Motherhood changed me

And why 'mothering out loud' is an essential part of my feminism.

I’ve written before about the cultural reluctance for women to lean into our identity as mothers.

We play down our motherhood at work and in other social settings where our children aren’t present, for fear of being seen as less-than. Less committed, less interesting, less ambitious than other people.

“Motherhood is boring,” we think.

There’s even a word for it: mumsy. A bit dull, a bit old-fashioned, a bit twee.

So we stop mentioning our young children. We wear clothes that hide our slack, stretched bellies. We hold adult conversations whilst also thinking about what to make for dinner, who is doing nursery pick-up, whether we have enough milk. We try to embody “out of sight, out of mind.”

And on some level I get it.

For many of us, the time before we had children represents a type of freedom that would feel good to return to: one where we don’t have to think three steps ahead, where we only have to regulate our own emotions, where our kitchen floor stays clean, where five hours’ sleep is a ‘bad night’, where we don’t need to sing “head, shoulders, knees, and toes” every time we use a public bathroom (iykyk).

I don’t yearn for my life the way it was before I had my daughter, but I miss it the way you might miss the first chapter of a really good book.

It was gripping the first time around, and it laid the necessary groundwork for the rest of the story, but part of the joy of briefly revisiting that first chapter is anticipation for the delicious complexity of what’s to come.

(Have I laboured this metaphor enough now?)

I am so grateful I got to experience a life and a career and an identity before I had my daughter, but it's not a time that I want to go back to.

The life I have now is beautiful. Even the crumbs on the floor, even the sleepless nights, even the stretch marks, even the repetitive singing. I have a full, rich life and identity, and motherhood is woven into the fabric of it.

The neverending logistics of domestic and caregiving labour are a central theme of early motherhood, and pretending otherwise does myself — and other mothers — a disservice.

Brushing our motherhood aside in public perpetuates the harmful myth that we should be able to parent like we don’t have to work and work like we don’t have to parent.

It’s harmful to parents (and particularly to mothers who — whether we are the primary caregiver or not — are assumed to be less ambitious when we have children, while the opposite is assumed of fathers).

It's also harmful to not-yet parents, never-will-be parents and don’t-want-to-be parents. Whether you personally like/want/have children or not, parenting is essential on a macro-level: the continued functioning of society relies in part on someone birthing and raising new people.

Mothering is work. It is hard, important, unremunerated work, and keeping that work invisible is part of how it remains so undervalued.

Mothering out loud is a small act of resistance.

“I am mothering and I am here,” I want to say, “doesn’t that show you how committed, how ambitious, how multifaceted I am?”

Motherhood has changed me. It has written permanent changes onto my body, onto my psyche, and into the structure of my life.

When I became a mother, it was like I stepped into myself.

I was always here, but I’ve embodied my personality more comfortably alongside my daughter.