Mother’s Day, Motherhood & the Strength of Women.

Artwork: ‘Mother and Child at Breaking Point’ (1970), Maureen Scott

For a while now I thought I knew what I wanted to write about this Mother’s Day. I wanted to write about how it can actually be a painful day for some. Myself included. I have my own reasons for Mother’s Day being bittersweet which I’ll touch upon at some point. However, I spent weeks thinking about this topic and writing drafts in my head about children who deserved better. I then went on a tangent and started reading a book called ‘Women without kids’ which made me feel incredibly seen and validated as a woman that doesn’t want children. I then thought that this post might be about that - sure that I wanted to defend women who were choosing a different path and celebrating their freedom. But, I just got back from a dinner with two of my best friends and my resolve to defend my independence has completely disappeared. Instead, I feel viscerally wounded by the personal experiences of my two friends - both in different places to me, but both on their journey to motherhood. And I feel compelled to write instead about the immense power of womanhood. Of how incredible all women are, mothers or not. 

The three of us used to work together and formed a bond that you really only can form with people that you work with. You see each other all day every day (pre-pandemic) and your boundaries disappear and you find yourself telling each other things that you normally wouldn’t share with other people. We worked at a company where (almost) every hire was a fantastic hire, so the mutual respect that we have for each other was the catalyst to our deep and lasting friendship. 

Three women, all in our thirties, topping and bottoming both ends of that age range and all at very different places personally and professionally. Myself, a single thirty year old, running two businesses and 99% certain that children aren’t in my future. Another, married in her late thirties and about a month away from giving birth to her first child, after miscarrying during her first pregnancy. And our other friend in her mid thirties, in a loving relationship and trying to conceive.

My first instinct was to write ‘trying, but failing to conceive’. But somehow the word ‘failing’ felt incredibly harsh and personal. As though there is a lack of effort and prep work, like sitting an exam. That terminology is so unhelpful and so stigmatising. Framing the effort that two people are spending on bringing new life into the world and describing it as falling short of what is needed. This kind of unhelpful language and thinking has deep roots, caused by hundreds, if not thousands of years of pronatalism. Pronatalism is the ideology that says ‘parents are more important than non-parents, and that families are more respectable and more valid than single people.’

You’ve felt the impact of this right? One of the cornerstones of heteropatriarchy, pronatalism insists that the reason we are here is to couple up and procreate. Pronatalism is what makes women feel like they’ve ‘failed’ when they can't get pregnant. It’s what turns up the volume on our biological clocks; what gives people permission to nose around into our private business and what gives politicians a say about what women do with their wombs. Countries around the world are legislating away women’s choice and access to an abortion, and even in some instances access to life saving medical care if it harms an unborn infant. These countries often also lack appropriate policies to actually help mothers with generous maternity leave and affordable childcare. Encouraging women to fall pregnant and then leaving them without the support that they need. I came across one campaigner in this space a few years ago (whilst I was still considering having children) whose instagram handle is ‘Pregnant then screwed’ - which aptly describes the situation for millions of women. Only now is the UK Parliament considering decriminalising abortion after the historic 24 week cut off point, which last year saw 100 women investigated and three women sent to prison.  

Wind Painting Simone Ensslin

Back to my friends. My pregnant friend who has only a few weeks left before she gives birth is telling us about the pain she has constantly in her back and groyne, and the osteopathy she has to get in order to ease her aches. Telling us how when the pain gets bad she starts to really fear childbirth, her thoughts often spiralling into worst case scenarios. She talks about how she and her husband have been sleeping in separate beds for most of her pregnancy because she’s so hot and uncomfortable without lots of space, and how she can’t remember the last time that they had sex. She is a very open and blunt woman who has never held back in sharing - often making me laugh with how bluntly she can deliver quite challenging feelings, making it feel somehow comical. That’s her personality too though, to find humour and the positives when life isn’t going smoothly. 

