Bad Mother: Understanding Maternal Ambivalence
December 27, 2015 9:23 AM Subscribe
Dear Sugar: I love my children. But I hate motherhood. "[W]e might be content with loving some parts of motherhood, and not liking others, until we are confronted with the well-intentioned acquaintance who asks, 'Aren’t you just loving every minute of it?!' So we smile, gush 'Yes, it’s wonderful!' and then feel guilty because it really isn’t."
The "Dear Sugar" podcast, linked above, explores the American taboo on criticizing the experience of motherhood. Mothers are ashamed not to love every minute of it, says Peggy Orenstein (author of ''Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids and Life in a Half-Changed World," among other works): "It was almost furtive for them to admit motherhood is not fulfilling. . . . It actually makes me feel deviant and anti-mother to say that."
Maternal ambivalence may be a quiet and invisible internal experience, but researchers have worked to articulate it. Dr. Barbara Almond, psychiatrist and author of "The Monster Within: The Hidden Side Of Motherhood" (as well as Steve Almond's mom), writes that maternal ambivalence is "that mixture of loving and hating feelings that all mothers experience toward their children and the anxiety, shame, and guilt that the negative feelings engender in them." The late psychoanalyst Rozsika Parker began by admitting the existence of these conflicted feelings, and focusing on how the mother deals with them:
The "Dear Sugar" podcast, linked above, explores the American taboo on criticizing the experience of motherhood. Mothers are ashamed not to love every minute of it, says Peggy Orenstein (author of ''Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids and Life in a Half-Changed World," among other works): "It was almost furtive for them to admit motherhood is not fulfilling. . . . It actually makes me feel deviant and anti-mother to say that."
Maternal ambivalence may be a quiet and invisible internal experience, but researchers have worked to articulate it. Dr. Barbara Almond, psychiatrist and author of "The Monster Within: The Hidden Side Of Motherhood" (as well as Steve Almond's mom), writes that maternal ambivalence is "that mixture of loving and hating feelings that all mothers experience toward their children and the anxiety, shame, and guilt that the negative feelings engender in them." The late psychoanalyst Rozsika Parker began by admitting the existence of these conflicted feelings, and focusing on how the mother deals with them:
She argued that mothers have very limited room for expression and processing of the inevitable maternal ambivalence, both on cultural and societal levels, and internally, because of our extreme idealization of mothers. Parker emphasized how becoming a mother inevitably entails dissonance and tension between lived subjective experiences of mothering and normative ideals of motherhood.Interested in different takes on dealing with that split? A recent question on the Green generated a number of suggested readings on ambivalence about motherhood. ''It's instructive for women to understand that ambivalence isn't something to feel guilty and ashamed about,'' says anthropologist Sarah Bleffer Hrdy (NYT link, above). Parker's conclusion is also a comfort: "It's only by accepting that at times you are a bad mother, that you can ever be a good mother."
I don't know about that "I never knew what love was until I had a child" sentiment... it always sort of creeps me out, were they incapable of love before that? Did they not love their own parents, their friends, or even the partner that they created that child with? Do they just not know how to express themselves very well, and trying to express that they feel immense love for their child ends up coming out sounding like "I was dead inside before this event"?
posted by palomar at 9:54 AM on December 27, 2015 [62 favorites]
posted by palomar at 9:54 AM on December 27, 2015 [62 favorites]
Thank you so much for posting this.
This is the stuff that seriously has me scared shitless about becoming a parent. We don't have kids and husband 115% wants kids. I guess I 20% want kids and feel like a horrible person because of this. I have been oscillating about what my gut is screaming at me versus "you really won't know until you try" and after spending an afternoon with other people's kids that sure, I could handle it, but I doubt I'd love it organically because it feels so forced to me. I worry that I would hope to grow to love it but it wouldn't take. I'm not willing to stake someone's life on my ambivalence and have difficulty with dealing with feelings of letting my husband down.
This is why we don't have kids. The guilt seems inevitable - one way, in which this all seems to talk about - the ambivalent guilt of AFTER becoming a mother, and the other way that I'm experiencing, the ambivalent guilt BEFORE even going through it. I feel this screaming guilt right now for bashing my husband's family dreams. We obviously talked about all of this in length before getting married, but I also feel like my mind has drastically swung in favor of the child free camp since. I know I'm allowed to change my mind, but still, the volume of guilt is deafening because "but think of [your] husband!" Which I know is the worst argument in favor of having kids ever. We are in love and I worry sometimes he may leave me because I've changed my mind (this is irrational and we have talked about this too, so I know it wouldn't happen). I know we would be great parents, but during those really low points, would I be able to live with faking it until I make it for 18 years?!
I wish there were an easier way to figure it all out. Until then, no kids. I'm too worried about how my hang ups would affect someone so personally and deeply, someone who doesn't exist yet, and someone whose existence status is in my control. It's refreshing to read that this is normal, but I'm terrified of making the wrong choice.
posted by floweredfish at 9:59 AM on December 27, 2015 [21 favorites]
This is the stuff that seriously has me scared shitless about becoming a parent. We don't have kids and husband 115% wants kids. I guess I 20% want kids and feel like a horrible person because of this. I have been oscillating about what my gut is screaming at me versus "you really won't know until you try" and after spending an afternoon with other people's kids that sure, I could handle it, but I doubt I'd love it organically because it feels so forced to me. I worry that I would hope to grow to love it but it wouldn't take. I'm not willing to stake someone's life on my ambivalence and have difficulty with dealing with feelings of letting my husband down.
This is why we don't have kids. The guilt seems inevitable - one way, in which this all seems to talk about - the ambivalent guilt of AFTER becoming a mother, and the other way that I'm experiencing, the ambivalent guilt BEFORE even going through it. I feel this screaming guilt right now for bashing my husband's family dreams. We obviously talked about all of this in length before getting married, but I also feel like my mind has drastically swung in favor of the child free camp since. I know I'm allowed to change my mind, but still, the volume of guilt is deafening because "but think of [your] husband!" Which I know is the worst argument in favor of having kids ever. We are in love and I worry sometimes he may leave me because I've changed my mind (this is irrational and we have talked about this too, so I know it wouldn't happen). I know we would be great parents, but during those really low points, would I be able to live with faking it until I make it for 18 years?!
I wish there were an easier way to figure it all out. Until then, no kids. I'm too worried about how my hang ups would affect someone so personally and deeply, someone who doesn't exist yet, and someone whose existence status is in my control. It's refreshing to read that this is normal, but I'm terrified of making the wrong choice.
posted by floweredfish at 9:59 AM on December 27, 2015 [21 favorites]
No discussion of maternal ambivalence is complete without including the socio-economic factors that place so much more pressure and labor on mothers as opposed to fathers. I find my own ambivalence decreases directly in proportion to the amount of outsourcing I do - a weekly cleaner who folds the laundry was life-changing.
posted by yarly at 10:26 AM on December 27, 2015 [54 favorites]
posted by yarly at 10:26 AM on December 27, 2015 [54 favorites]
I love motherhood and I love my children but I do sometimes want to smack the everliving shit out of them. Luckily for them I don't believe in corporal punishment.
posted by bq at 10:44 AM on December 27, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by bq at 10:44 AM on December 27, 2015 [8 favorites]
I'm glad this podcast is out there. Nobody can possibly love 100% of motherhood. There are many aspects of being a mother that involve giving up your identity, which is part of the reason I'm just a really good aunt at this point. The less guilt we can force on women for having actual feelings of ambivalence, the better our society is going to be.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:51 AM on December 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:51 AM on December 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'm a mother of two under 2.5. My children are neither necessary nor sufficient to make me a happy person. I'm often very happy because of them (and often want to scream into the gaping maw of hell because of them), but is it really a surprise that I need more than just their existence to be a truly fulfilled human being? If anything, the fact that motherhood is so unbelievably effing draining means I need other methods of fulfillment now more than ever. Nobody would ever think a father should be fulfilled entirely by fatherhood; of course dad needs to work, play golf, watch sports, have a drink with his friends, etc., because he can't just sit around with his kids constantly - in fact, dad needs his own mancave! Society doesn't label that "paternal ambivalence" and wring hands over it - it's just normal and obvious. Why the hell wouldn't women feel the same way?
posted by gatorae at 11:05 AM on December 27, 2015 [121 favorites]
posted by gatorae at 11:05 AM on December 27, 2015 [121 favorites]
Man, listening to that podcast, and I just had to pause it after the letter from "Bad Mom" concluded to say this:
I don't have kids, probably won't go that route, and my heart just goes out to her. Everything she writes is understandable, I think. I don't think she's an asshole. I feel awful for her. I wish she didn't feel so badly about herself.
posted by discopolo at 11:07 AM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't have kids, probably won't go that route, and my heart just goes out to her. Everything she writes is understandable, I think. I don't think she's an asshole. I feel awful for her. I wish she didn't feel so badly about herself.
posted by discopolo at 11:07 AM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
For years I hated kids. My own were the first ones I could actually tolerate.
