Rather than valorize and make exclamations of wonderment about the super-human strength of mothers, to commemorate this year’s Mother’s Day, I would like this blog post to recognize the wonderful vulnerabilities and sheer humanity represented through the experience of motherhood. Behind every mother is an individual with ambitions, dreams, desires, interests, hopes, and visions for the future. And behind every mother is an individual who experiences and feels joy, sadness, fear, calm, certainty, ambivalence, disinterest, and curiosity.
Mothers are fundamentally flawed and awe-inspiring, just as any individual would be who takes on the responsibility, burden, and joy of intensely managing something on a day-to-day, second-by-second basis. To be a mother is to understand the impossibility of the perfectionist expectation society places on us, and the de-humanized gloss of rhetorical embellishment assigned to us. When that embellished and overwrought sheen is not achieved (as it would not be possible to achieve), mothers inevitably feel the sting of shame for not having accomplished the impossible.
Add to the impossible expectation of the perfect mother, the individual who aspires to build an identity for herself beyond the already all-consuming role of the mother must confront ceaseless bias and disappointment from a world that views motherhood as a role that should be, in its essence, a means to an end. It is an end-all achievement for which mothers must devote themselves beyond the 100% relentlessly expected of them.
And nothing is more indicative of a working (“working” meaning performing paid work) mother’s exhaustion than the studies that capture the state of burnout in working parents. Burnout - or a “prolonged response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors on the job” (source) - is a cause of an increase in “physical, psychological and occupational” issues such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, physical pain, depression, insomnia, and job dissatisfaction (source). It is the sinkhole in the self-system that gets progressively and exponentially worse if left unrecognized and unmanaged.
Burnout was and has been disproportionally experienced by working mothers (source & source) throughout the pandemic and continues to wreak havoc on their lives. Burnout has pushed working mothers out of the workforce (source) and has been a critical contributor to the “great resignation” currently disrupting employers (source).
Companies that consciously act to thwart employee resignations due to overwhelming childcare and home responsibilities are 5.5 times more financially successful both indirectly and directly from the retention and acquisition of talent in their firms (source). These companies are more likely to retain their talent pool and significantly inspire and motivate employees to produce greater, more innovative output.
And what about the unpaid work? The unpaid work that is massively unrecognized and shamefully undervalued? It's the work of maintaining and cleaning homes, organizing food, scheduling and attending appointments, and managing the impossible social expectations that mothers find themselves constantly unable to achieve. The unpaid work that women perform accounts for at least $10.9 trillion, or between 10% and 39% of global GDP (source & source).
And the paid work? Mothers face motherhood penalties in the form of stagnated or lowered wages and reduced career opportunities (source). Motherhood does not have to be a means to an end for women. Still, it becomes as much when the line between career goals and parenthood is pushed to such extreme ends that the decision not to pursue career goals is no longer a choice but a decision forced upon mothers.
In Mothers, Jacqueline Rose adeptly describes motherhood as “the place in our culture where we lodge, or rather bury, the reality of our own conflicts, of what it means to be fully human” (p. 1). Motherhood does not need to be valorized any more than it already has been; in fact, that valorization burnishes motherhood to the extent that its reality is no longer apparent. On this Mother’s Day, I recognize the agonizing and brilliant challenge that is motherhood and caring for children. I recognize the fundamental humanity that makes it one of the most meaningful and grueling roles that an individual takes up within their lifetimes.
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