Guardian article on the cult of the perfect mother

[ArabellaScott]

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/may/18/parent-trap-why-the-cult-of-the-perfect-mother-has-to-end?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR1sWl3_y6uulvXAeX99eVj8jjdnkuM72FWttwZYDrzGQAsciV22oCsuSlk

Quite a long and interesting article. I definitely don't agree with all of it, but increasingly I think the summation of it is entirely true:

'Motherhood is feminism’s unfinished business.'

Hmm, this didn't all resonate for me, but a lot of it did. I don't like so-called extended breastfeeding (biological norm to wean from breast is probably around aged 5) and bedsharing being lumped in there. They're only a problem when motherhood is seen as something which is holding us back from real-life.

I find it bizarre that there is this fetishisation of being the perfect mother while at the same time the most successful mummy-bloggers etc are all about being "Slummy Mummies" - gin o clock, I-put-my-kids-to-bed-in-their-pyjamas, "cleaning and dusting will wait for tomorrow"... It's just so very stark, the constrast between what we say we want (to be laid back parents flicking the Vs behind our feral children's backs) and what we're all actually doing.

I-put-my-kids-to-bed-in-their-day-clothes, I mean, obviously

The reason mothers feel guilty is because the well-being of children is extremely important, but society has largely abdicated its responsibility and dumped an impossible yet essential task on to mothers
Call a spade a spade. Men have largely abdicated their responsibilities, not society.

And I'm sure most men do care about their children, they just don't care about "mothering" then.

I think women get judgy/competitive/whatever because they spend so much time doing this work and they want recognition/validation for it. In the same way those of us in paid employment have to do performance appraisals where we show what a great job we are doing. I think its innate in humans to keep us working together.

I don't see it as a failing in women that they have parenting standards. It's a failing in (some) men that they don't care about parenting and the patriarchy supports that.

I breastfed my youngest till he was 2, he still gets in bed with me every night and he's 5, I'm a SAHM.
I also let them have unlimited screen time and drink wine in a beer garden while they play because it makes my life easier. Doesn't have to be one or the other!

@AliasGrape want to join me in starting a Ragged-Fannied Philantropist movement for teaching the useful bits of hypnobirthing without the smug misogynist ideology that makes out that accepting help from experts so our babies don’t die is some kind of moral failing? Honestly: fuck that shit with bells on.

You will come to terms with it (though I’m still cross nearly 4 years on).

[quote Verbena87]@AliasGrape want to join me in starting a Ragged-Fannied Philantropist movement for teaching the useful bits of hypnobirthing without the smug misogynist ideology that makes out that accepting help from experts so our babies don’t die is some kind of moral failing? Honestly: fuck that shit with bells on.

You will come to terms with it (though I’m still cross nearly 4 years on).[/quote]
I’m in!

‘Call a spade a spade. Men have largely abdicated their responsibilities, not society.’

Well indeed, but I think the response to that should be one of society as a whole. Rather like men commit most crime, but society has a responsibility to deal with that crime not just ignore it.

Men need to start stepping up here. Both to preventing crime and to being active parents. Talking about "society," minimises the problem and enables the men that do these things to carry on with it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "society as a whole" but it sounds suspiciously like expecting feminists to clean up mens mess

No, not what I mean at all.

I mean the government and public services caring about women in general and mothers in particular, not just relying on individual men actually changing.

Ah ok, I get you. Yes I agree. I really hope the government bring in paid use it or lose it paternity leave for fathers at some point as that would really help. Although I'd make it so they could only use it when the mother was working so as to make the dads actually do the childcare

I think that the femisist questions around motherhood and the competative aspect are not necessarily from the same source.

I think it's absolutely true that parenthood is less relaxed. Some of this sees to be related to liability culture, and fears and lack of reasonable risk assessment, weird perfectionism about things like diet, an idea that if you do things the right way, everything will be fine, and if they aren't fine you must have done something wrong. All stuff that's not confined to parenting.

I have wondered if some things are related to kids being in care so much. Parents won't let their kids do things that used to be normal, like walk to school or play in the park, even when objectively it's just as safe. They figure the school or nursery has to keep eyes on the kids 100% of the time, and so parenting is seen as the same. There isn't much relief from constantly watching the kids.

Af far as feminism, motherhood is totally the unanswered question, and I suspect is part of the reason why many women lost interest in it as a movement. It seemed, apart from some niche writers, to totally get behind the capitalist drive to put all women in the workplace and monetise childcare. And more recently to not only push to give similar parental leaves for fathers to give families more support and optins, but calls to mandate that the parents must share the leave time because of an idea that women must not give up careers or jobs more often than men, in order to try and get rid of statistical disparities.

Women who weren't keen were given short shrift by feminists in many cases, and so their thoughts and insights were lost as they simply stopped being involved. But it's not been a great look to have so much come down on the side of the question that is better for capital, and also in many instances is a boost to class power for the professional classes but really not so much for working class or even lower middle class people.

@SmokedDuck - Im with you about the loss of independance of our kids. My daughter in her 30s now, I think was one of the last children who got to play out in the street unsupervised from about age 7. We were within call but not monitoring every move. Ive wondered about the economic imperative too. Great for women who wanted it (and were able to), to get career choices, maybe not so good in other ways. But women in past generations would have sometimes given their back teeth to get into the work place - my ex mother in law was really bitter about this.

This really resonated when I read it this morning. I encountered so much pressure to have a 'natural' birth (from midwives as well as others), breastfeed, do attachment parenting, co-sleep etc. I was made to feel awful if I didn't do all this I'd be failing my child etc. And it made me so miserable.

It turned out that following my instincts saved my baby's life (my milk didn't come in and she urgently needed formula), having a routine, her sleeping in a separate crib and her own room from six months made for a much happier time for all of us. I felt so much better once I'd increased in confidence and was able to parent my way instead of the way others were trying to force me into.