I'm a grandma now and I like them fine but in smaller doses and lower decibels.
What I am trying to say is, that if you are trying to make up your own mind just know that in any case, being around other people's kids are NOT the same thing as having your own. AT all. In fact you can love other people's kids and not want your own as well, but just wanted to reassure some of you that the reverse is actually true too.
It's hard work but it's not forever. I think I would have regretted it if I had never had any but I won't say life wouldn't have been easier in some respects either. It's like any other job or responsibility, not all the parts are great. But some are transcendent.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 11:29 AM on December 27, 2015 [13 favorites]
I'm a grandma now and I like them fine but in smaller doses and lower decibels.
What I am trying to say is, that if you are trying to make up your own mind just know that in any case, being around other people's kids are NOT the same thing as having your own. AT all. In fact you can love other people's kids and not want your own as well, but just wanted to reassure some of you that the reverse is actually true too.
It's hard work but it's not forever. I think I would have regretted it if I had never had any but I won't say life wouldn't have been easier in some respects either. It's like any other job or responsibility, not all the parts are great. But some are transcendent.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 11:29 AM on December 27, 2015 [13 favorites]
I have always liked the distinction that Ask Moxie articulated in this post between the 'job' of day-to-day parenting - which is a fair bit of drudgery, quite relentless, and usually unappreciated, and the relationship that you build with your child - who is a person in their own right. I'm not at all a fan of the 'job' aspects of parenting and the older, more self-sufficient, and more independent my (one and only) child becomes, the better! But the relationship I have and will continue to develop and maintain with him is important to me and deeply rewarding. IMO, it's important to distinguish those two aspects of parenting -- they are too often intertwined.
posted by Medley at 11:32 AM on December 27, 2015 [59 favorites]
posted by Medley at 11:32 AM on December 27, 2015 [59 favorites]
I'm not always in the mood for apple pie and I don't always like America so I'm not at all surprised to learn that there are moments when mothers dislike motherhood.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:12 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by octobersurprise at 12:12 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
Medley, that's beautiful and true.
The relationship is intensely rewarding, even when the job of monitoring location and enforcing homework is trying. Or, as with the little ones- merely being in the same room and responding to tens of interruptions per minute.
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 12:14 PM on December 27, 2015
The relationship is intensely rewarding, even when the job of monitoring location and enforcing homework is trying. Or, as with the little ones- merely being in the same room and responding to tens of interruptions per minute.
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 12:14 PM on December 27, 2015
My sense l, w/re my own parents, was that they both thought it was going to be this endlessly blissful, infinitely rewarding experience-- and then it wasn't.
I think they probably would have been far, bar better off if they'd given the whole thing a miss.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 12:18 PM on December 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think they probably would have been far, bar better off if they'd given the whole thing a miss.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 12:18 PM on December 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
What Medley said.
I'm in a parenting sweet spot right now. My daughter will be 14 next week. She's old enough for me to have regained some independence from her, which is huge, but young enough where she still wants to hang out with me and actually talk about her life still. She's a remarkable young woman (I'm biased, but you'd agree if you met her. She's one of the kindest people I know.) and it really is rewarding to watch her come into her own.
It's 95% worth the horrible postpartum depression price of admission I paid.
posted by Ruki at 12:20 PM on December 27, 2015 [9 favorites]
I'm in a parenting sweet spot right now. My daughter will be 14 next week. She's old enough for me to have regained some independence from her, which is huge, but young enough where she still wants to hang out with me and actually talk about her life still. She's a remarkable young woman (I'm biased, but you'd agree if you met her. She's one of the kindest people I know.) and it really is rewarding to watch her come into her own.
It's 95% worth the horrible postpartum depression price of admission I paid.
posted by Ruki at 12:20 PM on December 27, 2015 [9 favorites]
No discussion of maternal ambivalence is complete without including the socio-economic factors that place so much more pressure and labor on mothers as opposed to fathers. I find my own ambivalence decreases directly in proportion to the amount of outsourcing I do - a weekly cleaner who folds the laundry was life-changing.
If my parents had been in a position to get this kind of help, their experience of parenting would have been so much easier, especially for my mother. Having kids is hard and the more help that people can access the better.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:23 PM on December 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
If my parents had been in a position to get this kind of help, their experience of parenting would have been so much easier, especially for my mother. Having kids is hard and the more help that people can access the better.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:23 PM on December 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'm lucky that my Mum never hid her ambivalence about motherhood, in the sense that while she clearly loved us immensely she also made it clear we were giant pains in the ass at times and motherhood was damn hard work. When I announced at 25 that I never wanted kids she didn't go the whole "you'll change your mind/regret it when you're older" route. She said "Well, as your Granny used to say: if they never make you laugh they'll never make you cry", as in: you might miss out on the good times but you'll also spare yourself the shit times. At nearly 40 and with circumstances making it increasingly unlikely that I'll have kids I find myself wondering about my choices, but I've never been under the impression that I've missed out on unadulterated joy. I feel sorry for parents (especially mothers) who feel that's the only view they're allowed to express lest they're considered unnatural.
posted by billiebee at 12:37 PM on December 27, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by billiebee at 12:37 PM on December 27, 2015 [13 favorites]
Laundry is not motherhood - it's just that children generate a lot of laundry.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:00 PM on December 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:00 PM on December 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also in the "love my kids, regularly drive me to the psychological breaking point" camp. I just keep in mind that evolution didn't solve for much beyond our *having* kids, and getting X% of them to survive to reproduction age. Nature (or whatever you want to call it) just doesn't give a shit about your feelings once its primary ends are accomplished, and you just have to roll with that. Red in tooth and claw, but also in setting up insanity-making confrontations over teeth brushing.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:25 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ryanshepard at 1:25 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
The relentlessness is what I find hard to convey; if you haven't been subjected to the needs of an infant (in our case, two! premies! with feeding issues!) it's hard to even fathom the level of complete exhaustion and frustration that being a new parent entails. And the near-complete subjugation of your own needs and desires can be incredibly frustrating. We're lucky in that we had supportive grandparents to come and watch one while the other was in the NICU, and to let us each get an unbroken four hour stretch of sleep, and now we have an incredible nanny whose help lets us each get a bit of me-time in after the twins go to bed. If you don't have the support network or the means to hire help, it would be extremely tough.
I'm not sure which I liked less, the knowing, arched-eyebrow, "oh you're in for a hard time" snide comments or the "isn't it just so magical" happy talk.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:26 PM on December 27, 2015 [10 favorites]
I'm not sure which I liked less, the knowing, arched-eyebrow, "oh you're in for a hard time" snide comments or the "isn't it just so magical" happy talk.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:26 PM on December 27, 2015 [10 favorites]
It is not just the ambivalence towards the children but the father of the children, too.
posted by jadepearl at 2:13 PM on December 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by jadepearl at 2:13 PM on December 27, 2015 [3 favorites]
As the stay at home dad of one, I want to chime in and say that even within the realm of, already tough to deal with, weirdness that is being a guy that takes care of his daughter it is still pretty much unthinkable for me to project any sort of ambivalince about parenthood.
