoy motherhood; but all I would caution is to remain humbled/realistic and acknowledge it likely won’t always feel like a bed of roses.

Completely understand many of the sentiments here. I live far away from family and my first born was high needs. Although I absolutely loved aspects of motherhood and would always say my children are the best thing in my life - I had many friends with support networks who didn’t have to work full time etc, who simply didn’t understand that I didn’t have the freedom to socialise without children.

My eldest is almost 7 and have never had a night away from the children as my partner and I just don’t have that support. And I know I am lucky to have a partner who is supportive generally. But unfortunately when we’ve both worked long, incompatible hours, it has meant any time off work we have both had sole care responsibilities (to manage childcare costs etc).

We do have a bit more balance now than a few years ago, but I think it is so important to not take for granted privileges you may have.

One of my friends who had a very content baby and about 10 relatives nearby who babysat - and has always had nights out etc, always proclaimed motherhood was easy. She even wrote a book for our friend who later had a baby, then got PND convinced she must just be a bad mum. She wasn’t. She just had a higher need baby and less privileges/supports around.

I don’t think it’s portrayed that way, if you mean ‘influencers’ on instagram etc. they may but up these funny little videos of how crap it is but they also gush about how much they love being their children’s mummy/daddy. I think it’s important to show the good and the hard.

I have a 10 week old boy and an almost 4 yo girl, my girl was born May 2020 at the height of lockdown and I was miserable. I think I would have enjoyed it plenty more if it wasn’t this year as I was so isolated and so fixated on everything about her sleep, feeding etc. and worried about everything. I couldn’t wait to go back to work and once I was back at work I enjoyed parenting much more.. and when the restrictions lifted also.

Now I’m only 10 weeks in 2nd time round but I am much more relaxed this time and no lockdown so I can see I will enjoy this more.

Babies tend to be easier, the toddler age can be savage so don’t hold your breath!

also a lot of parents don’t have a village or babies with extra needs etc. so this can make for a hard time also, it sounds like you’re pretty laidback and baby was fairly easy (I hate saying ‘easy’ to compare children however I don’t know how else to phrase it!)

@SpunkyMintZebra please don't quote the whole post, just write your reply, we will know you're responding to OP.

Imagine if every person quoted the very first poster. We would all just be endlessly scrolling 😀

Everything is relative. Life was really tough for me in many ways and dd came later in life after many years of disappointments and heartbreaks of all kinds and the loss of a full term baby.
Of course, parenting feels exponentially better than what preceeded it, especially as we are blessed with a daughter who has not presented complex needs so far.
Yes, my career has suffered and I am tired. But in the light of what came before, who cares? She brings joy that was missing.

I can imagine that for parents with a relatively stable life who suddenly get presented with a child who has complex SEN and/or presents challenging behaviours, the experience is very different.

@FTMaz

@SarahD19 completely agree parenthood is seen as a solo effort in the UK.
In my culture mothers have a 'maternity helper' (can't translate!) to care for mum and baby for 3 months after birth. Full moon ceremony with the whole family after a month. Etc usually If not paid this is another female relative
I couldn't believe that here in the UK mums just go home and deal with the baby all alone (while dad's at work). Especially after a difficult birth women can't recover in peace but have to care for a whole new human that's reliant on them...

Again the argument regarding screening is not relevant. Screening is done for Edwards and Patau syndrome is based on the quality of life the child would have, which with either of these abnormalities would be a life of pain and suffering. I think the argument around screening for Down’s syndrome is different and one I’m not willing to go into here as the effects of Down syndrome on a child varies so vastly the quality of life argument may or may not apply. However, largely this screening is done for the benefit of the child, if their life were to continue would it be a life of suffering. However this isn’t mentioned in the post, she is talking about her quality of life, no reference to that of her child. Again I think there is a difference between saying my child suffers so much their life isn’t worth living, which I have personally experienced with my step sister who died in her late 20s from Huntington’s disease. My step dad devoted his life to caring for her as did my Mum, however he accepted through much heartache that attempting to prolong her life was not in her best interests. However there is non on this in the post just how she’s effected by it.

Also the OP was sharing her story of enjoying motherhood and people have just assumed she must have an ‘easy baby’ again unfair.

@lsegurl I agree. Although I’m also struck how in the UK it is better than places like the US. Many women are often forced in work as soon as 2 weeks postpartum with no maternity support. They literally treat dogs with more compassion than women! And I see awful misogyny calling mothers who stay off to be with their children “lazy” etc. Just awful…

Women do not have to want to devote their life to caring. They may find themselves in such a situation and it is perfectly natural to feel regretful, remorseful and unhappy. It doesn't matter how many women you know who happily do this. It is a valid natural feeling; women are people not caring machines. This seems to perplex you.

@FTMaz although well intentioned it really isn’t as straightforward as what you’re saying. My daughter had a positive screening and then positive “diagnostic” test for Edwards/T18. The screenings for T13 and T18 is wildly inaccurate - and even the diagnostic tests do not wholly account for Confined Placental Mosaicism or low level mosaicism for instance. We are constantly learning more about this in terms of the science.

My daughter is completely healthy and will be attending mainstream school in September, just after she turns 4.

Also the OP was sharing her story of enjoying motherhood and people have just assumed she must have an ‘easy baby’ again unfair.

I didn't have easy babies and they grew into kids needing extra support didn't have family help and DH worked away for years and we had serious money issues at times. Destroyed my career but love it.

