Intense mothers
Mom guilt and the double-bind of mothering and working under capitalist patriarchy.
A quick note: I use the term “mom guilt” throughout this letter, with the US-English spelling, because that is the most common term for this phenomenon and, frankly, I want as many eyeballs as I can get on this essay. I could just as easily use “mum guilt,” or “the internalised shame felt by mothers as a result of operating under a capitalist patriarchy that sets impossible standards for both mothering and earning money, whilst destroying the support systems we would need to be able to live up to those standards — and expecting us to do it all with a smile,” but that last one is a bit of a mouthful.
Hello!
This essay is, as usual, coming to you somewhat later than planned.
I first had the idea in the sticky heat of mid-August, and here I am, wrapped in a cardigan, burning a candle, looking out at the late-September rain, and getting ready to hit ‘send.’
I hope this month has been good to you.
I recently posed a question about mom guilt on my Instagram story: “Does this ever go away? Or will I always feel guilt tugging at my sleeve when I choose work, or self-care, or literally anything other than parenting?”
On that particular Monday, I had worked my 9-5 job while my daughter was with my mum (who she loves!) and then had to leave her with my husband (who she also loves!) to go and finish up some freelance work in a local cafe.
I used to detest the phrase mom guilt. “Just call it guilt!” I thought. But, like so many other things since becoming a parent, my opinion on this has shifted. Mom Guilt is a very specific phenomenon.
Google searches for “mom guilt” have seen a steady rise in the past five years, and a quick Instagram search for the hashtag #MomGuilt brings up 229k posts.
Research has shown that guilt is: “One of the emotional responses most prominently described” in studies around social norms of motherhood from the past two decades. Feeling guilt and shame around the way we mother has become completely normalised.
In fact, a survey carried out by Maltesers (of all people) claims that 79% of UK mums feel guilty about not spending enough time with their children, and 56% also feel guilty about not working enough. It’s a tale as old as time: We’re expected to work like we don’t have children and parent like we don’t have a job.
There’s a reason “dad guilt” isn’t a familiar phrase. Women, no matter how much success or satisfaction we find in our careers, are expected to put it aside (or at least to want to put it aside) to prioritise childrearing and homemaking when we have babies and young kids.
And yet, we’re also expected to work outside the home, and to contribute equally, or near equally, to household finances. In 2022 just under three-quarters (73%) of mothers with children aged 0 to 14 were in (paid) work in the UK.
Logic would dictate then, that fathers are now contributing equally, or near equally, to domestic and care work.
Bullsh*t.
The division of household and caring labour continues to be gendered – even when both parents work outside the home.
But the concept — and very real feelings — of mom guilt also exist without the lens of paid work and career.
I’m sure you’ve seen the aphorism floating around Instagram: something to the effect of “only good moms care enough to feel guilty,” and, while I reject the continued normalisation of Mom Guilt, perhaps there is a grain of truth in there.
Mothers have, of course, always been held to impossibly high standards — and we continue to be punished socially if we appear to deviate from those standards: shunned by our peers, or subjected to variations on: “I could never [leave my job and rely on my husband financially], [leave my kids with a stranger all day], [feel fulfilled staying at home with the kids all day]”.
“Bad mother” is largely accepted as amongst the harshest of insults, not least, in part, because we fear it to be true, and we fear that in mothering badly we are doing real lasting damage to our children.
I’m not talking here about neglect, abuse, or abandonment — that’s an essay for another day — but about sometimes feeding your kids fast food, or sitting them in front of the TV for a few minutes peace, or responding to an email real quick when you’re supposed to be playing with them, or leaving them with another caregiver so you can go get your hair done.
Imagine fathers receiving anything worse than a shrug (but more likely praise) for doing any of the above?
And these perceived judgments now extend far beyond where they used to.
Social media allows the “perfect mother” to leave the local park, the school gates and the family gatherings, and follow us home, always waiting in our back pockets to show us how much better she is doing motherhood.
Research published just this year confirms that “the “perfect” mom archetype… is still interfering with and influencing real-life mothers and their mothering actions.”
Today’s “perfect motherhood” — according to Instagram, at least — is wrapped up in the concept of Intensive Mothering: a phrase which, I think, gets to the heart of the matter.
Intensive Mothering is: “a cultural model of appropriate childrearing according to which mothers should unselfishly make a tremendous investment in their child.”
This is not a parenting style, like gentle parenting, attachment parenting, or responsive parenting (which implies the buy-in and involvement of a co-parent), but a way of mothering. A role to be fulfilled (not a style to ascribe to) by the mother (not the parental unit).
Intensive mothering pushes for a complete and selfless investment by mothers in their children. It dictates that mothers should care for the home and the family, always putting others’ needs before her own, and that — if she really must work for money — she does it in a way that doesn’t interfere with her constant presence and attention to her children.
It’s the dissonance between those expectations of The Mother as entirely selfless and always nurturing; the need for mothers to be economically active; and the reality of being an actual human with desires, ambitions (and a sense of self) outside of motherhood that sparks feelings of shame.
This pressure to live up to an impossible-to-attain standard is, of course, another invitation for guilt to creep in around the edges of your parenting, waiting in the shadows under the bed to sneak out and catch you being ‘not good enough.’
There is, of course, another story wrapped up inside the notion of intensive motherhood.
The idea that engaging in the always-present mode of Intensive Motherhood is, in some way, a returning, a moving back to a time when mothers stayed home and raised the children while fathers went out and did the ‘real work’ of earning money, is a myth.
Except for the wealthiest households, women and mothers have always engaged in paid work alongside our mothering. Whether that was performing domestic duties for another household (taking in laundry, for example), or working outside the home while their village helped raise the children.
The key differences today? First women and mothers have more choice and agency over our careers than ever before. I have mum friends who are barristers, doctors, professors. And, because we’re also having children later than ever before, we’re more likely to be established in our careers — and in our selves — than the mothers of just a few decades ago.
The expectation that we drop all that, hollow ourselves out to become a vessel for our children, is absurd.
At the same time, the ‘village’ it takes to raise a child has dissipated. People are more likely to leave their hometown: the built-in village of grandmothers and aunts is no longer on our doorstep. Even if they are on our doorstep, those grandmothers and aunts are also more likely to have careers and lives of their own and to be less available to help with childcare than in the past.
We’re now under pressure to both perform intensive motherhood and make a substantial income outside the home — and to do both cheerfully and quietly.
Make no mistake, mom guilt — whilst predominently packaged and sold by other mothers online — is a construction of the patriarchal-capitalist society we live in.
Mothers and fathers are expected to work near-equally, with 76% of mothers and 92% of fathers in paid employment (a difference of just 16%) — even though mothers experience an average 60% drop in earnings compared to fathers. At the same time, employed mothers do an average of 62% more housework and 13% more childcare than employed fathers. Men are the ones benefiting from the unpaid labour of their wives and partners.
Mom guilt then, is designed to curtail our ambitions. We should earn our own money, but not too much. We should work outside the home, but never be far from our children. We should be parent perfectly, but not lose ourselves in parenthood.
This double-bind of mothering under a patriarchal capitalism is what we need to work on.
Mothers don’t need a mindset-shift or an attitude-adjustment to combat mom guilt: We need real, societal change. We need flexible jobs, normalised for everyone, so that we can mother as intensely as we want without incurring penalties in the workplace. We need fathers to step up and partake equally in childcare and domestic work, so that we can do the paid work we need and want to do alongside parenting. We need both quality, affordable childcare and remuneration for parents who don't use childcare, so that we can make a real choice about how we spend our time when our children are small.
Then, maybe, we can talk about dismantling our own feelings of mom guilt.