What makes a good mother? Patience? Love? The ability to consistently sacrifice herself at the alter of her children’s needs? The quintessential “good mother” embodies all these qualities and more. She is firm but fair, patient, a good listener, protective, empathetic and kind. In short, all the things women in general are supposed to be — for it is sometimes hard to unpick the role of nurturer from more general female stereotypes.
As a mother, I carry these values within me at all times, even if I don’t always succeed in upholding them. They drive me to do right by my children, to put them first and take good care of them. There is a very good reason that society expects so much of us — without good mothers, we would have far fewer good people in this world. We are the protectors, sustainers, teachers and moral guides of the next generation. Our voice and principles remain within them for the rest of their lives.
Yet this enormous responsibility — to raise and successfully launch new humans into a turbulent world — places a considerable strain on us. It scars our bodies, deprives us of sleep, frays our nerves and tests our patience to breaking point over and over again. Around ten to fifteen percent (at least) of new mothers suffer postnatal depression; many more suffer general exhaustion and a loss of any identity beyond “Mummy”. Almost all of us put our own lives on hold to some degree after we have children. Some never truly get them back.
So should we, as mothers and modern women, celebrate these ‘sacrifices’ we make? Should others give us thanks for all we give up? Or is the trope of the selfless mother actually detrimental, perpetuating the social expectation that we must necessarily relinquish our freedom, agency and personal desires when we have children?
I speak of mothers in this age of greater equality in parental roles not because fathers (when they are on the scene) are any less able to look after children, but because mothers, by and large, still undertake the majority of care. If I were to write this post again in thirty years, I would hope to use the generic term ‘parents’ throughout. As it is, we’re not quite there. Mothers continue to be singled out for scorn and judged in ways that fathers rarely are.
However a woman approaches motherhood, there will be a camp that says she is getting it wrong (even if such camps exist primarily in her own mind). Take time out for yourself? You are selfishly neglecting your children and foisting them on someone with whom they do not have such a secure bond. Your children should always be your priority: you produced them, you look after them. Yet if you devote yourself slavishly to your children? You are a martyr. Nobody likes a martyr; they are attention-seeking, self-pitying and tedious. You are letting down the feminist cause by failing to value yourself, and buying in to the traditional, patriarchal diktat that childcare is always a mother’s responsibility. Furthermore, a burnt out Mum is a bad Mum. Neglect yourself and you damage your child.
It is unsurprising that us mothers feel eternally stuck between a rock and a hard place, longing to cast off the shackles of our progeny for long enough to recover our sense of equilibrium and self, but feeling guilt when we do, and a frustrated failure when we can’t. It is not just the insidious whisperings of generations past that confound us either. Psychology, biology and evolution play a role as well. Human brains have evolved to desire children and then, once we have them, to produce large quantities of oxytocin. This helps us to bond with our baby, and ultimately to love them. Fiercely. Love is what keeps us going. Love makes us hurt when we are unwillingly separated from our child and, conversely, helps us find flashes of joy even amidst the tedium of being cooped up inside with them all day. It drives us to give them the best life we can.
Yet we cannot possibly feel loving, fortunate and blessed all the time. Loving your child does not mean loving the dull monotony of parenthood (particularly as not all women want to become mothers in the first place). I will always remember my children’s first smiles, first steps, first words, first school days. I would rather not have to remember all the nappies changed, clothes washed, vomit caught or nights spent lying on the floor of a coughing toddler’s room. Nor does love counteract the unrelenting pressure of having responsibility for another human life — a life over which we have, realistically, very little control. If anything, it makes the pressure more intense, for if we screw up, we potentially lose the very thing we love the most.
So what to do? How do mothers navigate the tricky waters of social expectations (on both sides) and their biological connection to their children to find a happy medium — a place where they are comfortable with their role as a mother, and comfortable with their own place in the world? How can they avoid martyrdom without feeling neglectful; be their own person without losing sight of their vital role as Mum? How can they stop feeling so conflicted?
It would be easy to write about what mothers must do (many, many have), but mothers do not need more unaccomplished items on their To Do list. We need to be giving them less to feel guilty about, not more. So we need to place greater expectations on wider society. Other people need to be there for mothers — particularly new mothers, who are likely to be home with their children, alone, day in and day out. We mustn’t leave it up to them to seek help themselves, assuming they’ll ask for it if they need it. Women are conditioned to believe mothering should be easy and natural — so when it’s not, they are often reluctant to admit it. We need to give mothers — and indeed all unpaid carers of dependants — a community of supportive people with whom they can be honest.
