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Last Updated: January 2025
This was originally published on my old blog between 2012 and 2020.
"Motherhood is not a sacrifice, but a privilege — one that many of us choose selfishly."
Choose. Selfishly.
...but a privilege…
Assuming that one does, indeed, get to choose to be a mother. And further assuming that one is physically able to have a child and or otherwise able to bring a child into your family. Assuming that this child is wanted and celebrated and the family is overjoyed.
Then —
Mental illness, scarce or nonexistent maternity leave, lower wages if a mother returns to work and lower advancement over the course of a career, higher rates of poverty, unemployment, and abuse — yup, these moms are obviously privileged.
The original article is pushing back on the idea that motherhood = sacrifice and that’s an impulse that I applaud. But this article glosses over or ignores the very real peril that mothers are in in this country.
I’m happy for the author that she gets to enjoy a wonderful vacation with her family and that she derives such joy from those occasions. I completely understand how it feels like a slap in the face to express excitement over an upcoming event with your kids and have others roll their eyes and wonder how you'll “get through it”. There is a deeply problematic culture of martyrdom in the motherhood sphere.
But that culture didn’t come out of nowhere.
The idea that moms are just holding on until wine o’clock and that moms are living for the moment the school bell rings each morning — those aren’t born from some innate need to seem like we’re giving it all up for our kids.
Those come directly from patriarchal messaging that says that we SHOULD be giving everything up for our children. And the way to counter that messaging is not in saying that mothers are privileged to have their children. It’s in saying that mothers are human beings with value, that all people are human beings with value, and that value does not change when or if a person becomes a parent.
Many, many mothers are naive about what awaits them during pregnancy, surrogacy, or adoption. The height of the joys and the depth of the despair truly are things that must be experienced in order to be truly understood. Older mothers can try to share, can give advice, but they won’t know until they KNOW.
What even more of us don’t understand is how the systems that shape our world also affect and infect our experience of motherhood. How deeply capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy are embedded in all of the statistics I shared above. But also how deeply they are embedded in the way we were raised, in the way our partners were raised, in the ways we’re living now, and in how we’re raising our own children.
Motherhood isn’t an identity or a privilege. It’s a series of choices and actions. It’s something we DO, not who we are.
“If we start referring to motherhood as the beautiful, messy privilege that it is, and to tending to our children as the most loving yet selfish thing we do, perhaps we can change the biased language my mother used. Only when we stop talking about motherhood as sacrifice can we start talking about mothers the way that we deserve.”
It sounds good, right? But if motherhood is such a privilege, then why does it feel like THIS?
I wish that it were truly as simple as beautiful and messy. I wish more moms had it that easy — that their lives were just beautiful and messy and not soul-crushing and terrifying. That would be amazing.
I wish that the word dehumanizing didn’t fit much more for so many moms.
I wish more moms didn’t live through days that drove them to numb themselves with wine and call it relaxation each night. I wish things were just beautiful and messy for them.
I wish more moms didn’t stay with partners who were physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive because they can’t afford to leave with their children and refuse to leave without them. I wish them beautiful messy lives.
I wish more moms weren’t going back to work two weeks postpartum because of the work requirements attached to public assistance. I wish them beautiful messy lives.
I wish more moms weren’t raising their husbands while raising their children because patriarchy taught them that their value comes from service. I wish them beautiful messy lives.
I wish beautiful messy lives for all of us.
I wish every mother on the planet could claim that having each child was a selfish act and not one ever forced upon them.
I wish we’d stop erasing the moms who have children only to realize afterward that they very much should not.
I wish we’d stop boiling down the immensely complex lives of human beings, who can never be fully known, and who are infinitely faceted to a syrupy “only then”.
I believe that mothers deserve to get to choose motherhood.
I believe that mothers deserve the very best possible chance to live through birth.
I believe that mothers deserve excellent postpartum care.
I believe that mothers deserve excellent, culturally competent mental health care.
I believe that mothers deserve at least six months of paid maternal leave (whether they gave birth or brought a child into their home through surrogacy or adoption).
I believe that mothers deserve a social safety net that doesn’t pathologize them or dehumanize them.
I believe that all mothers deserve a full commitment to parenting from the partner or father in their child’s life.
I believe that mothers deserve to be able to protect their children by leaving abusive households without fear of death, homelessness, or starvation.
I believe that mothers deserve so much more than being forced into sacrifice by the standards of modern motherhood.
Mothering is as complicated, as awe-inspiring, and as deeply human as the people who do it. It takes more than one essay to get anywhere near the truth of the experience when you’re addressing the needs of more than a very specific subset of moms. I’ve barely scratched the surface here. And I wish that more writers would be mindful of that.
Only when we stop talking of motherhood as any one thing can we start talking about mothers as human beings.
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