It didn’t start with our generation, but it needs to end here: Let’s stop publicly grumbling about how hard it is to be a mother.
I know this is perhaps a little hypocritical coming from a “mommy blogger,” but please hear me out.
A dear friend of mine observed that those of us living out our vocations as stay-at-home mothers and endlessly complaining about it could be spurring the trend toward childlessness among young women, at least in part.
To be sure, our foremothers did plenty of damage to the image of the institution on their own before we even got here.
They were the generation who believed that the path to self-fulfillment was unshackling themselves from their homes and children to pursue a career. (Of course, they traded in their heavy but rewarding yokes at home for corporate drudgery while chained to cubicles, but that’s a whole other discussion for another day).
These days, those of us who have chosen to forge ahead on domestic life do so voluntarily. Yet we still treat this gift of time with our children and the opportunity to create a loving home for our husbands as another thing to gripe about on social media.
The problem isn’t that we’re reaching out to one another to commiserate, it’s that we’re doing so on public forums for the world — including younger women — to see.
In the past, swapping war stories would have been done in the relative privacy of a coffee klatch or over the clothesline in the yard.
Today, a soul-crushing day filled with epic toddler meltdowns and colicky babies is made into a reel and posted on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and anywhere else women like to congregate.
Those of us who have children do feel a sense of camaraderie and even experience a sort of catharsis from seeing these. But those who aren’t parents will only be confirmed in their notions that having kids just isn’t worth it.
While they may hear us wax poetic about the joys of receiving sticky-handed hugs and Crayola scribble masterpieces, it likely seems wildly out of balance considering the way we talk about the downsides. They can’t possibly know the depth and breadth of the human experience that happens while raising children and may never get the chance if they only see the ugly side of it.
Every time we joke about how much wine we need because the kids drove us crazy, how little sleep we’ve had in the past decade, or lament trading in our stylish selves for topknots and yoga pants, we are sending a message to the younger generations that this is not a life worth living.
And, because the things that make motherhood so incredibly rewarding are intangibles unique to the experience, there’s no way to really convey the fullness of it to someone who has yet to do it.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t reach out to one another for support — to the contrary, I wouldn’t have survived without my own tribe at many crucial times — I’m just saying we should be conscious of the fact that we’re not only talking to one another.
We’re also being heard by the young women who have been barraged since birth with the feminist messages that motherhood is misery, career is all that matters, and that they’re better off without the burdens of marriage and children.
We can help the public relations crisis by putting our best foot forward and reminding the uninitiated that motherhood is worth it — even on the worst days.