She has been through a lot, and she’s always managed to find the positives. But this charm was no use to her when she sadly miscarried in her first pregnancy. I physically saw her shapeshift into a woman that I didn’t recognise. She only told me of her pregnancy after she had miscarried, but something in me already knew what she was going to tell me that day. I could see it all over her. Even in pictures of her that I had seen on instagram from that time. And I could see the grief that she was holding for this baby that had been unexpected and a shock, but wanted and loved. 

The three of us came together a few months later in a group setting for a barbecue. On the surface she seemed fine and to be having fun, until a couple of hours later we were being called into the bathroom to look after her as she was sobbing and hurling into the toilet bowl. Unable to hold back the tears and the grief for her unborn baby. Only able to release the emotions that had been locked away for months while in the safety of our sisterhood. We all held each other and cried. Taken aback by the raw sadness and deep longing that was hanging in the air, written across all of our faces and felt in our core, as women. 

Fast forward about nine months and here we are, she’s full of joy that this pregnancy has been healthy and happy, if sometimes a little uncomfortable. She reminisces about how much of a release her breakdown at the barbecue had been. How she’d felt that if she hadn't released that emotion with us that she’s not sure that she would have been able to grieve properly before falling pregnant again. 

This conversation leads us to my other friend and how she’s feeling. Her and I had plans to meet last week which we cancelled because she had been feeling so blue that she had gotten her period that morning. Telling us this evening that on that morning last week she had been sitting on the overground on her way into work, all perfectly dressed up but with silent tears rolling down her cheeks. Having to put on a brave face for all of the client meetings she had that day. She’s been trying for 9 months and whilst she didn’t take the first 6 months as any kind of warning sign, she was starting to feel overwhelmed and anxious with each new cycle. Wanting to become pregnant so much and being hyper aware of her friends who got pregnant and got pregnant easily fueling the feelings of failure as though something was wrong with her, and slowly starting to feel misunderstood as her partner struggles to sympathise fully. 

She described that she and her partner have sex every two days, but that most of the fun has gone out of it, something I’m sure that many couples trying for a baby can relate to. Telling us of a mental block that seems to have taken hold of her that strangles her of orgasms and ease. (I can relate to the mental orgasm block - something I experienced for a few months after the breakdown of my last relationship. Only learning to reclaim my orgasms after reading ‘Come as you are’ and listening to the podcast ‘Come curious’. Maybe a topic for another post.)

As we sit listening to her pain and the feelings of pressure and frustration, we’re all holding hands again across the table in an effort to be close and comforting, with vegan Vietnamese dishes cluttering the space between us. I had this tightness in my chest, a pit in my stomach, and tears threatening to leave my eyes as my heart bled for her. 

The feelings that both of my friends are experiencing are feelings that for the last few years I have steeled myself away from. Pretty sure that I don’t want children and unable to relate to the day-to-day longing to conceive, I was shocked by how immediately I had felt and shared in their grief. Sometimes in moments like this, I wonder if I’ve already been through this in a past life? (Stick with me..) How else do you explain that I understand their pain so acutely? Or perhaps it’s an innate understanding that all women have for each other. Even if our life experiences are different, we’re somehow able to connect with and feel each other’s pain and happiness... But, what I’m really struck by, is the beauty and strength of women, of sisterhood. 

'A Love That Never Tires. Part 3: Friendship' Painting Ella Jackson

These stories are just two stories of women’s experiences with motherhood. But I know of plenty more that cover a broad spectrum of happiness, difficulty, paperwork and loss. I know a same sex female couple that are trying to get IVF through the NHS, but running up against difficulties such as the requirement that couples ‘have not conceived after two years of regular unprotected intercourse or 12 cycles of artificial insemination’ before being eligible for IVF. Read: you must have been having male <> female intercourse, and be failing to conceive. How can same sex couples fulfil this requirement? They can’t. Making IVF near impossible for millions of couples. Outdated policy and legislation, still failing women across the UK. 

I know another couple that will only be able to conceive if she starts IVF because she has a condition (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome - which is quite common) that means she doesn’t release eggs each month, which means it’s impossible for her to get pregnant without administering hormones that force her ovaries to release eggs. When she decides to starts the process to motherhood, it will be a medical process that throws her hormones off and removes some of the romance, intimacy and spontaneity that other couples might benefit from. Not to mention a general uncertainty around fertility and her future that weighs on her and them until they begin this process.

