In the
past two years, I’ve lost count of the number of mothers
with whom I have spoken who don’t feel good enough.
I have from time to time counted myself one of their number.
Recently I’ve begun to ask myself why this is and
whether a) many of us are not good enough and, if so, how
we should pull up our socks, or b) many women who are actually
perfectly competent continue to feel inadequate. Perhaps
I should be honest and admit I gave little credence or consideration
to the former hypothesis.
I realise
that the NCT is aimed equally at fathers and mothers, and
I apologise for éxcluding fathers from the remit
of this inquiry but I don’t feel equipped to comment
on their experiences. I have not witnessed the same sense
of inadequacy amongst fathers. Perhaps they find it harder
to talk about their insecurities or perhaps they simply
find it hard to talk to me, a woman, about them.
Women,
it seems to me, are constantly being told that they are
not good enough, that they ought not to be trusted to run
their own lives, let alone take responsibility for other
people. Women do the bulk of caring work, but are not considered
capable for making informed judgements about how to do that.
The British government has mooted introducing performance
tests for toddlers (presumably to ensure their mothers are
doing an adequate job) and profiling the unborn for potential
criminality (no doubt to better monitor selected mothers
to make sure they compensate for bad genes with an extraordinary
display of parenting prowess). This list of things that
mothers must and must not do; the list of ways that mothers
(and it is always mothers) can entrench lifelong misery
in their kids; the list of ways that mothers fail to meet
their families’ basic needs grows every day. It starts
in pregnancy with the “if you sniff that soft cheese,
it means you are not fit to be a mother.” It continues
with dubious studies into the impact of formal childcare
on toddlers, presented in screaming headlines as either
“Childcare Makes Your Kids Aggressive” or “Childcare
Makes Your Kids Articulate.” (Both headlines, incidentally,
are deeply misleading given the results of the study.) In
the US they even managed to make an issue out of mothers
of toddlers sharing a glass of wine when they met for play-dates.
There is no reasonable presentation of the best scientific
and sociological research to enable women to make their
own informed decisions.
In my
short experience as a parent, I have been sorry to witness
many women succumbing to fabricated divisions. Breastfeeding,
alcohol (any) during pregnancy or breastfeeding, working
for pay, telly for toddlers, designer prams, even SUVs!
Why are these matters so divisive? Why do many mothers find
it so easy to judge other mothers? When did motherhood become
a contest? And is this a contest that anyone can ever win?
And am I partaking now, by implicitly judging one group
and saying “they are wrong to judge”?
2000
years ago, Roman writer Seneca asked: “cui prodest?”
(“who benefits?”). For sure, it is neither mothers
nor children. The media creates and fuels these artificial
divisions with images of perfect mothers – stay-at-home
mums are faced with Hollywood and TV portrayals of work-for-pay
do-it-all supermums; mums working for pay face ideals of
the perfect self-sacrificing Freudian mother and housewife,
taking all her joy from the service of other people. In
either case, they are always thin, beautifully clad and
perfectly made up (with a little help from Photoshop). Divisions
attract readers and viewers; they sell advertising space.
Pointing out what mothers have in common is never front-page
news.
There
is an African expression “holding up half the sky.”
That is what women do, day in, day out, and it is enough.
We cook, feed, wash, launder, tidy, clean, budget, shop,
carry, pack, unpack, make travel plans, engage in military
operations to get our kids from A to B in one piece at the
right time accompanied with all necessary luggage. We get
underpaid in the workplace and unrecognised for our labour
at home. Most of all, we love our children beyond measure
and each of us would lay down our life in an instant for
our babies. I think it’s time to focus on these things
we have in common, recognise our shared challenges and shared
achievements and judge each other – but most of all
judge ourselves – a little less harshly.
Look
at it another way: can you imagine anyone in the World who
could do a better job of loving and raising your kids?