Ditto for my wife of course, and I'm sure women as a whole suffer from this the most, but, yea, it sucks. It's inherent that your life changes drastically when you have a kid or kids but that doesn't mean it should be a requirement that you completely justify or redefine yourself in terms of your offspring.
Gotta go, dirty diapers to wash.
posted by RolandOfEld at 2:31 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ditto for my wife of course, and I'm sure women as a whole suffer from this the most, but, yea, it sucks. It's inherent that your life changes drastically when you have a kid or kids but that doesn't mean it should be a requirement that you completely justify or redefine yourself in terms of your offspring.
Gotta go, dirty diapers to wash.
posted by RolandOfEld at 2:31 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
I consoled myself when the kid was very small and frustrating/irritating that all he really needed was food, shelter/warmth, clean diapers and someone to cuddle him. That someone did not necessarily need to be overwhelmed with love feelings while doing so. It feels dangerous to say that, like people might picture me grudgingly changing his diaper while grumbling and refusing to be loving to him, but that wasn't it at all. I hugged and kissed him constantly but sometimes I was also crying from tiredness or blearily wondering if I would ever sleep again. Sometimes once he went to sleep I just stared at the wall, flattened by fatigue and feeling like I was in baby jail.
And that was enough, it turns out. By the time he needed more sincere attention, he was sleeping more and I had more to give him. I got out of baby jail, gradually. And our relationship is good.
But I never felt what I would describe as ecstatic love for him. Romantic love was like that, but love for my kid was not. It's really deep down, actually, so I'm not really aware of it unless someone hurts him or something threatens to hurt him; then I am Mama Bear and willing to rip someone's head off. I'd die for him, yes. If I needed to. Because I am middle-aged and I've lived and he hasn't yet, and he's my kid. He's the future.
posted by emjaybee at 2:32 PM on December 27, 2015 [10 favorites]
And that was enough, it turns out. By the time he needed more sincere attention, he was sleeping more and I had more to give him. I got out of baby jail, gradually. And our relationship is good.
But I never felt what I would describe as ecstatic love for him. Romantic love was like that, but love for my kid was not. It's really deep down, actually, so I'm not really aware of it unless someone hurts him or something threatens to hurt him; then I am Mama Bear and willing to rip someone's head off. I'd die for him, yes. If I needed to. Because I am middle-aged and I've lived and he hasn't yet, and he's my kid. He's the future.
posted by emjaybee at 2:32 PM on December 27, 2015 [10 favorites]
Parker emphasized how becoming a mother inevitably entails dissonance and tension between lived subjective experiences of mothering and normative ideals of motherhood.
I suspect that the idea that motherhood is inherently and inevitably a wonderful experience goes a long way towards excusing and normalizing a lot of miserable, regressive social policies. Why does society need a social safety net for families, if motherhood is inherently wonderful? Do women really need access to birth control or safe abortions if motherhood is inherently wonderful?
posted by mhoye at 2:45 PM on December 27, 2015 [60 favorites]
I suspect that the idea that motherhood is inherently and inevitably a wonderful experience goes a long way towards excusing and normalizing a lot of miserable, regressive social policies. Why does society need a social safety net for families, if motherhood is inherently wonderful? Do women really need access to birth control or safe abortions if motherhood is inherently wonderful?
posted by mhoye at 2:45 PM on December 27, 2015 [60 favorites]
I took six months off work after my daughter was born and there were sometimes I would just pretend to be a robot mama tasked with caring for a baby. It really helped!
She is 2.5 now and sitting next to me trying to learn to drive a remote control dinosaur car so I can definitely say it gets way more fun.
posted by Pardon Our Dust at 2:50 PM on December 27, 2015 [7 favorites]
She is 2.5 now and sitting next to me trying to learn to drive a remote control dinosaur car so I can definitely say it gets way more fun.
posted by Pardon Our Dust at 2:50 PM on December 27, 2015 [7 favorites]
Yes mhoye- the whole "most important job you'll ever have" is utter propaganda to convince women to leave the workforce, stay home with kids, and lose the long term benefits of working, life insurance and social security. OK, maybe that's a bit strong, but it I agree it is propaganda to support regressive social policies. So many things wouldn't work without the free labor that parents (largely mothers) provide - PTA benefits to schools, after school activities, etc.
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 2:50 PM on December 27, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by Measured Out my Life in Coffeespoons at 2:50 PM on December 27, 2015 [15 favorites]
Heh, I'm super open with anyone who asks what I think about motherhood. I'm 5 months pregnant with #2 right now and am happy to admit that I wish I could sleep through the infant phase entirely and get to when he's speaking in sentences. I hate new motherhood, hate the sleep deprivation, hate breastfeeding. I will get through it, but this time I know: this is something to survive, and I don't have to cherish it, and my kid will still be fine even if I grumble and curse through the whole experience. My husband hears this as pessimism and it bugs him, but to me it's nice to have correctly calibrated expectations this time around.
That said, I'm definitely one of those people whose love for her kid was transformative. It's changed me and my emotional orientation towards the world. I am more emotionally open, more interested in the future. I'm the first to admit that I have not generally had much empathy and have tended towards self-absorption and nihilism; maybe many women just were already like this? But for me, motherhood really made me think about my priorities and the world I live in in a new way, which has been painful and scary but very interesting.
I lucked out in that my daughter is temperamentally very much like me, at least so far. We can sit our two-year-old down with a book or some Legos and she'll play quietly by herself for quite a while before getting antsy. She loves poetry and songs, and I'm really looking forward to reading favorite books aloud with her as she gets older. I just finished up rereading Moby-Dick this morning and was thinking at the end, "Boy, I hope my relationship with A is good when she's a teen so we can read this out loud together," which I reckon isn't something most people would say about their two-year-old. I'm really hoping we have similar luck with the son to come.
I guess it also helps that I have a lot of very child-friendly interests. Not every mom owns lots of DVDs with archival Disneyland footage or knows all the words to a dozen kid-appropriate musicals or builds Lego models on her own for fun. I have grown-up interests too, but I can happily talk about Disney crap with my kid all day without feeling like I'm somehow giving my own interests short shrift.
posted by town of cats at 2:55 PM on December 27, 2015 [10 favorites]
That said, I'm definitely one of those people whose love for her kid was transformative. It's changed me and my emotional orientation towards the world. I am more emotionally open, more interested in the future. I'm the first to admit that I have not generally had much empathy and have tended towards self-absorption and nihilism; maybe many women just were already like this? But for me, motherhood really made me think about my priorities and the world I live in in a new way, which has been painful and scary but very interesting.
I lucked out in that my daughter is temperamentally very much like me, at least so far. We can sit our two-year-old down with a book or some Legos and she'll play quietly by herself for quite a while before getting antsy. She loves poetry and songs, and I'm really looking forward to reading favorite books aloud with her as she gets older. I just finished up rereading Moby-Dick this morning and was thinking at the end, "Boy, I hope my relationship with A is good when she's a teen so we can read this out loud together," which I reckon isn't something most people would say about their two-year-old. I'm really hoping we have similar luck with the son to come.
I guess it also helps that I have a lot of very child-friendly interests. Not every mom owns lots of DVDs with archival Disneyland footage or knows all the words to a dozen kid-appropriate musicals or builds Lego models on her own for fun. I have grown-up interests too, but I can happily talk about Disney crap with my kid all day without feeling like I'm somehow giving my own interests short shrift.
posted by town of cats at 2:55 PM on December 27, 2015 [10 favorites]
Parenting is a HUGE pain in the ass, and the culture we live in only exacerbates that. We expect parents to raise kids in these little isolating nuclear families, and there's always a chorus of assholes out there ready to pass judgment on your every move. It's bullshit and it's impossible to always do everything right.
Look at pretty much any story or YouTube video featuring a small child, and then go look at the comments. There is almost always someone calling the parents unfit, and threatening to call social services.
Give your baby a lemon or a pickle? They should take away your kid!
Does your child have a name someone disapproves of? They should take away your kid!
Are they playing stupid video games? They should take away your kid!
