Motherhood
CW: birth, breastfeeding, trauma
I gave birth to my daughter in 2014. They were born after 32 hours of a very tough labor “naturally”, after an easy and uneventful pregnancy. My kid has always been healthy, barely having been sick until they started school, and is largely a happy, bright, lovely child. I love them so much, and I love our little family.
So obviously I’m very glad I had her, and would do it all over again.
However, I have to admit that I barely have what could be considered a “maternal instinct”. I never have. Having mostly been childfree for much of my life, I never heard the ticking of a biological clock, and as such my child was an oops baby. I only had a vague idea of “if I have a kid, maybe that’s okay…but if not that’s fine”. When I became pregnant, it was surprising but I was not upset.
My mother is a very nurturing, caring and patient person. She was very excited to be a grandma (and remains an excellent grandma to this day). As my belly grew, I figured I will grow the same maternal instinct as her once I’d given birth, because that is normal, and that’s what seemingly happened with every other mother I knew.
Imagine my surprise when I never did.
I still feel broken, to this day. I always think about why I turned out this way — was it because the birthing process was so hard that the right hormones were not released? Was it because our breastfeeding journey was fraught with issues and I didn’t feed her for long enough? Was it because I had PPD and never really recovered from it? Is it my ADHD and likely autism? I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my gender identity. Was that it?
The thing is, though, I have a good relationship with my kiddo and on most days I enjoy being a parent. When I think about why I feel so terrible about my feelings, it’s almost purely because of the pressures that I put on myself.
I can keep those feelings at bay when I’m mentally doing okay, but when I’m in a weakened state, societal expectations really start getting to me.
Mothers are, first and foremost, human. We have some very not great, nasty thoughts sometimes. We have selfish desires. We are often full of trauma, anger, and so much pain. We are nowhere near perfect.
Mothers do end up shouldering a lot of the burden within a household, from childcare to domestic labor, and I do definitely agree that we should be celebrated for our efforts — but I also can’t help but think that calling us all “superheroes” and deifying our role also just reinforces this trend and makes it seem like it’s okay that we often end up doing comparatively more work than our usually male partners in the house. Even as a child (and apparently a budding feminist) I thought this was an odd way to refer to women; a reduction of our value to our reproductive functions, but at the same time venerating it, perhaps as one side of the Madonna/Whore complex.
For me, the expectations started subtly while I was pregnant. My birthing instructor was very much an advocate for birthing with as little assistance as possible, pushing back against c-sections and interventions, and insisting that one must breastfeed for as long as possible. Doing things any other way seemed to be considered completely out of the question
because it was something akin to child abuse.
Because at the time I didn’t question her stance on things, I went along with her confident assertions that our bodies were “made to do this”, I figured it was all going to be fine and dandy.
Birth was excruciating, but it turned out going okay in the end due to a knowledgeable and kindly midwife. I had gone to the birthing center in 10/10 pain — twice, only to be turned away by a dismissive midwife who told me she didn’t believe my pain because I was not screaming (I never scream or make a huge show of it, especially when it comes to being in
extreme pain). I was also not dilated enough for her.
The third time we went, there was a midwife on duty there who saw that I was still not all too dilated, but that I was digging my nails into my palms from the pain. She told me to get into the birthing room, and introduced me to her very kind assistants. She was an older Jewish woman and I was her last client before retirement, and the difference in attitude with her was amazing; she was confident in her years of experience, knowing immediately knew what to do to alleviate the pain. She got my child out of breech position just by moving around my legs, and provided some laughing gas for a bit so that I
could rest, which finally started back up a stalling labor. In the early morning hours I pushed my baby out; I only felt relief after the hours of extreme pain.
While I barely ticked off my birthing instructor’s “perfect mom” box of “giving birth without medical interventions”, I failed at much of the rest. Breastfeeding went poorly, as I mentioned earlier on, and I am still traumatized from that combined with the PPD. I didn’t co-sleep as long as I could have. I gave her pureed pouch food instead of (gasp) making my
own nutritious, homemade meals for her.
My own mother, though, never judged me. I was a combo-fed baby myself, and honestly, in a lot of non-western cultures, breastfeeding is really not as big of a deal as it is here — if moms are able to do it, great, but if not, formula is seen as being a fine alternative and nothing to be ashamed of. People know to give a nursing mother space and to not make a fuss about it, either. However, mom shaming still exists, in all its forms; it only looks slightly different from how it does here.
My life does not revolve around being a parent, I still work out of choice and always have since their birth. But of course, ensuring that my child has what they need to thrive is nonetheless my number one priority.
Sometimes I feel in over my head with the amount of work, paid and unpaid, that I have to do, but I make sure to juggle that to see that my child is also supported in what she wants to do, day to day.
This is seen as very much wrong and very much not the norm in Japan (and, it seems, in the US but to a slightly lesser extent). Mothers need to be 100% devoted to their children, 100% of the time. Jobs and hobbies only should be a thing while the kids are in school. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. If you are not a martyr, your child will suffer for it. You are secondary to your children, they must be the center of your universe.
I still feel this pressure a lot, but on good days I can think a bit more critically. I was raised as the center of my mom’s universe. I saw how tired my mom was, how she was unable to show her true emotions to us. I so wished growing up that she would just take a little bit of time to care of herself and her own happiness instead of ours. It’s an unrealistic
expectation for a person to give so much of themselves.
On good days, I am able to forgive myself for not being the most incredible mom, for sucking it up and just acting how the perfect mom should act like (I imagine it has a lot of singing, playing, and dancing involved, lots of merriment and cheer.)
It’s about all I can muster for now, but thus far it seems like it’s been enough. I see my daughter thriving and making friends, developing her own interests and opinions. She's silly and intelligent, a delightful person to be around. She doesn't seem to mind very much that her mom is very much an Okay Mom, and I'm thankful for this.