Two women I know who did say openly they hated motherhood to point they wished they could turn clock back ( they were still very good mothers ) had huge amounts of family help - very hands on and there DH no money worries - one also worked with young kids and had been a nanny prior to own. Both had sense to stop at one child.

I think external factors outside control of parents hugely determine how hard motherhood is - and UK does not make it easy at all at moment - but then there is something nebulas internal some maternal switch. It why it's such a huge gamble.

We both had impression there were a lot of people waiting in wings to say told you so and were taken aback we both enjoyed the kids and that we had number we said we would.

I'm clearly someone with very strong maternal drives -was talking about having kids throughout my childhood and when I met DH at 18 and was clear from go I wanted at least 3 kids though it took a decade to get stability to try.

Yet when I did well academically I had many assumptions placed on me that I'd forget having kids and be career orientated for rest of life never mind how I felt or what I said. I also remember some moments of absolute panic in first pg because everyone insist on telling horrific birth stories and going on about how my life was over - it was huge relief to be immediately smitten with pfb and not get even the baby blues - I was on a high for weeks to MW amusement. So yes I'm aware I was lucky but the negativity is real and can be huge relief to realise it don't apply to you - which Is where I think OP is coming from.

Given what i have read on MN and seen in real life half of parents would not have children if they knew how life would be for them.

This is exactly how I felt! I was dreading my daughter arriving and throughout pregnancy I was convinced I had made a mistake. I wasn’t one of those people who breezed through pregnancy- I had a rough one. But throughout the entire people kept telling me ‘oh you think this is bad, just wait until the baby arrives’. It got to point that I was verging on depression- well - probably more than verging tbh. I was in tears most days. Baby arrives and honestly the entire thing has been amazing. Newborn stage was a breeze and enjoyed every minute of it. In day 1 I knew I wanted a second. Daughter is approaching 3 now and I’m back at work almost full time. Im also in a high performance type job and work stresses me out no end. Other than a few scary health issues which have now passed, parenthood is such an enjoyable experience. I completely agree that it would be helpful if this was talked about, as it was not at all obvious to me and I almost didn’t have kids as a result

i had the same maternity leave, mostly

sadly:
just wait till you are back to work and how hard it is to keep smashing at motherhood AND high achieving job AND keeping your sanity (AND marriage)

and/or till sweet little baby turns into a pre-schooler who is constantly pushing your buttons

I find first year the easiest especially with full year maternity leave

Yeah the experience can be so varied. It is quite possible that OP will find everything enjoyable. However I didn’t get a full year on maternity with either of my children and have had to work full time immediately. I admit that was when I found things more challenging. I still hate having to balance everything and always feeling I can never give motherhood or work everything without burning out. And the struggle of not seeing my partner at all, especially in the sleep deprived baby stages, was harder whilst trying to balance it all.

Mothers are expected to parent like they don’t work; and work like they don’t have a family.

Often the people with more balance are those that discuss finding motherhood easier and more enjoyable - but often fail to recognise the support networks they have and privilege of being able to prioritise and focus on motherhood, in a way many cannot. Even on here, those echoing finding it all pleasurable years later, appear to be those that could take time out of work, go part time or even be SAHM.

Feel the same. I wish I’d been having kids younger instead of feeling “not ready” and pursuing career … I should of been pursuing a good man and babies! Career can wait your eggs and fertility can’t. I’m struggling to have a second now and I wish I’d started younger.

Wish we'd started earlier too @Mamabear8864 Ironically I think motherhood could be more enjoyable if you started younger aswell. Assuming a person didn't get career / travel FOMO.

If starting younger, you'd have more energy, conceive more easily, breastfeed more easily, would lose the baby weight more easily, could plan spacing with less pressure, grandparents would be younger and so potentially more able to help... Sounds amazing, now that I am older!!

@Mamabear8864 unfortunately many cannot afford to have children young if at all. Although I wasn’t classed as “geriatric” (I was under 35 with my pregnancies), I simply couldn’t have afforded to have had children younger and even now can feel a struggle. It is an extremely privileged position to be able to afford children- or have the support so it is less expensive/overwhelming etc.

This is my pet peeve with people on here raving about how great motherhood is, and that they have either been part time at work several years or SAHM. Many cannot afford this. Honestly costs have gone up so much, that if I was born 5-10 years later and living through the last decade, I might have made the decision children was unaffordable. And I’ve always wanted children.

The point many are making is that yes, motherhood, if you have the privilege of being able to focus and enjoy, can be wonderful. For instance an extended maternity leave or cutting back on work etc. But not everyone has that and society very much has moved away from that, except for a privileged few. And that is quite outside of physical and mental health challenges many women face neonatally - and/or individual temperament/needs of child. Having children younger could exacerbate these challenges for many.

I agree 1000%! I held off having my first child till 32, as soooo many people would speak negatively about it and pregnancy. Then when I was pregnant and having a great pregnancy, people would then start negatively saying about birth and newborns. Now that I love the baby stage, people like to talk negatively about once they are walking!! I seem to make people feel annoyed when I say that I’m enjoying it (this includes close family and friends). And it’s not because I’m trying to say things are perfect, I’m tired, the baby cries, my house isn’t as tidy etc, but I’m generally a positive person so maybe it’s that? But I make a point now when meeting pregnant/new mums to talk about parts I love, as I feel like I didn’t hear that myself really!