And never even mind the heads I win tails you lose situations with things like breastfeeding and sleeping arrangements and levels of supervision and things where there are assholes on all sides who consider every choice other than their own to be negligence or abuse. You are guaranteed to be wrong no matter what you do.
Besides which, inevitably, you're going to yell at your child or forget they're there and say fuck in front of them or somehow, some way, say or do something that can be seen as unsupportive of them emotionally or something. And you will.
You will fuck up, probably many times, raising a kid. Your parents did, their parents did before them, everyone does. Because it's hard 24/7 work that's full of unpredictable situations that you are facing while already suffering from exhaustion and long term sleep deprivation. You will, I promise, say and do things you regret and feel guilty about. You will do something that traumatizes your child, and there is no predicting even what that will be. But you know, kids even learn from those. They learn that their parents are human, that they screw up, and ideally, they start learning a little empathy.
And also ideally, when you do have kids and you do some of the things your parents did that you vowed never to do yourself, you learn a little empathy on your own. Your parents also sometimes regretted having you. You were an inconvenience and a pain in the ass and required sacrifices on their part that sometimes were more than they could bear. So if you're still harboring resentment toward your parents for things like yelling at you or failing to be sufficiently supportive of your choices or not providing you with the type of diet you think a child should be provided or other things like that, it's time to let those go before your own criticisms come back around on you, as they will. (Obviously, I'm not talking about actual child abuse, which is a cycle that does need to be forcibly broken, but the type of missteps that non-abusive parents make.)
posted by ernielundquist at 3:03 PM on December 27, 2015 [20 favorites]
Look at pretty much any story or YouTube video featuring a small child, and then go look at the comments. There is almost always someone calling the parents unfit, and threatening to call social services.
Give your baby a lemon or a pickle? They should take away your kid!
Does your child have a name someone disapproves of? They should take away your kid!
Are they playing stupid video games? They should take away your kid!
And never even mind the heads I win tails you lose situations with things like breastfeeding and sleeping arrangements and levels of supervision and things where there are assholes on all sides who consider every choice other than their own to be negligence or abuse. You are guaranteed to be wrong no matter what you do.
Besides which, inevitably, you're going to yell at your child or forget they're there and say fuck in front of them or somehow, some way, say or do something that can be seen as unsupportive of them emotionally or something. And you will.
You will fuck up, probably many times, raising a kid. Your parents did, their parents did before them, everyone does. Because it's hard 24/7 work that's full of unpredictable situations that you are facing while already suffering from exhaustion and long term sleep deprivation. You will, I promise, say and do things you regret and feel guilty about. You will do something that traumatizes your child, and there is no predicting even what that will be. But you know, kids even learn from those. They learn that their parents are human, that they screw up, and ideally, they start learning a little empathy.
And also ideally, when you do have kids and you do some of the things your parents did that you vowed never to do yourself, you learn a little empathy on your own. Your parents also sometimes regretted having you. You were an inconvenience and a pain in the ass and required sacrifices on their part that sometimes were more than they could bear. So if you're still harboring resentment toward your parents for things like yelling at you or failing to be sufficiently supportive of your choices or not providing you with the type of diet you think a child should be provided or other things like that, it's time to let those go before your own criticisms come back around on you, as they will. (Obviously, I'm not talking about actual child abuse, which is a cycle that does need to be forcibly broken, but the type of missteps that non-abusive parents make.)
posted by ernielundquist at 3:03 PM on December 27, 2015 [20 favorites]
I spent the last half of the 25 years that I had kids in the house just wanting to be DONE with it. What a draining soul-sucking experience motherhood is. I loved my kids then, and they're wonderful adults to be around, but man, it almost did me in. If I could have only gotten away from the little buggers more often for renewal and recuperation I'd have been a much better mother. I just wanted to get away from them, and my husband regrets that he wasn't able to spend more time with them due to working. It would have been so much better for everyone had there been more parity.
No discussion of maternal ambivalence is complete without including the socio-economic factors...
This, this, this--in spades. We always had health insurance and enough to eat, but there was never money for vacations or music lessons. The kids had one, usually beat up, pair of sneakers and their winter boots. Clothes always clean, but hand-me-down hand-me-downs. No extra to buy books (thank dog for the library.) Christmas was always on a shoestring. Birthdays were home-made cakes and a new t-shirt. It got OLD.
It is not just the ambivalence towards the children but the father of the children, too.
Yeah, that too. I was always the mean one, the one that pushed about homework and chores. He got to be the good guy. He was the one that needed to relax in the evening because he 'worked' all day. He resented that I could be home all day having fun with the kids, and I resented that he could talk to people over 4 feet tall. When the kids were finally in school, and I started working that sucked, too. Even with all that, I feel lucky we could afford to have me be a stay-at-home mom. And my spouse was one of the good ones. At least he changed diapers, got up at night, played with the kids, and cooked dinner fairly frequently. Pretty darn good, considering his generation and upbringing.
"most important job you'll ever have" is utter propaganda
Parenting is the most important job humans beings do. Formal and informal teaching of others is another of the most important jobs. The problem is that our society turns that around and devalues the work of caring for others. Mothers have no respect for the work they do. Teachers aren't paid shit. Elder care work is scut work. As a society, we don't value each other and don't care for our young.
posted by BlueHorse at 3:35 PM on December 27, 2015 [18 favorites]
No discussion of maternal ambivalence is complete without including the socio-economic factors...
This, this, this--in spades. We always had health insurance and enough to eat, but there was never money for vacations or music lessons. The kids had one, usually beat up, pair of sneakers and their winter boots. Clothes always clean, but hand-me-down hand-me-downs. No extra to buy books (thank dog for the library.) Christmas was always on a shoestring. Birthdays were home-made cakes and a new t-shirt. It got OLD.
It is not just the ambivalence towards the children but the father of the children, too.
Yeah, that too. I was always the mean one, the one that pushed about homework and chores. He got to be the good guy. He was the one that needed to relax in the evening because he 'worked' all day. He resented that I could be home all day having fun with the kids, and I resented that he could talk to people over 4 feet tall. When the kids were finally in school, and I started working that sucked, too. Even with all that, I feel lucky we could afford to have me be a stay-at-home mom. And my spouse was one of the good ones. At least he changed diapers, got up at night, played with the kids, and cooked dinner fairly frequently. Pretty darn good, considering his generation and upbringing.
"most important job you'll ever have" is utter propaganda
Parenting is the most important job humans beings do. Formal and informal teaching of others is another of the most important jobs. The problem is that our society turns that around and devalues the work of caring for others. Mothers have no respect for the work they do. Teachers aren't paid shit. Elder care work is scut work. As a society, we don't value each other and don't care for our young.
posted by BlueHorse at 3:35 PM on December 27, 2015 [18 favorites]
"Parenting is the most important job you'll ever have but fuck you if you want to get any help doing it."
posted by emjaybee at 4:32 PM on December 27, 2015 [16 favorites]
posted by emjaybee at 4:32 PM on December 27, 2015 [16 favorites]
As I said above, I feel terrible for "bad Mom."
But I still feel like my mother should have been a better mother, or have decided motherhood was not for her. I honestly felt, from a young age, my mother shouldn't have had children. My relationship with my older sister is fraught because my mom never taught her how to act like a human being and show me basic kindness, and my mother only ever thought and thinks of her own emotional needs, like a mother deserves deification. She's very entitled.
I probably won't ever be a mother. My older sister is, and I think she's not fit for motherhood, frankly, based on how cruelly she treated me as a younger sister, how she said mean things and was a cynical and sarcastic worm of a person and still is. I think my own mother would be a better mother than my sister, and I don't think my mom should have had children.
So much cognitive dissonance. Thank goodness I can't be a judge of who gets to be a mom.
posted by discopolo at 4:49 PM on December 27, 2015
But I still feel like my mother should have been a better mother, or have decided motherhood was not for her. I honestly felt, from a young age, my mother shouldn't have had children. My relationship with my older sister is fraught because my mom never taught her how to act like a human being and show me basic kindness, and my mother only ever thought and thinks of her own emotional needs, like a mother deserves deification. She's very entitled.