New parents (if we are to expect fathers to take more of a role, we must include them) should have places to go and people to talk to. This is easier for those with money. Here in the UK, they can pay for NCT classes and meet up at coffee shops, swimming pools and soft play centres. For poorer Mums it’s harder — which is why Children’s Centres (some of which are facing closure in certain areas), community centres, and free or low cost playgroups and parenting courses are vital. We need Mum and Dad mentors and peer support, breast feeding counsellors, behavioural specialists and engaged, informed health visitors who listen and encourage rather than dictating and scolding. We also need to stop endlessly mocking mothers for seeking social connections. Mums do not socialise just for the frivolity of it. We band together for our own sanity and survival.
Primary child carers also need time off. Not just Mother’s Day or the odd hour here or there, but a proper, reliable break from their charges. State mandated holidays from a mother’s average 98 hour working week might be tricky to implement, but we could establish a tradition of asking family, community or religious groups to supervise children for half a day, once a month, while primary carers do whatever they want or need to. This could make a huge difference to a carer’s well-being, and give children of all ages the chance to play together freely and learn from each other too — something that was once common and now rarely happens. Not every carer will necessarily want to participate — particularly those with young breastfed babies or those who work full time in the week and don’t get to see their kids enough as it is. But the option would be there, and it would go some small way to recreate the community approach to raising children that we lost when we stopped living in extended family groups and started pushing the vast bulk of child rearing onto a single person.
This last point also raises the question of duty. This is a concept that needs a rethink. Duty is often seen as a very outmoded ideal — something belonging to a less individualistic, more sexist and authoritarian age. Truthfully though, mothers have never really lost their sense of duty, and if anything, our duties have increased. Long gone are the days where we simply had to clothe and feed our children. Now, in addition to physical care, we are responsible for their mental health, their safety, their academic achievement, their scholastic and social calendars, their extra-curricular activities, their links to nature and their impact on family, friends and the wider community. So much is now known about the psychology of attachment and parental influence, that our children are now seen as the living embodiment of our own abilities as parents. They are the yardstick by which we are measured. The pressure can be enormous — and that’s before we consider the modern requirement for a mother to ‘make a name for herself’; to be successful in her career, stand on her own two feet financially and ‘lean in’.
Yet it is impossible to meet all these expectations adequately; to achieve that level of Instagram perfection too many of us now seek. If we want to excel at anything in life, be it child-rearing or tennis, we have to give it time. This means either lowering standards and letting other aspects slide, and/or asking someone else to take them on. This is where our partners (and extended family and friends in their absence) come in. A man’s duty, historically, has been to bring home the bacon and little else. We now expect more of him, but the transition to equality will not be complete until it is the norm for parents to equally divide duties (as far as respective salaries and working hours allow) to raise their children effectively and fairly. To achieve this, we need to reclaim the word “duty” and make fulfilling responsibilities towards our families, friends and wider society a commendable undertaking for both sexes, rather than a tedious encumbrance that necessarily detracts from that great individualistic ambition to be “the best you you can be”.
This ethos, of accepting and sharing responsibilities for the good of all (even if it’s not especially fun) is something that needs to be reinforced from a young age. We don’t want to stop young people dreaming and we don’t want to put them off having children either — but we do need to help them understand that living a good life is not just about working on ‘the self’. Male or female, it involves a balance of rights and responsibilities, ambition and realism, personal fulfilment and care for others. At various times the scales may be tipped further towards one than the other, but that’s not necessarily a problem unless things fail to tip back later, or, as women have experienced for centuries, if men consistently tip the scales in their favour. Because while you CAN live life largely for yourself as a parent, in doing so you will probably make someone else’s life (child or adult) far harder. Many of the ‘great’ men in history have done just this. If their wives were martyrs therefore, it’s because their husbands didn’t give them the choice not to be. Forever living in your husband’s shadow makes it very hard to shine.
