The Idea of Motherhood

[Grennie]

I was talking to a friend about how patriarchy constructs motherhood. I don't mean the reality of giving birth and raising children, but the myth of what a mother should be. We are taught this through media as well as through ideas such as the commercial aspects of Mother's Day, which teaches us that mothers are self sacrificing, never put themselves first, that it is the mothers not the fathers job to primarily care for children.

At the same time, while the role of motherhood is held up as a magical thing, individual mothers are routinely vilified, either in the press or by other women. Mothers face far more scrutiny, and far higher standards, than fathers.

And yet there is very little practical support for mothers under patriarchy.

Yes ikwym. Hard working mothers are urged to treat themselves to a spa day. Mothers are shown how to get stains out of laundry.
Whereas it is true that most parents are hard working andsacrifice many aspects of their llife for thei children (rightly so).

I do love the current lloyds ad. A man describing how hectic it is getting kids up and out and back, fed and to bed. No big deal that its a man saying it. He's just a parent. Yet the first thing I thougbt when I heard it was that it was 'wrong' - it was so obviously written for a woman.

Yes of course if you raise a child well, you have to work hard and make sacrifices. It is the promotion of this as a virtue, rather than just something you have to do with anything that requires many many hours of work and energy.

If you spend your time for example rescuing ill and injured animals and caring for them during the day and night, you have to make sacrifices. But I doubt you would see the act of sacrificing as itself an inherently good thing. You just do it because you know that very ill and injured animals are depending on you.

Michael McIntyre seems to be an equal parent here I know it's off subject a bit but it is quite funny and what are 'traditionally' seen as the woman's roles are taken by him.

We liv in a fairly traditional set up. I do children and house, he does manly stuff and depressinly earnz more than me. He's never not done house or chikdren stuff but ive always had to ask iyswim, my responsibility. While he laughs at my feminist rantings I do think he actually thinks I have a point and I have noticed things changing - he will actually take the initiative on eg sortjng clean washing or emptying the dishwasher. I also have totravel a bit for work and hes finally got it that he needs to put himself out to make that happen.

This is nicked from a thread in AIBU. I think I have an unpopular idea on this: mums are really important and motherhood should be lauded - and so should fathers and fatherhood. I've posted before that other carers - dads in particular - are hugely undervalued in the lives of children. They are so, so important. So, as I see it, current society values work over childcare - so men are encouraged to work and women are praised to be mums. I want to see work valued a whole lot less, childcare valorised for everyone a whole lot more and then everyone would want to spend more time with their children. Lovely.

No it is not nicked from a thread in AIBU at all. I haven't seen any such thread. I was talking to a friend about this, and so posted it.

Sorry Grennie - the link I posted I nicked from AIBU. The article relates to your OP and I just happened to read it and then read your post.

It's easy to be self-sacrificing and devoted to your home and children (in other words, the perfect mother) as long as you don't have money problems, or relationship problems, or messy kids, or babies you can't put down...

I think it's daft that we still have this myth of the perfect mother. We don't suddenly morph into Boden and fresh cookies when we give birth!

I think in reality women do make many more sacrifices for children and do the vast majority of childcare.
If men do even the tiniest amount of childcare people discuss what a good dad he is. How lucky his partner or ex partner is. I find it sickening tbh.
I think the idea that parenting is more natural to women is part of the problem. And the fact that men get away with doing fa.

I agree Don't when I had my first dc i descended into pnd pretty quickly and I feel most of the issue was the pressure society/family/I put on myself. I felt as though my life was now over and I was the number 1 carer, cleaner, cook, ironing lady, maid. It was expected of me and if I didn't keep up I felt like I had failed my family. If the house wasn't tidy pil would comment on it and in dh's family (he has only brothers) the women are vilified for anything below mil standards. It's horrific.

As soon as I remembered myself, which took a good year and a half I restructured my life very quickly.

I absolutely detest the way that the 'mother' is portrayed in media and society....'have you had a child? Oh right your point of existence now is to nurture, care for and enable everyone around you to live happily ever after while you drown in your own martyrdom and self loathing'.

No thanks.

I think there's also a lot of perpetuating of that construct of motherhood that goes on between women themselves. Not in terms of how we pass on tips and schedules etc between each other... but in terms of comparing and measuring ourselves against each other.

Marcia Cross (who played Bree in desperate housewives) spoke about the expectations of mothers not long after she had her twin girls (remember reading it in Grazia, but can't find a link to her comments that isn't the DM) and now she's a SAHM to preschoolers she's written for the Huffington Post about the self-sacrifice of mothers.

The image of mothers in most mainstream advertising/tv programming produced even for very young audiences (thinking particularly of the mum in Grandpa in my Pocket here!) only serve to reinforce these stereotypes and expectations. I would like to see more celeb mums use their platform to discuss this issue!

Slow typing on phone on train but YY, what Thants said too!

Mumraa I was very similar at the start, and to an extent now. The difference is before I felt like I had to be the perfect mother, like I wasn't doing a good enough job if the house wasn't spotless and DS engaged in wholesome educational activities. Now I'm much more chilled out, have no problem chucking DS in front of Cbeebies for an hour or two, and it turns out I quite enjoy cooking and cleaning! Lack of pressure makes such a difference!

Blondie, agreed, there needs to be more realistic portrayals of mothers in mainstream media. Most of the kids tv mums drive me mad!

It is fine if women want to spend all their time and energy on their kids and house. But it is the image that this is what being a mother means, that is the issue.

Anyone remember that research that showed SAHM in the 60's spent as much time playing and talking to their children as working mothers do now?

Children need time, love and attention. But mothers don't have to be all self sacrificing to be good mothers. And fathers and other adults can play an important role. It doesn't and shouldn't all fall on, or mainly fall on the mother.

Interesting point about the 60's mum. It is also true that dads spend more time with family than they used to - society seems to much more child orientated now. Even most of the luddites where I live are expected to participate and do participate with new born care etc. There is still however a disproportionate amount of blame/expectation of the shoulders of women. Women no longer just make sure the kids reach adulthood a bit clean and unbroken, they are responsible for their emotional and social development as well as their corporal wellbeing (I'm thinking of obesity epidemic for example).

That Giddeon chat made me think about motherhood and class. Working class women are more likely to get back to work sooner - and possibly live more egalitarian lives with their partners than couples of the middle classes? How true do we think this is? If there is the perception this is true, is this why UK working class women are less likely to identify with feminism? It also interlocks with something else I read about women filling traditional male jobs in poorer countries and in more prosperous countries, where women have the 'choice', more 'choose' to work in traditional female roles.