I probably won't ever be a mother. My older sister is, and I think she's not fit for motherhood, frankly, based on how cruelly she treated me as a younger sister, how she said mean things and was a cynical and sarcastic worm of a person and still is. I think my own mother would be a better mother than my sister, and I don't think my mom should have had children.
So much cognitive dissonance. Thank goodness I can't be a judge of who gets to be a mom.
posted by discopolo at 4:49 PM on December 27, 2015
"Parenting is the most important job you'll ever have but fuck you if you want to get any help doing it.
Who is supposed to help you? Who exactly do you mean?
posted by discopolo at 4:51 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
Who is supposed to help you? Who exactly do you mean?
posted by discopolo at 4:51 PM on December 27, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Parenting is the most important job you'll ever have but fuck you if you want to get any help doing it.
Who do you expect is supposed to help you?
Time was, you could expect to get help from your mother, grandmother, aunts, sisters....your family, who you generally could expect to live near. But people don't stay where they grew up any more and even when they do, young women don't necessarily spend all of their time helping older sisters and aunts with babies. Many women today hold a baby for the first time when they give birth. And if they don't live near family or have a support network that includes other mothers who know what they're doing, they basically end up isolated. If they want help, they have to pay for it -- which, of course, means that whatever help is available is only available to those with sufficient resources.
By the way, all of the "theys" in that paragraph? Change them to "I" or "me" -- because that has been my experience. Even with well-meaning "new moms" groups and lengthy visits by family during the newborn days, raising my two kids is the fucking hardest thing I've ever done -- and in a lot of ways, it is unrewarding, at least right now. I hope to God I look back in 20 years and find it all worth it, but there are days -- even weeks -- where it's just an unrelenting slog.
posted by devinemissk at 5:03 PM on December 27, 2015 [13 favorites]
Who do you expect is supposed to help you?
Time was, you could expect to get help from your mother, grandmother, aunts, sisters....your family, who you generally could expect to live near. But people don't stay where they grew up any more and even when they do, young women don't necessarily spend all of their time helping older sisters and aunts with babies. Many women today hold a baby for the first time when they give birth. And if they don't live near family or have a support network that includes other mothers who know what they're doing, they basically end up isolated. If they want help, they have to pay for it -- which, of course, means that whatever help is available is only available to those with sufficient resources.
By the way, all of the "theys" in that paragraph? Change them to "I" or "me" -- because that has been my experience. Even with well-meaning "new moms" groups and lengthy visits by family during the newborn days, raising my two kids is the fucking hardest thing I've ever done -- and in a lot of ways, it is unrewarding, at least right now. I hope to God I look back in 20 years and find it all worth it, but there are days -- even weeks -- where it's just an unrelenting slog.
posted by devinemissk at 5:03 PM on December 27, 2015 [13 favorites]
Who is supposed to help you? Who exactly do you mean?
Everything devinemissk said above, but I want to add - society used to be set up for greatest success when basically everyone grew up and worked and raised their own kids very close to where they were born, with the related family ties in place. You'd share the childcare load, a lactating SIL could breastfeed your kid if you had issues, mothers and grandmothers and family friends were available to provide advice on childrearing. Society now simply does not work like that - we expect people to pick up and move to where the jobs are/economy is better/schools are better/pollution is less awful/there's less crime/whatever (and we often judge those who don't, particularly if they are poor/PoC) but with that expectation we must, as a society, recognize that there have to be plans in place to bring back that "village" that it takes to raise a child. That can mean real, paid parental leave, subsidized high-quality childcare, free pre- and post-natal healthcare that includes lactation consultation and newborn care education if it's needed, etc. And I think we need this not because we are "entitled" to being cared for, but because the government relies on us to depart from the traditional geographically-nuclear family structure norm in order to get our educations and work our jobs to be productive citizens and taxpayers, so it ought to incentivize it by making up for what is lost. What's the government's/taxpayer's incentive to do so? A good tax base of productive future citizens.
posted by olinerd at 5:24 PM on December 27, 2015 [15 favorites]
Everything devinemissk said above, but I want to add - society used to be set up for greatest success when basically everyone grew up and worked and raised their own kids very close to where they were born, with the related family ties in place. You'd share the childcare load, a lactating SIL could breastfeed your kid if you had issues, mothers and grandmothers and family friends were available to provide advice on childrearing. Society now simply does not work like that - we expect people to pick up and move to where the jobs are/economy is better/schools are better/pollution is less awful/there's less crime/whatever (and we often judge those who don't, particularly if they are poor/PoC) but with that expectation we must, as a society, recognize that there have to be plans in place to bring back that "village" that it takes to raise a child. That can mean real, paid parental leave, subsidized high-quality childcare, free pre- and post-natal healthcare that includes lactation consultation and newborn care education if it's needed, etc. And I think we need this not because we are "entitled" to being cared for, but because the government relies on us to depart from the traditional geographically-nuclear family structure norm in order to get our educations and work our jobs to be productive citizens and taxpayers, so it ought to incentivize it by making up for what is lost. What's the government's/taxpayer's incentive to do so? A good tax base of productive future citizens.
posted by olinerd at 5:24 PM on December 27, 2015 [15 favorites]
Who is supposed to help you? Who exactly do you mean?
Everybody.
Most of modern North American society - our 9-5 (or 8-6, or 7:30-7 or worse) schedules, our school systems, our brutal suburban commutes, almost all of it - is built around the implicit assumption that 50% of our adult population works out of the home, for free, to cook and clean and take care of the house and kids.
If we want that to be not-true - which is another way of saying, if we expect women to have agency over their lives, careers and health outcomes independent of a husband/owner, which is in turn another way of saying "if we think women are people" - then we have to collectively pay the costs of transitioning away from an antiquated social model we're still by and large beholden to. And that means things like real amounts of shared, paid parental leave, flexible school schedules, accessible socialized medicine and reliable subsidized child care, and a lot more on top of that, that we're collectively going to have to think really hard about and plan carefully and ultimately pay for.
As Devinemissk notes above, many women today hold a baby for the first time when they give birth. The social context that allowed that model to survive - both from the top-down structural and bottom up social-networked perspectives - no longer exist. This isn't some sort of socialist entitlement fantasy I'm presenting here, it's the reason we have society at all. Because even though it's expensive, the alternative is way, way worse.
posted by mhoye at 5:29 PM on December 27, 2015 [41 favorites]
Everybody.
Most of modern North American society - our 9-5 (or 8-6, or 7:30-7 or worse) schedules, our school systems, our brutal suburban commutes, almost all of it - is built around the implicit assumption that 50% of our adult population works out of the home, for free, to cook and clean and take care of the house and kids.
If we want that to be not-true - which is another way of saying, if we expect women to have agency over their lives, careers and health outcomes independent of a husband/owner, which is in turn another way of saying "if we think women are people" - then we have to collectively pay the costs of transitioning away from an antiquated social model we're still by and large beholden to. And that means things like real amounts of shared, paid parental leave, flexible school schedules, accessible socialized medicine and reliable subsidized child care, and a lot more on top of that, that we're collectively going to have to think really hard about and plan carefully and ultimately pay for.
As Devinemissk notes above, many women today hold a baby for the first time when they give birth. The social context that allowed that model to survive - both from the top-down structural and bottom up social-networked perspectives - no longer exist. This isn't some sort of socialist entitlement fantasy I'm presenting here, it's the reason we have society at all. Because even though it's expensive, the alternative is way, way worse.
posted by mhoye at 5:29 PM on December 27, 2015 [41 favorites]
And I think that "fuck you if you want any help" also applies to judgement of decisions people make to deal with the workload of raising children. Put your kid in daycare or hire a nanny? omg, why don't you want to raise your kids on your own? How selfish of you. Your kids will be little hellions and you'll be terrible at disciplining them if you expect others to do all the hard work for you. Have fun being an absent mother. Hire a cleaning lady or similar help? Woooo, aren't you all fancy with your servants! Diaper service to help deal with cloth diapers? Oooh, such luxury. If you weren't going to actually commit to cloth diapers why aren't you just using disposables? Lactation consultants? Wow, breastfeeding is the easiest most natural thing in the world - how can you not figure out "insert nipple A into mouth B"? etc. Even if you ARE in a position to hire the assistance you need, you're judged hardcore for doing so and not willingly taking the entire - massive - workload upon yourself, because you're thus denying yourself part of the ethereal experience that is Motherhood.
posted by olinerd at 5:33 PM on December 27, 2015 [21 favorites]
posted by olinerd at 5:33 PM on December 27, 2015 [21 favorites]
I'm the child of a mom who actually did get fed up, and moved thousands of miles away to do her own thing leaving the kids behind. I understand why it happened, the isolation, the gender roles and community standards that ensured she would be on her own with no outlet and no one to help.