Which brings us to the final thing that we, as a society, can do to help mothers. Value the work they do and the people they are, NOT just the ‘sacrifice’ they make for others. Many mothers fail to see their own worth because their children are too young to offer any appreciation (indeed, most will offer quite the opposite) and nobody else around them thinks to offer thanks or praise. Mothering is all instinctual and its own reward, surely? Well no, mostly it’s not. Good parenting is learnt from conversation with and careful study of others, reading books, endless Googling, and trial and error. Most mothers don’t just do — we think and prepare and intellectualise too. We WORK at it. See a mother dealing well with a tantrum? Praise her. See her being swallowed by a tantrum? Empathise and support her — or at the very least, don’t criticise. In a world that values fame, looks, power and money, the role of mother can feel lowly and impossibly mundane. We can feel entirely invisible one moment, and (when our child plays up), painfully overexposed the next. Rather than perpetually being told we are “making a sacrifice” therefore — eschewing more important things to be a subjugated skivvy — we want to be reassured that we are doing important things here and now. That we’re making a difference, investing in our children’s (and the human race’s) future, helping one or more tiny people to thrive. We already know what we have sacrificed. Every time we pick up toys, fill sippy cups or wipe down tray tables with a sigh, we are remembering our former freedom from such mundanity and wondering what could have been. We do not need to be endlessly reminded, or conversely, told brightly that we had children for selfish reasons and that parenthood should thus be reframed as a privilege. At a broad level, we do of course gain the joy of children in place of all we give up, and we are, in the grand scheme of things, exceedingly lucky. We know this too. Yet when you are in the midst of raising children, especially if your child is sick or has additional needs, there are days, perhaps weeks or even months, where it is hard to appreciate what is right in front you. When hugs and smiles and recognition of small achievements are the only things that get you through.
This, ultimately, is what will stop mothers being martyrs — feeling like they have worth. Knowing that they are still considered interesting, even when they do have to succumb to the less-than-glamorous realities of parenthood. Feeling equal to and fairly treated by their partner and those around them, and having guaranteed access to a regular break rather than always having to “call in a favour” to organise one. Martyrdom occurs when mothers get stuck believing that it’s easier to keep giving and giving than to go through the mental effort and guilt of calling on others for help. When they start to believe that their only value is as ‘mother’. When they can no longer see that they matter too. It’s a slippery slope, and if you’re too far down, it can be very hard to pull yourself back up — so other people need to throw you a rope. Valuing mothers is not about recognising all they give up and leaving them to it with a shrug. It’s about recognising all they give up, and helping them to take back enough to live a life that has both purpose and joy.
As a mother, I carry these values within me at all times, even if I don’t always succeed in upholding them. They drive me to do right by my children, to put them first and take good care of them. There is a very good reason that society expects so much of us — without good mothers, we would have far fewer good people in this world. We are the protectors, sustainers, teachers and moral guides of the next generation. Our voice and principles remain within them for the rest of their lives.
Yet this enormous responsibility — to raise and successfully launch new humans into a turbulent world — places a considerable strain on us. It scars our bodies, deprives us of sleep, frays our nerves and tests our patience to breaking point over and over again. Around ten to fifteen percent (at least) of new mothers suffer postnatal depression; many more suffer general exhaustion and a loss of any identity beyond “Mummy”. Almost all of us put our own lives on hold to some degree after we have children. Some never truly get them back.
So should we, as mothers and modern women, celebrate these ‘sacrifices’ we make? Should others give us thanks for all we give up? Or is the trope of the selfless mother actually detrimental, perpetuating the social expectation that we must necessarily relinquish our freedom, agency and personal desires when we have children?
I speak of mothers in this age of greater equality in parental roles not because fathers (when they are on the scene) are any less able to look after children, but because mothers, by and large, still undertake the majority of care. If I were to write this post again in thirty years, I would hope to use the generic term ‘parents’ throughout. As it is, we’re not quite there. Mothers continue to be singled out for scorn and judged in ways that fathers rarely are.
However a woman approaches motherhood, there will be a camp that says she is getting it wrong (even if such camps exist primarily in her own mind). Take time out for yourself? You are selfishly neglecting your children and foisting them on someone with whom they do not have such a secure bond. Your children should always be your priority: you produced them, you look after them. Yet if you devote yourself slavishly to your children? You are a martyr. Nobody likes a martyr; they are attention-seeking, self-pitying and tedious. You are letting down the feminist cause by failing to value yourself, and buying in to the traditional, patriarchal diktat that childcare is always a mother’s responsibility. Furthermore, a burnt out Mum is a bad Mum. Neglect yourself and you damage your child.
