Reproduced from 'Essence' magazine
Volume 44, Number 3
Exclusively for ABA subscribers

By Liz Crowe

Motherhood is everything in extreme, according to Sarah Napthali in her book Buddhism for Mothers (2003). Nothing will bring you to the highest highs or the lowest lows and all of this often happens within a 5-minute period! However the demands and pressures on mothers in today's society are insurmountable.

In 1996, I was dating a guy whom my parents were eager for me to marry. One night as we gazed into each other's eyes (as you do when you are not married), he said to me with such sincerity, 'When we have children I really want you to be a stay-at-home-mother, I think it's important. But I don't want you to stay at home all the time because that wouldn't be any good for your brain and you don't want to become one of those mothers who can only talk about your children, so I think working part-time would be good. Though I am not sure how promising your career is, so maybe you should also do a little bit more study - maybe your Masters, so you can keep your options open. But I would still want you to pick the children up from school and take them to rugby and ballet or whatever because I think extracurricular activities are important and you should be involved in the school so you know what is happening. I would also hope I could ring you in the afternoon and if there was a visiting colleague I could bring him home for a nice home-cooked meal. Oh, and you would definitely need to keep up with sport or exercise because you would want to look good.'

As a 25-year-old independent and somewhat feminist woman, I was disgusted at what he was suggesting. 'When would I sleep?' I asked incredulously. He scoffed at this and told me it would all be about 'time management'. We broke up about 4 days later.

In 2007 I ran into this guy at a conference. One always wants to present one's self in the best possible light when one runs into an ex-boyfriend. When he asked me what I was doing with myself, I was so smug in telling him my latest achievements: 'I have two lovely boys, I work 20 hours a week, I am doing my Masters, I do tuckshop and reading and am on the P & F committee at school. The children do sport and swimming and this weekend I am doing the swimming leg of a triathlon.' I felt quite triumphant as I walked away that I had showed him what he had missed out on. Then suddenly I felt quite sick and very tired. How the hell had I got here? Why at 25 years of age, when he had suggested a life like this for me, had I been so insulted and appalled but as a 35-year-old woman I had quite unintentionally created this life for myself? It got me thinking. Why are women so critical of themselves and eager to keep achieving in every avenue when our husbands are often quite content to relax in front of the TV after work? Are mothers in the 21st century better or worse off than mothers of other generations?

When we compare ourselves to mothers of previous generations shouldn't we be 'grateful'? On the whole, few of us have experienced the hardship and heartache of war or the Depression. Women then had fewer choices; there was an expectation you would marry and have a child regardless of your true feelings or desires. Women often had to stay in violent relationships and unhappy marriages because there was no welfare system to support them otherwise. However there were many pros to mothering back then. Previous generations of mothers got to live in real communities, where they knew their neighbours. Children had friends next door and across the road. There was an expectation that children would amuse themselves and they did! If I want my children to play with friends, then I have to get in the car and drive them somewhere because all the children in our street are either at school or in child care. Homes back then were smaller and easier to clean. Most mothers had no car so there was no pressure to drive all over town for extracurricular activities and no rush to be dressed in time for school drop-off because children simply walked to school. I look at my own mother even. No matter how tight money might have been there was NEVER an expectation or pressure that she would work.

Today's mothers are pressured by economics, societal expectations, the media and the general populace into untold commandments:

• Thou shalt be a dedicated and wonderful mother and wife
• Thou shalt have a paid job
• Thou shalt engage in intellectual activities eg study, reading etc
• Thou shalt be a sex goddess
• Thou shalt be a consummate entertainer
• Thou shalt cook delicious food in a voluptuous outfit and lick whipped cream regularly from thy finger (aka Nigella Lawson)
• Thou shalt be THIN!

Is this the 'blessing' of feminism????

The bottom line for women today is whatever we choose to do, someone will criticise us for it - with the worst and biggest critics usually being ourselves. Mothers and Careers: Are mothers who work 'bad' mothers? Many of us (myself included) have re-entered the workforce not so we can spend a fortune at a day spa or take overseas holidays but simply to make ends meet. Despite women choosing or being forced, due to economics or expectations, back into the workforce when they have young children, research has demonstrated that this has not equated to less responsibility in the house or less responsibility for the children (Coltrane, 2000). (I know many working mothers who continue to ache for their children all day at work, who come home and then give 150% to their children, and on top of that try not to have any 'life' outside the children on the weekends because of their guilt and concern). Many working mothers are selfless and giving mothers. Sometimes I wonder if once again the person who suffers the most when women work is not the children but the woman herself?

Mothers and Body Image: Women are either too fat or too thin. It recently occurred to me that 'fat' is the last prejudice frontier. Thankfully it is no longer accepted in most parts of the community to be prejudiced against someone due to their race or religion but people are still quite comfortable to comment on a woman's weight, even if she has just had a baby! Women can be particularly scathing of other women's weight. As a population, mothers with young children have one of the lowest rates of physical activity (Lewis & Ridge, 2004). If someone goes to the gym or runs regularly she is clearly a selfish mother who puts her own needs before those of her children. If a mother has gained a few kilos or is overweight she is obviously a lazy pig who eats too much. There is simply no way to win!