My sister was much younger, too young to remember our mom actually being around, she bonded to our step mom and adjusted and coped. I was older, and I had a harder time adjusting. I never got over this paradoxical distrust of family (including paradoxical situations where I can trust someone until they are like family, then I close myself off).
I have never seriously considered the possibility I would have children of my own. My parents (mother as well as father and step-mother) try to reach out sometimes, but I just can't. I can't.
posted by idiopath at 7:02 PM on December 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
My sister was much younger, too young to remember our mom actually being around, she bonded to our step mom and adjusted and coped. I was older, and I had a harder time adjusting. I never got over this paradoxical distrust of family (including paradoxical situations where I can trust someone until they are like family, then I close myself off).
I have never seriously considered the possibility I would have children of my own. My parents (mother as well as father and step-mother) try to reach out sometimes, but I just can't. I can't.
posted by idiopath at 7:02 PM on December 27, 2015 [4 favorites]
You need to read Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's Mother Nature. (mentioned in the NYT link) It rambles a bit at the beginning but it gathers up speed and resonance and force after the first few chapters. For me, a mother who is ambivalent and troubled by what mothering means, it was a revelation.
posted by bluebelle at 8:51 PM on December 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by bluebelle at 8:51 PM on December 27, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wow. I read this thread first, and had one whole set of ideas, and then I listened to the podcast and things are spinning around.
I wonder, of the women who have shared the drudgeries here, did you listen to the podcast and did you really empathize more with the letter writers than with Sugar? Or did you really empathize with Sugar (who also shared the frustrating experiences, but did not seem to share any of the ambivalence over whether it was worth it).
In the podcast, I felt that in a way none of the people responding, Sugar, the man, the therapist they called, really took the letter writers seriously. They all blamed the women for their own situations:
- they had waited too long and tried too hard to have kids, and were putting too much pressure on the kids
- they had too high and unrealistic expectations for themselves, they're really just acting out against the parenting they themselves experienced
- they really do love their kids, deep down, and just need to get in touch with that and then they can get over it
- they're broken ('they have fissures'). They're "struggling with relationships themselves." Therapy will help.
- they set themselves up for failure
- they need to stop thinking about 'the itch' and get themselves out of the guilt cycle
- they will inevitably hurt the kids because kids whose parents feel benignly towards them are generally happy and internalize it and walk through the world with sunlight inside them, and these moms won't be able to give that sunlight to their kids because they're not letting themselves feel it.
- they just need to turn a 'love face' towards their kids and they and the kids will all start feeling better.
- they cast their own experience of motherhood into the shadows and they need to bring it out of the shadows, they need to attend to the beauty and possibility and wonder that are naturally inside of all children, and that will make these women feel better about being moms.
They don't take seriously the possibility that these women are adults who understand the situation and their feelings, and unlike many other people (including Sugar), the equation where the negatives are outweighed by positive does not hold true for them. Okay, maybe then they wouldn't feel like they had anything helpful to say to them. But it was striking to me that even in this show that purported to take this issue seriously, they completely ended up blaming the women.
Sugar starts out saying how much she empathizes with all of the feelings of the letter writers, just not the interpretation of the feelings (that it's not worth it). But then she asks the therapist they call what does she think of the "very dark" fantasies one of the writers expresses. And the therapist says it's a cry for help and she doesn't need to walk through the world in that state -- which does imply that that level of feelings is NOT normal and typical to motherhood.
In a way, it was comforting to me that they blamed the women because then I can tell myself - well, I'm not flawed like they are, it won't be like that for me. (Though still scary because if I do end up having kids, it will likely be an outcome of a somewhat angsty path more like these women took than not).
In the end I felt like the podcast did the opposite of validating the frustrations and feelings described by the writers (and that it seems like many people here are saying they share) and ended up in a really different place than I expected (based on the beginning of the podcast and on this thread).
To the women in this thread complaining about the drudgeries of being a mother, do you see yourself more in Sugar (horribly hard and sometimes just horrible - but worth it) or in the letter-writers (not worth it)?
Am I not taking your ambivalence seriously enough if I think I still want kids? Would you counsel your friends who don't have kids yet (or even who are struggling to have kids) that they should count their blessings that they didn't fall pregnant yet and they should set that goal aside and make the best of things? If not, how how seriously are you taking your ambivalence?
If not... then I think you are either also not taking these letter-writers experiences seriously, or you are talking about something very different than the 'ambivalence' referred to in the podcast.
In a way, even the podcast's naming it as ambivalence is kind of dismissive. Neither of the letter writers identified themselves as ambivalent. On the contrary, they were pretty clear about their feelings. It's the speakers who basically held up the writers' self-proclaimed love for their children and held it in opposition to the writers' negative feelings about motherhood and about their kids, and called that dichotomy ambivalence.
posted by Salamandrous at 10:07 PM on December 27, 2015 [9 favorites]
I wonder, of the women who have shared the drudgeries here, did you listen to the podcast and did you really empathize more with the letter writers than with Sugar? Or did you really empathize with Sugar (who also shared the frustrating experiences, but did not seem to share any of the ambivalence over whether it was worth it).
In the podcast, I felt that in a way none of the people responding, Sugar, the man, the therapist they called, really took the letter writers seriously. They all blamed the women for their own situations:
- they had waited too long and tried too hard to have kids, and were putting too much pressure on the kids
- they had too high and unrealistic expectations for themselves, they're really just acting out against the parenting they themselves experienced
- they really do love their kids, deep down, and just need to get in touch with that and then they can get over it
- they're broken ('they have fissures'). They're "struggling with relationships themselves." Therapy will help.
- they set themselves up for failure
- they need to stop thinking about 'the itch' and get themselves out of the guilt cycle
- they will inevitably hurt the kids because kids whose parents feel benignly towards them are generally happy and internalize it and walk through the world with sunlight inside them, and these moms won't be able to give that sunlight to their kids because they're not letting themselves feel it.
- they just need to turn a 'love face' towards their kids and they and the kids will all start feeling better.
- they cast their own experience of motherhood into the shadows and they need to bring it out of the shadows, they need to attend to the beauty and possibility and wonder that are naturally inside of all children, and that will make these women feel better about being moms.
They don't take seriously the possibility that these women are adults who understand the situation and their feelings, and unlike many other people (including Sugar), the equation where the negatives are outweighed by positive does not hold true for them. Okay, maybe then they wouldn't feel like they had anything helpful to say to them. But it was striking to me that even in this show that purported to take this issue seriously, they completely ended up blaming the women.
Sugar starts out saying how much she empathizes with all of the feelings of the letter writers, just not the interpretation of the feelings (that it's not worth it). But then she asks the therapist they call what does she think of the "very dark" fantasies one of the writers expresses. And the therapist says it's a cry for help and she doesn't need to walk through the world in that state -- which does imply that that level of feelings is NOT normal and typical to motherhood.
In a way, it was comforting to me that they blamed the women because then I can tell myself - well, I'm not flawed like they are, it won't be like that for me. (Though still scary because if I do end up having kids, it will likely be an outcome of a somewhat angsty path more like these women took than not).
In the end I felt like the podcast did the opposite of validating the frustrations and feelings described by the writers (and that it seems like many people here are saying they share) and ended up in a really different place than I expected (based on the beginning of the podcast and on this thread).
To the women in this thread complaining about the drudgeries of being a mother, do you see yourself more in Sugar (horribly hard and sometimes just horrible - but worth it) or in the letter-writers (not worth it)?