It is unsurprising that us mothers feel eternally stuck between a rock and a hard place, longing to cast off the shackles of our progeny for long enough to recover our sense of equilibrium and self, but feeling guilt when we do, and a frustrated failure when we can’t. It is not just the insidious whisperings of generations past that confound us either. Psychology, biology and evolution play a role as well. Human brains have evolved to desire children and then, once we have them, to produce large quantities of oxytocin. This helps us to bond with our baby, and ultimately to love them. Fiercely. Love is what keeps us going. Love makes us hurt when we are unwillingly separated from our child and, conversely, helps us find flashes of joy even amidst the tedium of being cooped up inside with them all day. It drives us to give them the best life we can.
Yet we cannot possibly feel loving, fortunate and blessed all the time. Loving your child does not mean loving the dull monotony of parenthood (particularly as not all women want to become mothers in the first place). I will always remember my children’s first smiles, first steps, first words, first school days. I would rather not have to remember all the nappies changed, clothes washed, vomit caught or nights spent lying on the floor of a coughing toddler’s room. Nor does love counteract the unrelenting pressure of having responsibility for another human life — a life over which we have, realistically, very little control. If anything, it makes the pressure more intense, for if we screw up, we potentially lose the very thing we love the most.
So what to do? How do mothers navigate the tricky waters of social expectations (on both sides) and their biological connection to their children to find a happy medium — a place where they are comfortable with their role as a mother, and comfortable with their own place in the world? How can they avoid martyrdom without feeling neglectful; be their own person without losing sight of their vital role as Mum? How can they stop feeling so conflicted?
It would be easy to write about what mothers must do (many, many have), but mothers do not need more unaccomplished items on their To Do list. We need to be giving them less to feel guilty about, not more. So we need to place greater expectations on wider society. Other people need to be there for mothers — particularly new mothers, who are likely to be home with their children, alone, day in and day out. We mustn’t leave it up to them to seek help themselves, assuming they’ll ask for it if they need it. Women are conditioned to believe mothering should be easy and natural — so when it’s not, they are often reluctant to admit it. We need to give mothers — and indeed all unpaid carers of dependants — a community of supportive people with whom they can be honest.
New parents (if we are to expect fathers to take more of a role, we must include them) should have places to go and people to talk to. This is easier for those with money. Here in the UK, they can pay for NCT classes and meet up at coffee shops, swimming pools and soft play centres. For poorer Mums it’s harder — which is why Children’s Centres (some of which are facing closure in certain areas), community centres, and free or low cost playgroups and parenting courses are vital. We need Mum and Dad mentors and peer support, breast feeding counsellors, behavioural specialists and engaged, informed health visitors who listen and encourage rather than dictating and scolding. We also need to stop endlessly mocking mothers for seeking social connections. Mums do not socialise just for the frivolity of it. We band together for our own sanity and survival.
Primary child carers also need time off. Not just Mother’s Day or the odd hour here or there, but a proper, reliable break from their charges. State mandated holidays from a mother’s average 98 hour working week might be tricky to implement, but we could establish a tradition of asking family, community or religious groups to supervise children for half a day, once a month, while primary carers do whatever they want or need to. This could make a huge difference to a carer’s well-being, and give children of all ages the chance to play together freely and learn from each other too — something that was once common and now rarely happens. Not every carer will necessarily want to participate — particularly those with young breastfed babies or those who work full time in the week and don’t get to see their kids enough as it is. But the option would be there, and it would go some small way to recreate the community approach to raising children that we lost when we stopped living in extended family groups and started pushing the vast bulk of child rearing onto a single person.
This last point also raises the question of duty. This is a concept that needs a rethink. Duty is often seen as a very outmoded ideal — something belonging to a less individualistic, more sexist and authoritarian age. Truthfully though, mothers have never really lost their sense of duty, and if anything, our duties have increased. Long gone are the days where we simply had to clothe and feed our children. Now, in addition to physical care, we are responsible for their mental health, their safety, their academic achievement, their scholastic and social calendars, their extra-curricular activities, their links to nature and their impact on family, friends and the wider community. So much is now known about the psychology of attachment and parental influence, that our children are now seen as the living embodiment of our own abilities as parents. They are the yardstick by which we are measured. The pressure can be enormous — and that’s before we consider the modern requirement for a mother to ‘make a name for herself’; to be successful in her career, stand on her own two feet financially and ‘lean in’.