Mothers and Sexuality: Motherhood changes your view of yourself, your body and its function. For those of us who have breastfed long-term until our babies are indeed children, it is interesting to note that we are the only women who do so who are expected to remain sexually active. Most other communities who engage in long-term breastfeeding live in polygamous societies where the man would have more than one wife. (Al Fadel Saleh et al, 1995). Integrating sexuality with motherhood is hard. When you become a mother your primary role is to mother and nurture your child. Mothering is a 24-hour responsibility, you can and will be called upon any time of the day or night, making it hard to switch off to this role and slip into the role of sexual partner. Undeniably sex is important in any relationship. However it is very difficult for men to understand how anyone could be simply 'too tired' to have sex. I am yet to meet a man who has ever been too tired for sex! Mothers, especially breastfeeding mothers can also simply feel 'too touched out' at the end of the day to want to have sex. After carrying, cuddling, holding little hands and having a beautiful baby suck at your breast for 16 hours of the day, when your child finally goes to sleep at night (probably only for 90 minutes until the next feed) the last thing you may want is having someone else want a piece of you!

Motherhood and Pressure: ever been completely exhausted and at the end of a very long day, turned around at 10.35pm and started to make 30 individual patty cakes with Ninja Turtles painted on each and every one them just to demonstrate to others what a fantabulous mum you are??? The pressure to always be presented as amazing never stops for modern day mothers. Whether the pressure is a construction of society or is simply driven by ourselves, it is unrelenting!

Mothers today often go to bed highlighting the failures of the day rather than the achievements and that is a tragedy!

It is so easy for women to focus on the negatives and assume some other woman is doing it better and easier. Yet if we look at women in Hollywood, while they may always look better than us in bikinis, they are often yearning for what many of us take for granted - a partner who is not drug-addicted, unfaithful or absent, healthy children and the ability to 'duck' to the shops in daggy clothes, hair in a piggy tail and no makeup. Women all too often fail to celebrate the glorious-ness of just being a woman! Yes we do get stuck with menstrual cycles that almost turn us into psycho-killers but then we get the utter joy of carrying our children. As women we need to try not to fall into the trap of believing the myth that all women are 'bitchy' and 'mean'. In the darkest most awful moments of my life it has always been a woman who has 'come to my emotional rescue'. Women can do more than two things at once. It's why a girlfriend who is in the middle of cooking dinner, hanging out washing and caring for a baby can still take our call and give us tender loving care. For the 'lucky' ones it will still be our mothers we ring for 'Help!' and they respond. Don't believe the media hype. Our greatest assets are not our sexual chests or the size of our bum. It's us women! I always tell expectant mothers the thing they will need the most after birthing their baby will be a female friend. It's one of the reasons I love and support ABA. It's one of the few places that still fosters and nurtures mothers however they decide to feed their child. So the next time you are tempted to stay up late, don the wonder woman bum shorts and achieve something 'amazing', stop and think … am I being gentle and kind to myself? Is this what my girlfriend would recommend I do with this time? If its not, grab a coffee and a biscuit and take time out to explore all the wondrous things you have ALREADY done that day and reward yourself with time with you - because you are already a Wonder Woman!

Take the Wonder Woman Quiz to discover if you too are a Wonder Woman Mother!

Apply Red Boots if:

a) You have ever carried a child in your womb

b) You have ever given birth - by whatever means, they both hurt and take courage

c) You have ever had a menstrual cycle and still managed to work and do everything else that was expected of you

d) You have been sick in a household of sick people but like Lazarus have risen to become the sole carer or 'Florence Nightingale' of the house.

 

Apply Red and Gold Sequined Top if:

a) You have ever breastfed

b) You have been getting up to children more than once a night for more than 12 months and still haven't killed anyone

c) You can talk on the phone whilst cooking dinner and supervising homework and have a child on your breast and/or on your hip or both!

d) You have ever fed more than one child at once!

 

Add Blue Bum Shorts with Stars if you

a) Cook, Bake, Sew

b) Do craft

c) Complete tasks

d) Have a budget

e) Volunteer

f) Can make your own playdough

g) Wash, Fold, Iron

h) Clean

i) Are responsible for taking photos, keeping memories, archiving for your family

j) Remember people's birthdays, send Christmas cards

k) Return emails.

 

Add Gold Bangles if

a) Your day regularly starts before 6 am and you have never been arrested

b) Your family need the assistance of 3 or more people in your absence to coordinate what you normally achieve on a regular day

c) You have ever offered food, love and concern despite being busy yourself to someone who was in need

d) You have exercised since having children

e) You have NOT exercised since you have had children.

 

Add Gold Headband with the Red Star if:

a) You work outside the home and have to juggle and balance your life away

b) You are home full-time with children.

 

REMEMBER LADIES BOTH OPTIONS ARE SO HARD!

 

Add a Lasso if:

a) You also are on the P & F or any other committee beside your commitments to ABA

b) You do tuckshop or reading or something else for your children

c) You have a child with special needs

d) You care for someone else in your family or community

e) You have ever put any one's needs before your own

God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers. --Jewish Proverb

A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary. --Dorothy Canfield Fisher

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his. - Oscar Wilde (1856 - 1900

Housework is what a woman does that nobody notices unless she hasn't done it. - Evan Esar

Bibliography