Am I not taking your ambivalence seriously enough if I think I still want kids? Would you counsel your friends who don't have kids yet (or even who are struggling to have kids) that they should count their blessings that they didn't fall pregnant yet and they should set that goal aside and make the best of things? If not, how how seriously are you taking your ambivalence?
If not... then I think you are either also not taking these letter-writers experiences seriously, or you are talking about something very different than the 'ambivalence' referred to in the podcast.
In a way, even the podcast's naming it as ambivalence is kind of dismissive. Neither of the letter writers identified themselves as ambivalent. On the contrary, they were pretty clear about their feelings. It's the speakers who basically held up the writers' self-proclaimed love for their children and held it in opposition to the writers' negative feelings about motherhood and about their kids, and called that dichotomy ambivalence.
posted by Salamandrous at 10:07 PM on December 27, 2015 [9 favorites]
Having positive feelings (ie love) for something/someone at the same time as having negative feelings towards it/them is the definition of ambivalence, so I'm not sure I'm following your point?
posted by billiebee at 1:57 AM on December 28, 2015
posted by billiebee at 1:57 AM on December 28, 2015
My mother referred to us kids and my father, collectively, as "You People." She had no problems pointing out what hard work it was to take care of You People. But she had the support of writers like Erma Bombeck who made it okay to feel that way.
posted by JanetLand at 6:20 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by JanetLand at 6:20 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
I feel kind of weird and awkward with this expectation that mothers are all secretly ambivalent. I don't know, does that make me a freak? Or did I just luck out with my one kid? I was a single mom for a while so we like a lot of the same things and talk and honestly my only parent stress comes from either judgey other people or my husband not doing enough and me feeling like it's not fair. But I really do feel like she's the best thing that's happened to me and I would do all the things all over again if it meant I still got her.
I am one of those people who say I didn't know what love was until I had my kid, and it doesn't mean I was somehow soulless before or whatever. It just means that love is different when you don't expect anything back. Love is different when it forces you to be the giver and makes you like it. It makes you a more compassionate person.
posted by sockeroonie at 6:44 AM on December 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
I am one of those people who say I didn't know what love was until I had my kid, and it doesn't mean I was somehow soulless before or whatever. It just means that love is different when you don't expect anything back. Love is different when it forces you to be the giver and makes you like it. It makes you a more compassionate person.
posted by sockeroonie at 6:44 AM on December 28, 2015 [9 favorites]
My wife has friends who seem to fall into this mode of worrying that it's parental treason to admit to any level of unhappiness or ambivalence towards their children. One of them once admitted to her - one-on-one, after a couple of drinks - that sometimes motherhood is less than 100% totally awesome, phrased it in such a way that you'd think she'd been passing along nuclear launch codes to the enemy, and seemed to expect to be judged for it (she probably felt she could admit it to my wife because we don't have kids). The internet didn't create this mindset by any means, but as with so many other things it seems to have amplified it, because (in my experience) people very, very rarely post anything truly negative about parenting to social media.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:48 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:48 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
it's parental treason to admit to any level of unhappiness or ambivalence towards their children
Yes, exactly: I think it's better for mothers to understand that mixed emotions are part of the deal, and that the real work is in how you handle them as you build relationship with a child/children. Shame, guilt, and anxiety about having those feelings (and the way in which cultural expectation of mandatory joy about all aspects of motherhood magnifies those negative emotions) complicate and interfere with that work. I wish I had understood that when my first child was born.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:01 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yes, exactly: I think it's better for mothers to understand that mixed emotions are part of the deal, and that the real work is in how you handle them as you build relationship with a child/children. Shame, guilt, and anxiety about having those feelings (and the way in which cultural expectation of mandatory joy about all aspects of motherhood magnifies those negative emotions) complicate and interfere with that work. I wish I had understood that when my first child was born.
posted by MonkeyToes at 8:01 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
but I want to add - society used to be set up for greatest success when basically everyone grew up and worked and raised their own kids very close to where they were born, with the related family ties in place. You'd share the childcare load, a lactating SIL could breastfeed your kid if you had issues, mothers and grandmothers and family friends were available to provide advice on childrearing.
I do not agree that society was set up for greater success when society pressured all women in a family to participate in the unpaid labor of childrearing, instead of just mothers. Unequal pressures on women are not alleviated by making sure that women have infant-handling experience before they give birth; they are heightened by promoting this experience for women but not enforcing or promoting men's participation in this network.
sockeroonie: "love is different when you don't expect anything back."
I dare say it is; this has nothing whatever to do with the general experience of motherhood. I challenge you to find me a parent who does not expect their child to love them back. Not only is that standard, it is painfully common for people to have children because they believe that by making a person, they are guaranteed to be loved by them: unlike unrequited adult love, which is indeed painful and humbling and even theoretically ennobling, parents tend to consider their children's love a sure thing, that they can lose through dedicated ill-treatment but do not have to earn.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:04 AM on December 28, 2015 [12 favorites]
I do not agree that society was set up for greater success when society pressured all women in a family to participate in the unpaid labor of childrearing, instead of just mothers. Unequal pressures on women are not alleviated by making sure that women have infant-handling experience before they give birth; they are heightened by promoting this experience for women but not enforcing or promoting men's participation in this network.
sockeroonie: "love is different when you don't expect anything back."
I dare say it is; this has nothing whatever to do with the general experience of motherhood. I challenge you to find me a parent who does not expect their child to love them back. Not only is that standard, it is painfully common for people to have children because they believe that by making a person, they are guaranteed to be loved by them: unlike unrequited adult love, which is indeed painful and humbling and even theoretically ennobling, parents tend to consider their children's love a sure thing, that they can lose through dedicated ill-treatment but do not have to earn.
posted by queenofbithynia at 8:04 AM on December 28, 2015 [12 favorites]
For a more philosophical book on this topic: Mad Mothers, Bad Mothers, and What a "Good" Mother Would Do: The Ethics of Ambivalence, by Sarah LaChance Adams.
posted by RedEmma at 9:21 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by RedEmma at 9:21 AM on December 28, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't know, does that make me a freak? Or did I just luck out with my one kid? I was a single mom for a while so we like a lot of the same things and talk and honestly my only parent stress comes from either judgey other people or my husband not doing enough and me feeling like it's not fair. But I really do feel like she's the best thing that's happened to me and I would do all the things all over again if it meant I still got her.
Yeah, this is mostly me, too (without the single parenthood) which doesn't mean that it hasn't been hard in parts (downright exhausting at times!) but I still feel like having my child has been the best choice I ever made, and the experience, and my love for her, has been a transformative and positive part of my life.
However, I had a really good postpartum and breastfeeding experience, have worked from home with her during the first 2 years of her life, and have a really amazing support system of other peer mothers, both online and IRL, and I think all of those have had a major impact on my perception of the experience. I am very very very lucky (privileged) in all of that.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:29 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
Yeah, this is mostly me, too (without the single parenthood) which doesn't mean that it hasn't been hard in parts (downright exhausting at times!) but I still feel like having my child has been the best choice I ever made, and the experience, and my love for her, has been a transformative and positive part of my life.
However, I had a really good postpartum and breastfeeding experience, have worked from home with her during the first 2 years of her life, and have a really amazing support system of other peer mothers, both online and IRL, and I think all of those have had a major impact on my perception of the experience. I am very very very lucky (privileged) in all of that.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:29 AM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
In the podcast, I felt that in a way none of the people responding, Sugar, the man, the therapist they called, really took the letter writers seriously. They all blamed the women for their own situations
This. I heard about this episode of the podcast and listened to it as soon as I could and found myself identifying a lot with both of the letter writers and I cried a lot during the letter reading. However, I could only make it through about thirty minutes of the 45 minute show because I was getting so frustrated with the way the topic was being handled.
