The Glorification of Motherhood
fighting against maternal exceptionalism
I will get to the asinine tweet above in a bit.
In the meantime, I’m going to unpack what is at the root of this very small-minded statement. The belief that having children is the most important work you can do. That anything else is small potatoes, a wasted life; what on earth will be your legacy?
I’ve been thinking lately about the glorification of motherhood in our culture. The messaging we receive that spins it as the holiest, most selfless, most essential work. And while to mother means to propagate our species, and prevent our extinction, I think we all can agree that we are far from an endangered species. In fact, we are the very ones endangering ourselves.
So if the act of not procreating might be the most selfless act, why do we still hold up mothering as the ultimate achievement, the pinnacle of adulthood, when in fact, to become a mother often puts your adult self on hold? In hibernation for eighteen years while someone other than yourself requires so much of your attention?
I know that is not completely true, that motherhood is like a mountain you climb and the way up requires much of you, while on the way down, as your child is establishing their independence and trying to escape from your grasp, you have huge swaths of time that are yours alone.
But the question remains: why do we venerate mothers? Why do we still think maternity is the essence of femininity? When in fact, childbirth was a curse put on Eve, not her birthright and destiny?
I hate to bring it all back to Judeo/Christian stories, but when so much stems from these narratives that still dwell in the ethos of our culture, we must interrogate them and see how they are still impacting our belief systems even if we have moved past their specific theology.
Let’s take a moment to consider Mary, Mother of Jesus. In many ways, she is presented as the ultimate mother, as she is the holy mother, the blessed virgin, the one who birthed the savior of us all (if you subscribe to such ideology. I no longer do).
But there are some pretty significant issues when Mary becomes the model of motherhood.
When the ultimate mother figure is Mary, we feel called to worship our children.
When the ultimate mother figure is Mary, we feel divorced from our sexual selves once we become mothers.
When the ultimate mother figure is Mary, we feel defined by who our children become.
When the ultimate mother figure is Mary, motherhood becomes not a choice but something we submit to, succumbing to the will of others.
Meanwhile, Joseph, even God, is largely absent in these stories, too busy to get his hands dirty in the mess of parenting.
“I decide to make my class read creation myths. The idea is to go back to the beginning. In some, God is portrayed as a father, in others, as a mother. When God is a father, he is said to be elsewhere. When God is a mother, she is said to be everywhere.” —Jenny Offill, The Dept. of Speculation
From the Bible, we learn that fathers are removed, they can’t be bothered, they have more important work to do. While mothers are sold the tune that this is the most holy work they could be doing. To choose anything other against our very nature.
This is a fallacy. There are so many ways to be a woman without being a mother.
But the scripts are strong and difficult to resist.
I stumbled upon the book Someone Other Than a Mother via my Instagram feed. Of course I would find this title compelling and I was even more intrigued when I found out the author, Erin S. Lane, graduated from Davidson College (where my twin sister attended) and married someone my sister had known while she was there.
Once I received my copy of her book, I found that she was as delightful on the page as she was in her relatable Instagram reels.
Lane is not a biological mother by choice, but ended up fostering and then adopting three children in her thirties. She is, therefore, in the unique position to interrogate the scripts we are given about motherhood, and unpacks 9 of them in the book.
She talks about the stark contrast in how she was treated when she was childfree vs. once she got with the program and started mothering. “Childfree, my life garnered the blank stare. Mothering, I got the gold star.”
She calls this “maternal exceptionalism,” the belief that moms are more valuable than non-moms. The book examines how frustrating it can be when people assume they know what is best for your life. From “but you’d make a great mom,” to “it’ll be different with your own,” to “you’ll regret not having kids,” these statements are belittling. “‘You’ll change your mind’ is both a paternalistic pat on the back and a warning to nonconforming women; fall into line or face the threat of regret,” she writes.
“The woman who doesn’t have a child is looked at with the same aversion and reproach as a grown man who doesn’t have a job. Like she has something to apologize for. Like she’s not entitled to pride.” - Sheila Heti, Motherhood
The final script Lane unpacks in the book is to me, the most insidious and destructive. “You don’t know love until you become a mother.” This sentiment pops up everywhere, from parenting books to celebrity profiles (this one, of Mandy Moore in Parents Magazine, is titled: “Life Is Technicolor Now.” In it, Moore muses: “I had no idea that this degree of love existed in the world.”) And while yes, the surge of hormones that comes post-childbirth and the wonder that comes from seeing something you made in your body is astonishing, to rank that love as somehow greater than others is not just presumptive but insulting. Do we convince ourselves that this is true to get through the agony of those early sleep-deprived days? Because without this lie, we’d wonder what exactly we’d signed up for?