Yet it is impossible to meet all these expectations adequately; to achieve that level of Instagram perfection too many of us now seek. If we want to excel at anything in life, be it child-rearing or tennis, we have to give it time. This means either lowering standards and letting other aspects slide, and/or asking someone else to take them on. This is where our partners (and extended family and friends in their absence) come in. A man’s duty, historically, has been to bring home the bacon and little else. We now expect more of him, but the transition to equality will not be complete until it is the norm for parents to equally divide duties (as far as respective salaries and working hours allow) to raise their children effectively and fairly. To achieve this, we need to reclaim the word “duty” and make fulfilling responsibilities towards our families, friends and wider society a commendable undertaking for both sexes, rather than a tedious encumbrance that necessarily detracts from that great individualistic ambition to be “the best you you can be”.
This ethos, of accepting and sharing responsibilities for the good of all (even if it’s not especially fun) is something that needs to be reinforced from a young age. We don’t want to stop young people dreaming and we don’t want to put them off having children either — but we do need to help them understand that living a good life is not just about working on ‘the self’. Male or female, it involves a balance of rights and responsibilities, ambition and realism, personal fulfilment and care for others. At various times the scales may be tipped further towards one than the other, but that’s not necessarily a problem unless things fail to tip back later, or, as women have experienced for centuries, if men consistently tip the scales in their favour. Because while you CAN live life largely for yourself as a parent, in doing so you will probably make someone else’s life (child or adult) far harder. Many of the ‘great’ men in history have done just this. If their wives were martyrs therefore, it’s because their husbands didn’t give them the choice not to be. Forever living in your husband’s shadow makes it very hard to shine.
Which brings us to the final thing that we, as a society, can do to help mothers. Value the work they do and the people they are, NOT just the ‘sacrifice’ they make for others. Many mothers fail to see their own worth because their children are too young to offer any appreciation (indeed, most will offer quite the opposite) and nobody else around them thinks to offer thanks or praise. Mothering is all instinctual and its own reward, surely? Well no, mostly it’s not. Good parenting is learnt from conversation with and careful study of others, reading books, endless Googling, and trial and error. Most mothers don’t just do — we think and prepare and intellectualise too. We WORK at it. See a mother dealing well with a tantrum? Praise her. See her being swallowed by a tantrum? Empathise and support her — or at the very least, don’t criticise. In a world that values fame, looks, power and money, the role of mother can feel lowly and impossibly mundane. We can feel entirely invisible one moment, and (when our child plays up), painfully overexposed the next. Rather than perpetually being told we are “making a sacrifice” therefore — eschewing more important things to be a subjugated skivvy — we want to be reassured that we are doing important things here and now. That we’re making a difference, investing in our children’s (and the human race’s) future, helping one or more tiny people to thrive. We already know what we have sacrificed. Every time we pick up toys, fill sippy cups or wipe down tray tables with a sigh, we are remembering our former freedom from such mundanity and wondering what could have been. We do not need to be endlessly reminded, or conversely, told brightly that we had children for selfish reasons and that parenthood should thus be reframed as a privilege. At a broad level, we do of course gain the joy of children in place of all we give up, and we are, in the grand scheme of things, exceedingly lucky. We know this too. Yet when you are in the midst of raising children, especially if your child is sick or has additional needs, there are days, perhaps weeks or even months, where it is hard to appreciate what is right in front you. When hugs and smiles and recognition of small achievements are the only things that get you through.
This, ultimately, is what will stop mothers being martyrs — feeling like they have worth. Knowing that they are still considered interesting, even when they do have to succumb to the less-than-glamorous realities of parenthood. Feeling equal to and fairly treated by their partner and those around them, and having guaranteed access to a regular break rather than always having to “call in a favour” to organise one. Martyrdom occurs when mothers get stuck believing that it’s easier to keep giving and giving than to go through the mental effort and guilt of calling on others for help. When they start to believe that their only value is as ‘mother’. When they can no longer see that they matter too. It’s a slippery slope, and if you’re too far down, it can be very hard to pull yourself back up — so other people need to throw you a rope. Valuing mothers is not about recognising all they give up and leaving them to it with a shrug. It’s about recognising all they give up, and helping them to take back enough to live a life that has both purpose and joy.