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.'

TheProvincialLady

I enjoyed the article too. It starts before day 1 with the appalling, dehumanising treatment women are so often given as soon as they have the baby out. Noisy, understaffed, underfunded postnatal ‘care’. Women who have undergone major surgery and often major trauma are expected to carry on as though nothing has changed. Where is the pain relief, where is the rest, where is the care and support? Can you imagine men going through childbirth and then being expected to look after a newborn baby? They mostly can’t step up to the care of a newborn, let alone doing it in pain and bleeding. And the medical profession stands by and encourages women to act like martyrs from day 1. What alternative is there?

So agree with this! My DM is a retired midwife in her early 70s who retired at 65 so her career spanned 5 decades. She is horrified at how poor post natal care has gotten in that time. And mums who have a CS are expected to be running round Asda and doing the school pick up ASAP. And those that push their body to the limit are hailed as superwoman while the rest of us feel like miserable failures.
The IS generation also have the pressure of all the perfect mummies with their designer brands etc. Someone I know vaguely irl cultivates a perfect family image on Insta which would make anyone feel inadequate. But it's a tiny snapshot and ppl dont tend to post pics of their house looking like a bomb site and their kids killing each other. So glad the internet was in it's infancy when I was a new mum!

Thank you @childbearinghipsterF - I'm a natural researcher with anything. I think I tested out 5 ways to make scrambled eggs before deciding on my favourite method So being pregnant meant I wanted to read about all the different approaches to see if one resonated.

I actually found that the amount of contradictions between the books gave me confidence to ignore a lot of the advice. It made it more obviously ideological and in some cases a blatant sales pitch. I can fully understand why women want to believe in one book - it's such a responsibility looking after a tiny human that it would be really reassuring to believe that as long as you follow all the rules you'll get it right.

Yes, very true about the contradictions! I got caught up in a lot of stuff when DS1 was very little - so many mothering things are quite "tribal" and very much "If you are one of us, your baby will grow up to be a wonderful person. If you're like THEM, your baby will become a terrible person". Doesn't really matter whether it's "Routine or you'll never sleep again!" or "Co-sleep or your baby will be cold and rejected!" it's all sales pitch and shit. It's only when he got older that I could really see how none of it actually matters. There's a huge range in acceptable parenting. Basically don't neglect them, don't abuse them, don't totally indulge them/snowplow them. Everything else is absolutely fine and won't harm them. Doesn't matter if you do cry it out or co-sleep until they're 4 or something in the middle. They will be absolutely fine either way.

I actually think there is some better stuff coming out now that doesn't do the whole "demonise any approach that's different" thing. But it's still on the fringes and it's hard to find info sources like that.

I'd add that the problem with the tribal stuff is that once you're "in" one of those groups everyone agrees with each other about which things are good and which things are bad. At least, on the internet and in the books, so it can really begin to feel like this is the "truth" and everyone who doesn't follow that very prescriptive script is simply wrong.

I remember the first time I met someone who used slings and I immediately thought oh yes, she's one of "my team", I like her, I trust her. I was (some months/years) later on a night out with her (and a load of other women) and we were talking about parenting and she admitted she smacked her older two kids when they were little. (Although not the younger ones. But not because she was totally against it, just that she never found it necessary.) It totally blew my mind! I'd never met any "sling parents" before who weren't also 100% of the gentle parenting, No is a dirty word, collaborate on every decision type of persuasion. I think that was one of the defining moments when I stopped believing in the arbitrary lines I'd drawn up. I respect her immensely as a parent and as a person, I accept that she made some decisions differently, and I don't believe that she was wrong, nor that my parenting, which was different, was superior. Which is very very different to how I would have seen things in for example DS1's first year.

@MoltenLasagne

Thank you *@childbearinghipsterF* - I'm a natural researcher with anything. I think I tested out 5 ways to make scrambled eggs before deciding on my favourite method So being pregnant meant I wanted to read about all the different approaches to see if one resonated.

I actually found that the amount of contradictions between the books gave me confidence to ignore a lot of the advice. It made it more obviously ideological and in some cases a blatant sales pitch. I can fully understand why women want to believe in one book - it's such a responsibility looking after a tiny human that it would be really reassuring to believe that as long as you follow all the rules you'll get it right.

Congratulations @MoltenLasagne and other new mums! Yepeee to a new baby.
I think your research has absolutely nailed it: the contradictions show there is no 'book' to bring up a happy healthy child and family.

The line 'babies don't read books' is certainly true. The best advice I was ever given (by my brother no less) was : 'do what works'. It has been very efficient and liberating.

Thanks for the link to this great article!

I was lent a book about breastfeeding as I was struggling - it did have some useful tips, but included 'breastfeeding is the most important thing you can ever do for your child both psychologically and physiologically'. Thankfully I knew even then that this was rubbish - if you look at a class of primary children, and were told half were breastfed, could you pick them out? No. On the other hand if you knew that two had been abused, could you pick them out? Much more likely. Ergo protecting your child from abuse matters much more than how you feed them. But in the fog of struggling to feed a newborn, it's all too easy to be sucked in by statements like the one above. Then the guilt starts....

Hmmm, I'm not sure about it all being tribalism. While I agree that there is often tendency to 'other' and judge etc, some practises (in childbirth, just for example) are extensively studied, have reams of evidence to support efficacy and outcomes, etc. Hence the far reduced mortality rates.

This doesn't always translate into best practise, of course, and some people may use certain evidence to try and beat people with or prop up an ideology, but I would still note there are plenty things that one can be fairly sure have better outcomes.

Noting that there is pressure on mothers doesn't mean all advice is made up nonsense.

Yes I wasn't talking about everything, just my experience of some parts of the early motherhood experience.