The Women Who Hate Motherhood

When ambivalence tips over.

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I often wonder: what makes some women hate motherhood?

What was once a liberating and subversive notion 50 years ago--to state publicly that motherhood wasn’t the pinnacle of the female experience and that women could find just as much, if not more, fulfillment outside the home -- has now become a depressing trope that pits mothers against their young children.  

It’s a theme I see pop up over and over again on my Insta feed and in pop culture in general.  Mothers reciting the same complaints like a catechism: 

It’s the monotony.

It’s the way you do everything and seemingly nothing at all

It’s the  way you spend all day cleaning only to look at your living room at the end of the day and see it’s still a disaster zone.

It’s the lack of support.  

It’s not speaking to another adult human for hours and hours a day.

It’s the way no one seems to appreciate you.

You are grateful but you’re tired.

You’re deliriously happy but you’re also depressed. 

It’s the best thing you’ve ever done and also the hardest and most gut wrenching. 

When a show, or book, or content-creator depicts a woman who is fulfilled with ‘just being a mom’ it’s considered corny, old fashioned, and even ‘right-wing’.