Musings of a Midwife: Dissatisfaction with Motherhood—A Hidden Taboo
For this month’s article, midwife Emma McNerlin takes a frank look at an often experienced but unspoken truth: that motherhood is not what many of us are led to believe, and often not as much fun as we had hoped.
By Emma McNerlin
Motherhood is often seen as a natural progression in a woman’s life; the next step on the journey of career, partnering, then parenthood. It’s presented as something innate, the main thing we as women are put on this earth to do, and we’re conditioned to accept this throughout our lives. Happily, now families aren’t so narrowly defined, with traditional gendered roles being challenged. No matter how you find your path to motherhood, much of what is experienced in those early weeks and months is the same. I would argue that it’s steeped in patriarchy, and it’s time to challenge it.
On entering the term ‘maternal dissatisfaction’ into Google, I was alarmed to find that the first two pages of results were all articles and research pieces on a mother’s dissatisfaction with her postnatal body. Really? Mothers are being reduced to just the vessels that grew, birthed, and are now nurturing their babies. I found this discovery sad but not surprising. Reflecting on my own early postnatal experience, I recall how, as a new mother, I felt totally inadequate and invisible to the world; no longer Emma, now my child’s mum.
Digging into the research, some small qualitative studies involving both pre- and postpartum women explore how the reality of early parenting did not match their preconceptions of what they felt it should be (Miller, 2007; Cronin-Fisher, 2019; Göbel, 2020). These studies, though distinct, had several common themes in the experience reported by the research participants, who were all new mothers. These themes reflect deeply held beliefs and common experiences that go some way to explaining the dissatisfaction and negative emotions they felt in the early weeks and months of parenting.
Across all the research, some women had planned their pregnancies and some hadn’t. Irrespective of this, all of them expressed the desire to be a ‘good mother’. When exploring this construct, being a ‘good mother’ was defined as putting the baby’s needs before her own. Women referred to constant sacrifices and often burying the taboo thoughts of quitting, the horrific pain and feeling inadequate, overwhelmed, and bored by the repetition of the tasks involved in taking care of a newborn. Continuing to breastfeed through bleeding nipples and with the vague promise from the women that came before you that ‘it will get better, and it is best for baby’ is just one example of the frustration of it all. I remember journaling in the postpartum as a pressure release. I kept an ‘I love you but…’ list. It helped me to express all the hard thoughts I was having about mothering my son, and seeing them in black and white gave me some power over my negative thoughts. My sister, who had three kids before me, was amazing. She looked at my list and changed just one word, ultimately changing my whole perspective. She changed it to ‘I love you and’. I love you and this is hard; I love you and it's really boring a lot of the time. I love you and I miss my old life. My negativity was not because of my son; he was not to blame. The way I loved him—and how much—was constant, and I was meeting his needs. I was just trapped in a mindset of wanting to be seen to be a perfect mother, without any clue how to be one. The relief I felt at that realization was immense, and it normalized it all for me.
That brings me to the second theme of postpartum dissatisfaction, so listen up (especially partners!). Motherhood is a learned experience. I repeat: motherhood is a learned experience. Women do not upgrade to Mother 2.0 when they have a child. We know no more than a new father. Rather than a natural expression ingrained in our biology, motherhood is a culmination of experience acquired over time. Hormones and evolutionary biology can’t get you there alone, especially now when most women birth without the proverbial ‘village’. Again reflecting on my own experience, my partner seemed to think I knew what to do with our crying newborn. I was as clueless as him! This was brand new territory for both of us. Prior to this, we had only shared responsibility for a yucca plant, and that didn’t end well! His assumption that I should know made me feel I was even worse as a mother. It wasn’t (all) his fault; he was raised and conditioned to believe that mothers have some higher frequency for babies. So for those of you who are expectant or new to parenthood, talk frankly about your expectations of each other in parenting, preferably before you find yourself in the new parent trenches. Make a plan for who will do what in the postpartum.
The third theme in the research is that motherhood does not feel natural to all women, and many expect that it will. It can be hard to express that you are struggling with your new identity, new life, and yes, okay—maybe your body, too. The women in the studies reported finding it hard to be real with their friends about how difficult it was, and how resentful they felt that their life had changed completely compared to their partner’s. Women have been conditioned to accept this as their lot: the baby comes first, mother comes last (Miller, 2007).
The respondents in the Cronin-Fisher (2019) study also defined motherhood as a job, which was not a belief that they held prenatally. Many believed that staying at home with a small baby meant they would have time for themselves. But in reality, they found that day to day, they worked constantly. The demands of a small baby were more than just full time; they were constant and relentless. They also felt that this work was sometimes recognized by society but not valued, again feeding into the patriarchal narrative that this is a mother’s lot in life. I don’t have an answer to this one; the whole system is broken. Mothers are expected to snap back to life as it was before—work and all—within 90 days of having a baby and balance the competing demands of work, being a mother, a partner, and a friend. We are being set up to fail. The quantifiable ways in which a baby changed my life compared to that of my partner were striking. From my perspective, his life carried on the same. He might have a different opinion, but we never talked about it at the time. The motherload is real, and yet many of us assume it as ours alone because we are what the baby needs. If we want to retain some semblance of our own identity and career from before, well, then just get on with it.
It’s time to start a conversation that normalizes these feelings that so many new mums experience. An old Irish midwife mentor of mine hypothesized that a fair proportion of postnatal depression diagnoses were actually postnatal realization of just how hard new mothers have it day to day. In truth, nothing could have prepared me for the first few months as a mother, but I benefitted greatly from the support of my sister and some close friends, and maybe that’s what it takes: a little bit more vulnerability and honesty from all of us on what it’s really like in the early months. It does improve with time as we develop our knowledge and confidence, get to know our babies, and become familiar with this new world. Miller reported that all the respondents in her study felt confident and expert in parenting their child by the time the baby turned nine months, when they found their groove and things got a bit more predictable. Probably with a bit more sleep and also a bit of acceptance of their new normal.
Much remains to be done to prepare families for what lies beyond the labour and birth wall. If you are struggling in the postpartum, help is available. The Bumps and Babies team can provide an empathetic ear and signpost you to support services and opportunities to meet other new mums, where you will learn that we are all just winging it, and that is ok.
Photos from Canva.
References
Göbel et al. (2020) Becoming a Mother: Predicting early dissatisfaction with motherhood at 3 weeks postpartum. Midwifery 2020, 91: 102824. Available online at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32861871/
Miller T (2007) Is this what motherhood is all about? Weaving Experiences and Discourse through Transition to First-Time Motherhood. Gender and Society Journal, 21(3):337-358. Available online at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249667911_Is_This_What_Motherhood_is_All_AboutWeaving_Experiences_and_Discourse_through_Transition_to_First-Time_Motherhood
Cronin-Fisher, V. & Sahlstein Parcell, E. (2019) Making Sense of Dissatisfaction during the Transition to Motherhood through Relational Dialectics Theory, Journal of Family Communication, 19:2, 157-170. Available online at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15267431.2019.1590364?journalCode=hjfc20
About the Author
Emma McNerlin is a UK trained and registered Midwife, First Aid Instructor and owner of Bumpsy Daisy Café and Community; a cafe and parenting community centre for new and expecting parents offering birthing classes, hypnobirthing, First Aid workshops and baby classes.
The views expressed in the articles in this magazine are not necessarily those of BAMBI committee members and we assume no responsibility for them or their effects. BAMBI welcomes volunteer contributors to our magazine. Please contact editor@bambiweb.org.