It's 2019 but why do I feel like our idea of parenthood is stuck in the primitive age?
I grew up seeing my mother make things happen, fix things in our home, and accomplish things both with grace and without. During times when she struggled, my heart ached for her but she would always refuse to ask for anybody's help. Growing up, I chose to focus on my memories of her where she was always graceful and happy. However, becoming a mother myself, I couldn't help but realize that my mom's struggles (up to the really bitter and painful ones) are as true as her grace. Now I feel like the world is expecting me to be all graceful in this parenthood journey, and I am not okay with it. I, too, struggle—a lot. But I feel like saying it is a shot into the void.
It takes a village.
You know this saying. It says it takes a community to raise a human being. However, the idea of a "village" goes beyond raising children. Parents, mothers and fathers alike, need more than themselves to raise kids and sustain a healthy and non-dysfunctional family. However, I've always heard mothers say it sometimes feels lonely, and I've never fully understood this until now. I can only speak of mothers as I am not sure whether the experience is the same with dads. But this sense of loneliness comes from the fact that we, mothers (especially first-time-moms), come to a point where everything becomes too heavy to carry but we couldn't turn to anyone because nobody's there. It's not saying people are just literally turning their backs on us, but the people who are supposed to be there aren't always there when we're struggling. Not to sound like an entitled millenial mom here—OMG I do sound like an entitled millenial—but are we not supposed to struggle? And when we do, what happens to our kids, our home, our careers, ourselves?
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Our roles as mothers have evolved.
I'll try to tell a little bit of history here kids, listen up. Back in the day, when the world was still completely patriarchal and women were not allowed to study and be as successful in the workforce as their male counterparts, they were left with no choice but to stay at home, raise the children, and be home-makers while the fathers earn a living to sustain their families. Fast forward to this day in the 21st century, gender stereotypes have gradually been abolished and women now get to enjoy the same opportunities as men. As a result, a lot of us young mothers are now seen thriving in the workplace with equally successful careers and earning just as much as what our husbands make - sometimes, even more. Here's the catch. While we've evened out the playing field in terms of career success and earning capability, the responsibility as the default parent and primary home-maker never changed. Just like our husbands, here we are working our asses off to be successful in our industries to provide for our families, while also carrying this obligation to raise the children and keep the house together—all clearly rooting from a gender stereotype that's so primitive. What changed is that from not having options, we now have many and some of us clearly chose to have a family and work at the same time. Staying at home and raising children as the default parent is also a choice and we should all be respectful of our decisions. But with mothers choosing to be successful outside of the house, how does that change the family dynamic? How does that alter our idea of a "village"?
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Our struggles are anchored on biology.
In the end, it all boils down to our biology. We struggle because we're the ones who have to carry the children in our wombs for 9 months, to go through that excruciating labor to deliver them out in the world, and to lose sleep and precious me-time just so we can exclusively breastfeed—all while figuring out how to return to work after 2 months post-partum with a painful CS wound, how to continue to exclusively breastfeed while working, and how the hell to go to work every morning as your clingy baby cries his heart out for you to not walk out the door. Do you see men have the same struggles? No? Of course you don't! Our difficulties may have been clearly anchored on the fact that we bear our children and we feed them milk directly from our breasts but our continued struggle doesn't have to be. We are contributing to the household sustenance as much as our husbands do - sometimes, even more - but why do we have to carry these difficulties on our own? Are we supposed to cry out for help every time we feel like things get too heavy for us to bear? Or is it even right to expect a little bit of sensitivity and consideration so that maybe our dynamics in the home will shift in a way where it will be easier for us to be mothers and successful career-women at the same time?
I've always wanted to be a mother, so I was always adamant about whether or not to have kids—because I feel like I was born to be a mom. However, I've also always wanted to have a successful career for myself. I've always envisioned myself as someone succeeding in an industry and as someone able to somehow make a name for herself. I guess the question here is whether that's even possible. To me, in a time like today, it is. But it takes more than determined women to be good mothers and successful career women at the same time. It takes more than grit and talent to go out there and prove the world that we can make it happen. It takes more than being in love to stay in a marriage that will stand the test of time and will be a good example for the kids. It actually takes a damn village—because we fall too. We struggle to be this person that our family needs us to be in a time where one parent's income is barely sufficient, and that's just reality—our struggle is real. Please don't close your eyes on us just how I shut my eyes on the truth of my own mother's struggles in the attempt of preserving my ideal of motherhood to be always graceful. I still think it's a long shot to level the delegation of the "invisible work" and "mental load" of motherhood, as well as to correct the way the society presses ridiculous expectations on modern mothers. But I just think it's worth putting this stuff out there. Because in the absence of a real "village", we all need to be a little kinder to mothers who need it most.
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