When we spin lies like this, the childfree feel pressured to submit to the script; they don’t want to miss out. But how much do we miss out on when sequestered at home, trapped by nap schedules and bedtimes, starved for pockets of time for ourselves instead of the wide, expansive hours of the childfree? Who exactly is missing out?
During the pandemic, Oprah released an interview with Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle. There were many bombshells in the episode, insinuations of racism and lack of support from the palace. But hidden within their explosive interview, was something Meghan said about becoming a mom.
She said: “I’ve been a waitress, an actress, a princess, a Duchess. I’ve always still just been Meghan, right? So, for me, I’m clear on who I am, independent of all that stuff. And the most important title I will ever have is “Mom.”
This ubiquitous sentiment has been echoed by women who, by our standards, hold a lot of power. Ivanka Trump, Michelle Obama, even Kamala Harris has said that the title that means the most to her, despite being the Vice President of the United States, is “Momala.”
The statement seems innocuous, at first; obvious, maybe even virtuous. Of course, motherhood would be your most important job. But if our most important role is mother, then we feel called to sacrifice other identities, other roles, other jobs to keep motherhood primary. If anything competes with keeping motherhood at the center, then we feel like something is wrong, and we must make adjustments.
But we, as women, are so many things. Students, teachers, lovers, rebels, friends, sisters, wives, CEOs. Why should one identity be so much more important than the others?
This is the glorification of motherhood. This is motherhood exceptionalism. This is veneration of a role in service to a society that wants that role to define us, because it serves the current patriarchal structures.
“A woman must have children because she must be occupied. When I think of all the people who want to forbid abortions, it seems it can only mean one thing – not that they want this new person in the world, but that they want that woman to be doing the work of child-rearing more than they want her to be doing anything else. There is something threatening about a woman who is not occupied with children. There is something at-loose-ends feeling about such a woman. What is she going to do instead? What sort of trouble will she make?” - Sheila Heti, Motherhood
When we as a society insist on keeping motherhood as the nucleus of what it means to be a woman, then women who cannot conceive feel like less of a woman. Women who do not want to be become mothers feel “defective,” as Lane writes, “like they were missing some important factory setting.” Mothers who want to continue to have careers feel like they can only do so if it does not interfere too much with what their families need from them.
Sometimes I wonder if we have learned to valorize our mothering because it is one way we are arguably superior to our male counterparts, able to bring life into the world (while their contribution sometimes seems ancillary). But our worth is not in our wombs. To shun our fecundity does not equal a rejection of our femininity.
“…they told me: I needed children. It was important. I suspect it had less to do with my best interests and more to do with the fact that I made them nervous walking through the world unencumbered. I was setting a bad example.” - Ann Patchett, “There Are No Children Here,” These Precious Days
So let’s return to that troubling Tweet that opened this newsletter. There are clearly still people who believe that the only thing worth doing in life is procreating. Like everyone must get bored at some point pursuing something just for ourselves. He followed the above Tweet with this:
Cold and lonely without marriage and fertility? Like romantic and familial relationships are the only relationships that last? That assumption is false. Marriages end, families get estranged, or even if you aren’t estranged, are your family members always at the top of your list of who you’d like to spend time with?
Much of Lane’s book is an encouragement for us to move past considering the heteronormative nuclear family as the ultimate family structure. An exploration of “how we find community when we find ourselves outside of convention.” A revelation of how relationships outside of those that are biologically familial can often be longer lasting and more supportive than those granted by birth. “Friendships have a bigger impact on health and well-being than family, “ Lane writes. “Odd then that so much energy is still put on pouring into our familial legacy when the effects of friendship…may be not only more rewarding but more enduring.”
Just a few years ago, I wasn’t even familiar with the word heteronormative. And if I sound like a hippy, liberal Californian, guess what? I am. But I think we have begun to see that the limiting boxes of our past no longer need to guide our futures. There are stages that we must evolve beyond; heteronormativity, gender binaries, and yes, the glorification of motherhood.
FURTHER READING:
The Female Assumption: A Mother’s Story: Freeing Women from the View that Motherhood is a Mandate. Melanie Holmes.
Why Women Can’t Be Negative, Amanda Montei, Mad Moms.
The Abortion I Didn’t Have. Merritt Tierce, The New York Times Magazine.
Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed. 16 Writers on the Choice Not to Have Children. Meghan Daum (editor).
Wow. Wow. Wow. What thoroughly important threads you are weaving together here, my favorite line being, "Why should one identity be so much more important than the others?" High-five for blowing minds.
I love all of this article. I could quote all of it, but I’ll just do this part: “This is the glorification of motherhood. This is motherhood exceptionalism. This is veneration of a role in service to a society that wants that role to define us, because it serves the current patriarchal structures.” YES 👏