@QuentinBunbury

Actually bloody birth plans have a lot to answer for because they make you feel you have some control. Then things don't go to plan so you feel like you've failed. It might be better to call it "statement of wishes" or similar. A guide that can show what your preferences are if you are too busy birthing to talk, but isn't a plan and can change in response to events. I really would love to meet the woman who wrote "I want an epidural, episiotomy and ventouse please" in her birth plan

In fairness, the book I'm reading about hypnobirthing does say that you should call them 'birth preferences' not a 'birth plan'. The author also says you should include preferences in the event that you need an induction or a c-section.

I agree that the emphasis is very much on a 'natural' birth, though.

@QuentinBunbury

Really interesting, and I entirely agree.

I was nodding at this If anything, feminism’s longevity compounds the problem: the dial hasn’t shifted, but we want to move on. Calls for affordable childcare or flexible working are met with stifled yawns. See that at work all the time. Womens issues are old hat now. It's all about "inclusion".

Quite. Back to the back of the queue again, before we've even got everything we need.

[quote Verbena87]@AliasGrape want to join me in starting a Ragged-Fannied Philantropist movement for teaching the useful bits of hypnobirthing without the smug misogynist ideology that makes out that accepting help from experts so our babies don’t die is some kind of moral failing? Honestly: fuck that shit with bells on.

You will come to terms with it (though I’m still cross nearly 4 years on).[/quote]
FWIW, I used hypnobirthing for my 1st and struggled with it, although it did really help me get through contractions and a long horrible labour. For my 2nd I used hypnobabies, which I found gentler ,more down to earth and more woman-friendly. Although I can't remember much about it all and I didn't labour for as long before another c-section ...

AFAIR, hypnobabies makes provision for birth interventions etc

@LibertyMole

Men don’t judge how well you are mothering for the same reason they don’t care about provision of high quality childcare - they don’t care that much about children.

The reason mothers feel guilty is because the well-being of children is extremely important, but society has largely abdicated its responsibility and dumped an impossible yet essential task on to mothers.

Yes, for sure.

And I am a strong advocate for supporting mothers to parent both how they want to and in the way that is best for the child.

Women are in an utterly impossible situation as they're being told what is evidentially ideal when practically speaking they are sometimes unable to provide it, and when societal conditions actively work against those ideals.

@AliasGrape

Thank you for sharing. So much of this rang true for me - it’s helped me to get a handle on something I’ve felt for a while, that ironically I’d probably have coped far better with my traumatic birth and EMCS had I not bought into all the ‘empowering’ hypnoborthing stuff beforehand. Something that was supposed to empower and embolden me left me feeling like a complete and utter failure in the end, and has dogged pretty much every aspect of motherhood since.

Yep. Wish I'd never gone to NCT.

But there were plenty of real life success stories all around me and the endless revisiting and retelling of birth stories at coffee meetups - accompanied by so much cake, which made me fatter than pregnancy had! - was awful for my mental health ... (although I didn't realise that, unfortunately) . At some point I had to take a conscious decision to just stop bloody talking about it....

I yearned to talk about sth interesting but anything not mundane seemed taboo.

I think recounting birth stories is often essential for women to process it (though it might feel less than helpful to the person listening). I've heard elderly women suddenly launch into an incredibly vivid, blow-by-blow of their birth stories, and there's a kind of urgency in how they're told. I've done the same, unexpectedly, and I think it kind of helped.

I feel the same way
Thank you for articulating it so well

Something that I think is also relevant but wasn't mentioned (maybe it'll be in the book) is the societal 'uncoolness' of mothers. A good example is how often you see surprise and dismissal of women on mumsnet when we talk about politics, feminism and complex issues.
It's very much shoving mothers into 'just a bunch of mums' category and then dismissing any real issues mothers raise because we are 'just a bunch of mums'.
I've become so aware of that in recent years. I've bought the book. I'll be very interested to see if that comes up.

@ArabellaScott

I think recounting birth stories is often essential for women to process it (though it might feel less than helpful to the person listening). I've heard elderly women suddenly launch into an incredibly vivid, blow-by-blow of their birth stories, and there's a kind of urgency in how they're told. I've done the same, unexpectedly, and I think it kind of helped.

Yep, but it needs to be in the right context- dare I even say a "safe space"!? Not a coffee morning in someone's house juggling your newborn where it's a comparison between ten mums' "performance" (at birthing and breastfeeding!)

@AliasGrape

Thank you for sharing. So much of this rang true for me - it’s helped me to get a handle on something I’ve felt for a while, that ironically I’d probably have coped far better with my traumatic birth and EMCS had I not bought into all the ‘empowering’ hypnoborthing stuff beforehand. Something that was supposed to empower and embolden me left me feeling like a complete and utter failure in the end, and has dogged pretty much every aspect of motherhood since.

Totally agree. I was getting swept along by this whilst attending positive birthing groups. Then one day my friends who had a extreme premie and a full term still birth, plus two other 'normal' births (one a CS), put me straight, she said "the only thing that matters is that you walk out of hospital carrying a healthy baby how that baby arrives is irrelevant". I went home and rewrote my birth plan.

Thanks for sharing. I agrees with most of it. It’s interesting though because I think there is pressure from all sides on women to be both the perfect mother but also not let motherhood change them - eg pressure to breastfeed your baby yes, but also to “get your life back” as soon as possible which isn’t really compatible with breastfeeding. Same with bed sharing - I have coslept with both of mine for ease and actually felt like more of an outlier there. People were shocked that I hadn’t sleep trained because it must be so awful for my DH!

Also don’t see what’s wrong with the bamboo bowls - better environmentally than plastic surely?