Opinion

How Do You Define Motherhood?

Monday 23rd of December 2013  |  Category: Opinion  |  Written by: Leoarna Mathias

As regular readers will know, we recently ran a competition for our Mum Network Trusted Blogger Club members on the Juggle of Modern Motherhood. It seems that in taking a close look at what it like to be a mum in the 21st century, we were participating in a wider debate about definitions of motherhood running in the national press at the same time.

Catherine Deveny in the Guardian wrote a pretty uncompromising piece entitled Sorry, but being a mother is not the most important job in the world. In essence, she argued that in elevating the status of women who are mothers by using this somewhat clichéd phrase, we are doing damage to all other kinds of relationships children have, and to mothers themselves. She feels that the sentiment behind her title excludes others as well as devaluing the hard work of other members of society. Her lines of thought are not that easy to follow, but as I reached the end of her rant I felt first, pretty affronted, and second, that she might be missing a few salient points. So I thought I would respond.

Being a Mum

I am a mum who is grateful to be a mum. I don’t have any need for society to put me on a pedestal simply because I chose to have children. I do think that other people besides myself, in our society, and around the globe, have tough choices, tough jobs, tough lives. However stretched I feel, I know that a fair proportion of the world’s population would still quite like to swap their problems for my problems. At the same time, society and government still have a long way to go in squaring their expectations of what mothers can do within the difficult circumstances, economic and otherwise, they either create or fail to address. I am charged with a hefty responsibility, as I see it, while being undermined by government policy and popular culture alike.

Does society want me, with my husband, to raise children who are emotionally literate, economically active, and self-sufficient as far as is possible? I think it does. Educator, psychologist, domestic, cook, all round role-model; these are the badges I must wear. I need to keep up with all the latest thinking on child development, diet, exercise and online safety - to name but a few arenas in which I am expected to be an expert. Every week a new study tells me I am leaving my kids in the care of others too much, or not enough; that I am not teaching them the right things; or that I let them go to a poor school. If I don’t manage their behaviour well enough, feed them well enough, or do their homework with them, I’ll be letting society down. I should go out to work. I should stay at home. I must keep them away from facebook, video games and pop music. I should let them play outside more. I must make sure they understand how dangerous the world is. I should, I must, I should.

It’s all a bit much, to be honest. For me – and I guess I am not alone in this – being a mum really is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. This is primarily because in the 21st century, mothers are not afforded any level of blissful ignorance. Research, loudly shouted opinion, media frenzy and political headlines all force me to be very aware of how my children will fall behind, or fail altogether, if I don’t keep them pointing and peddling in the right direction. At no point do I ever feel that I am doing the most important job in the world. But I frequently feel that the expectations on me to do this very difficult job are, at the very least, sizeable. And this I do while also trying to be economically active, self-sufficient, nay, even successful in my chosen line of paid work.

Balancing Life

Another piece in The Sunday Times tells me how conflicted my fellow mums are feeling about the balance between home and their working lives in particular. Reporting on a study carried out by the Project 28-40 group, the article on 1/12/2013 noted that of the 10,000 women surveyed, 62% said they felt that expectations they face to succeed in their careers and as mothers are ‘unrealistic’. Only one third felt that the opportunities for mothers to advance their careers were equal to women who do not have children. 54% of them felt that employees who choose part time or flexible working patterns (often women with young children) are perceived as less committed than their colleagues. And yet 89% of them felt that being a working mum helped them to be a good role model for their children. So, the picture is complex. Women want to work, and they want to be good mums at the same time, but there are many elements within the current climate of work and employment in the UK that muddy the waters for them, and make it all harder than it needs to be.

And finally, I really liked Zoe Williams of The Guardian’s take on the matter in this thoughtful piece. She is worth quoting at length here;

‘What almost everybody wants is this: the option of working full-time if they want or need to, without spending every penny they make on childcare, but the ability to work part-time if they'd rather divide their lives more equitably between home and work; an abundance of interesting and flexible jobs, so they can get away from their children for the sake of their sanity, but not so much work that they cease to be the main influence in their children's lives’.

Zoe sums it up for me perfectly. I want to be (one of the, if not) the main influence in our children’s lives, yet trying to achieve this, while trying to do so many other things, is just, well, exhausting. Chatting online with a girlfriend of mine a few nights ago we observed that the juggle we are both currently engaged in makes us pioneers of a sort. We are at the coal face, chip-chip-chipping a way through in the hope that a healthy balance between work and family life is more readily achievable by the time our daughters reach this point in their lives. To mothers everywhere this Christmas: I am sure you have, as I have, throughout this year, done your best to be all things to all people, most of all to your children. I hope you can hold back the pressure to be everything and do it all this festive season, and put your feet up. I’m going to.


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