I feel like any time a mother expresses unhappiness with being a parent (outside of the postpartum depression window), she's told to lower her expectations, stop being so hard on herself, stop setting herself up for failure, this kid age is a tough one but it will pass, etc. I've got low expectations for just about every part of my life (hello laziness!). I don't care if there's a mess or dishes in the sink. I don't think I need to play/entertain my kid every moment. I just try to get through every day. And you know what? I still don't really like being a mom. I miss being childfree. I miss the freedom that I used to have and I miss the relationship with my partner I used to have and I do wonder, not infrequently, why I thought I wanted to have kids. It's not ambivalence. Most of the time I do not enjoy being a mother. And I don't like what it does to my relationship with my partner. However, it is what it is and I'm not leaving or quitting. I continue to hope it will get better (kid is 5) and maybe it will. But right now it sucks.
posted by Burn.Don't.Freeze at 12:56 PM on December 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
This. I heard about this episode of the podcast and listened to it as soon as I could and found myself identifying a lot with both of the letter writers and I cried a lot during the letter reading. However, I could only make it through about thirty minutes of the 45 minute show because I was getting so frustrated with the way the topic was being handled.
I feel like any time a mother expresses unhappiness with being a parent (outside of the postpartum depression window), she's told to lower her expectations, stop being so hard on herself, stop setting herself up for failure, this kid age is a tough one but it will pass, etc. I've got low expectations for just about every part of my life (hello laziness!). I don't care if there's a mess or dishes in the sink. I don't think I need to play/entertain my kid every moment. I just try to get through every day. And you know what? I still don't really like being a mom. I miss being childfree. I miss the freedom that I used to have and I miss the relationship with my partner I used to have and I do wonder, not infrequently, why I thought I wanted to have kids. It's not ambivalence. Most of the time I do not enjoy being a mother. And I don't like what it does to my relationship with my partner. However, it is what it is and I'm not leaving or quitting. I continue to hope it will get better (kid is 5) and maybe it will. But right now it sucks.
posted by Burn.Don't.Freeze at 12:56 PM on December 28, 2015 [6 favorites]
I think what "being a mother" is is so context-dependent that it's hard to know what we are even talking about sometimes.
I got into a conversation with my best friend about volunteering at school - she's American, I'm Canadian - and I expressed that I would rather clean ten trashed bathrooms than volunteer at my child's school.
Anyways, she really equated volunteering in one's child's school as part of being A Good Parent and I really don't. If I felt I had to do that I would really hate being a mother. It made me realize some -- by no means all -- of the things I like least about parenting are things I think I have to do, which are debatable.
That said there's a ton of work that isn't debatable, so.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:50 PM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
I got into a conversation with my best friend about volunteering at school - she's American, I'm Canadian - and I expressed that I would rather clean ten trashed bathrooms than volunteer at my child's school.
Anyways, she really equated volunteering in one's child's school as part of being A Good Parent and I really don't. If I felt I had to do that I would really hate being a mother. It made me realize some -- by no means all -- of the things I like least about parenting are things I think I have to do, which are debatable.
That said there's a ton of work that isn't debatable, so.
posted by warriorqueen at 2:50 PM on December 28, 2015 [2 favorites]
Oh yeah, that's a good point. I don't bake cookies or volunteer at my kid's school or spend time with moms I don't like and we go places we both enjoy together and I'm super chill about mess and rely on frozen food a lot. If I had to be a 1950s mom I'd probably be guzzling wine and Vicodin.
posted by sockeroonie at 6:27 PM on December 28, 2015
posted by sockeroonie at 6:27 PM on December 28, 2015
honestly my only parent stress comes from either judgey other people or my husband not doing enough and me feeling like it's not fair. But I really do feel like she's the best thing that's happened to me and I would do all the things all over again if it meant I still got her
Yeah, this is me too. The way I explained it to someone over lunch one time was this: "I loved my life before my child. When she arrived, it felt like someone rearranged the pieces of my heart and made an awesome new shape with it." It was just a different type of feeling whole in my life, one I had not made for myself -- which was pleasantly surprising and a little weird.
I also credit three other things for being generally "Motherhood fuck yeah!" about the entire experience:
1. I was what my OB/GYN called "elderly primagravida," so I had already constructed my identity and lived in it for a while; I never suffered the experience of feeling my identity be subsumed by one role within it.
Anecdotally, my friends who were also "elderly primagravida" feel similarly; the "mom" thing is one more experience to rack up in a life full of them.
2. I found my tribe. It is so much easier to do this parenting thing when you weave a web of mutual support and fun with others.
3. I have the means to pay for housekeeping. Reducing the sheer fucking household drudgery by paying someone else $45/hour to handle it is one of the best quality-of-life investments I've made.
(Corollary: I also have a roster of babysitters, which has helped me to keep my marriage from disintegrating into a mere "co-CEO of the world's least effective not-for-profit corporation"-type arrangement.)
On reflection, Nos. 2-3 basically work for making any adult situation better than it could be. But I feel like we don't focus enough on that when we talk parenthood in the U.S. We make parenting seem like a competitive sport when, in fact, we could do much more for ourselves and others by taking the "we're all in this together" approach.
posted by sobell at 10:56 PM on December 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
Yeah, this is me too. The way I explained it to someone over lunch one time was this: "I loved my life before my child. When she arrived, it felt like someone rearranged the pieces of my heart and made an awesome new shape with it." It was just a different type of feeling whole in my life, one I had not made for myself -- which was pleasantly surprising and a little weird.
I also credit three other things for being generally "Motherhood fuck yeah!" about the entire experience:
1. I was what my OB/GYN called "elderly primagravida," so I had already constructed my identity and lived in it for a while; I never suffered the experience of feeling my identity be subsumed by one role within it.
Anecdotally, my friends who were also "elderly primagravida" feel similarly; the "mom" thing is one more experience to rack up in a life full of them.
2. I found my tribe. It is so much easier to do this parenting thing when you weave a web of mutual support and fun with others.
3. I have the means to pay for housekeeping. Reducing the sheer fucking household drudgery by paying someone else $45/hour to handle it is one of the best quality-of-life investments I've made.
(Corollary: I also have a roster of babysitters, which has helped me to keep my marriage from disintegrating into a mere "co-CEO of the world's least effective not-for-profit corporation"-type arrangement.)
On reflection, Nos. 2-3 basically work for making any adult situation better than it could be. But I feel like we don't focus enough on that when we talk parenthood in the U.S. We make parenting seem like a competitive sport when, in fact, we could do much more for ourselves and others by taking the "we're all in this together" approach.
posted by sobell at 10:56 PM on December 28, 2015 [7 favorites]
I'm pretty glad I don't get forced or pressured into helping my sister with her kids. Not just because she's unbearable to be around but it would have been pretty rough for me to have my own life.
So it was kind of what I wanted to clarify in my previous comment. Drafting other people to help when they're trying to figure out their own lives isn't fair either.
posted by discopolo at 12:49 PM on December 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
So it was kind of what I wanted to clarify in my previous comment. Drafting other people to help when they're trying to figure out their own lives isn't fair either.
posted by discopolo at 12:49 PM on December 31, 2015 [1 favorite]
I do not agree that society was set up for greater success when society pressured all women in a family to participate in the unpaid labor of childrearing, instead of just mothers.
You're right, sorry, I should have been more specific - for greatest success *for the logistics of raising a child*. There are certainly a whole host of other shitty things about The Way The World Was, but damned if I don't sometimes envy that built-in family and peer support network that likely would have been in place for me as a first-time mother if it had been 100 years ago. The shitty first weeks and months of a newborn are partially shitty because you're figuring a whole damn lot out for the first time all by yourself (or at least that was mostly the case for me) and that adds a whole separate level of stress I'd have been happy to do without.
posted by olinerd at 11:51 PM on December 31, 2015
You're right, sorry, I should have been more specific - for greatest success *for the logistics of raising a child*. There are certainly a whole host of other shitty things about The Way The World Was, but damned if I don't sometimes envy that built-in family and peer support network that likely would have been in place for me as a first-time mother if it had been 100 years ago. The shitty first weeks and months of a newborn are partially shitty because you're figuring a whole damn lot out for the first time all by yourself (or at least that was mostly the case for me) and that adds a whole separate level of stress I'd have been happy to do without.
posted by olinerd at 11:51 PM on December 31, 2015
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