Motherhood is Hard. We Can Make It Better.
It gets better when you start to truly accept that you’re a human being and not a machine. And if that makes no sense to you, just keep reading.
That feeling that you’re never getting it right, that you can’t actually get it right, and that your children will suffer because of it? They’re selling you that.
It’s capitalism, it’s patriarchy, it’s white supremacy — and it’s all bullshit.
If the world can sell you the idea that you’re doing it all wrong, that you’re never ever doing enough, that everyone else has it all worked out and you’re the asshole who can’t keep up — then they can sell you a million ways to fix it.
I mean sell in the financial sense, just look at how many organizers, calendars, and cookbooks are marketed to moms. And I also mean sell in a broader sense, that of getting you to accept an idea, a concept, a dream of The Perfect Mom™.
The Perfect Mom™ is
young, but not too young
she’s firmly a she
sexually attractive without being sexual
emotionally fulfilled whether she works outside the home or inside it,
mentally and physically healthy
always busy supporting her children and also available to the world
happily married to a man who is definitely a man
her needs are always met by fulfilling the needs of her family, friends, and co-workers
There’s more, there always is.
The thing is that this mom doesn’t actually exist. SHE NEVER EVER DID. Not even in the 1950’s white middle class fauxtopia suburbs. She did not exist.
Mothers are human beings who have needs. Those needs are valid. The end.
Okay, obviously not the end because I’m still writing and you’re still reading. That shame that you’re carrying about all the ways you fall short? The vast majority of it is bullshit. How can I say that when I don’t know you and all of your many and varied faults? Because I know that toxic stew of capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy that we’re all living in.
I came into motherhood the way many Black women do — I nearly died. My son and I were almost lost before we ever got to begin this journey. Grief, fear, and RAGE attended my birthing bed. I was raised by activists with a history of mental illness and very little understanding of healing. And so I was able to call out the capitalism and racism around me, I was able to look the white supremacy directly in the face, but I had no clue how to handle the postpartum depression and anxiety that tore through my life or how to name or process the deep trauma surrounding the birth of my son.
I began my mental health journey and motherhood together. They are intrinsically linked, for me. My son is now thirteen, his sibling is ten, and I’ve been learning, practicing, teaching, stumbling, learning more, coaching, helping, learning, and did I mention learning?
There isn’t some moment when you’re healed. When you ‘get it’ and become an amazing fucking mom. That very much should be how it works and I would gladly join that campaign, but that is not in fact how life works.
Instead there are a series of revelations. You become more and more yourself and more and more able to see your children as themselves over time. You become more and more able to see the slimy fingers of capitalism, racism, and patriarchy in your thinking and in your household and you become more and more able to yank them out.
You become. More and more you become.
That’s how life works when you’re doing ‘the work’. I’ve been doing it for myself and with others for thirteen years. I’ve worked with thousands of mothers. What I know for sure is that you’re not wrong or broken. You don’t need to be fixed. You’re already a good mom.
Motherhood is hard. We can make it better. Together.