Another good friend of mine sold her eggs during the pandemic to pay off her credit card debt while she was between jobs (N.B. She lives in the US where this is legal. In the UK you can be compensated up to £750 per donation to cover your costs and treatment). A woman who is unsure whether she wants kids at all, but has checked the box allowing any children that might come from her donation to come and find her once they turn 18, believing that everyone deserves to know where they come from.

I myself had an abortion when I was a teenager. Unlucky and silly (read: vulnerable) enough to get myself into a situation that struck fear deep into my soul. Not least because I was far too young to become a mother, but also the fear of everyone I knew finding out. So much shame surrounded my pregnancy that I’ve taken meticulous care since to always be on birth control and flood my body with hormones that can prevent it from happening again. So aware that I wasn’t ready. Somewhat aware that I may never be. For years after I would mark the day by counting the age my child would have been, tormenting myself about the morality of it - even though I knew and still know it was 100% the right decision for me.

I’m also close with a woman who has a 14 year old daughter and a one year old daughter from two different fathers. Her new husband would like her to have his second child, her third. She was 38 at the time of her second pregnancy and has struggled for the last year with her weight, confidence and the injuries sustained during her last labour. Her husband would like her to have another child despite these facts and the fact that she would like to have a career of her own. I highlighted to them both that she already will have been nurturing an infant to adulthood for 32 years, which was something neither of them had considered. Saying it out loud and acknowledging the sacrifice of motherhood for a moment stunned the room.

sisterhood Painting. Stephanie Brunton

I’m struck by all of these stories (and others - there are too many to write about here) and the amount that women have to deal with and overcome, whether they choose motherhood or not. Many who want children may also never be mothers for many reasons (health, financial, not finding the right co-parent, political), and dealing with that disappointment is a loss made more difficult with pronatalist policies and agendas plus the hyper visibility of other people’s lives through social media - creating often toxic comparisons. 

I wanted to write about how Mother’s day is a difficult day for some, and I thought that this was through the lens of those of us that didn’t get the mothers that we deserved, or for others who might have lost mothers. Or even for mothers who have lost a child. But I see now that motherhood is such a binary term that doesn’t properly capture billions of women on the journey to and through motherhood. And yes, while Mother’s day is there to celebrate the incredible women who raised us, perhaps it should also include the incredible women who have an unseen burden, but yearn to be mothers. Mothers at heart, mothers to be. 

In the UK the government recently voted on giving the option to women who have miscarried to register for a Baby Loss Certificate. The voluntary scheme is designed to formally recognise the devastating loss of a baby during pregnancy. It recognises that much more can be done to ensure each grieving parent receives excellent care and compassionate support. I think this is an amazing first step in recognising the often silent and overlooked suffering that parents go through after miscarrying. There needs to be more awareness, especially in the everyday workplace about the importance of recognising loss, in all of its forms. 

Mother’s Day is rightly here to give credit to the women who have loved, raised and sacrificed for their children. But I’d like to recognise all women on this day, because whether you’re a mother or not, I guarantee (if you were born female) you have felt the pressure to become one at some point or another. Whether that be through harmless games as a child where we nurture toy dolls, or whether it be through legislators taking away your right to an abortion. If only motherhood was as simple as a woman making a choice over her life and body. Instead, a woman’s right to choose is perhaps the most straightforward of the boxes to tick on the path to motherhood. Choosing to have a child may not guarantee a family. And having a family may not be as easy as pronatalist agendas might lead you to believe. Alternative routes to parenthood (IVF, adoption, surrogacy etc) have increasingly difficult barriers to entry. And dare we say it, there are some women who regret becoming mothers. Stigma towards these women, career women with children and women who choose not to become mothers is rife.

Pronatalist agendas would paint the career women that struggle with the idea of leaving their professions for motherhood, or women who choose a career over motherhood as ‘selfish’ and insinuate she should be grateful for being a mother over everything else. Why? In the 1970s a new term was coined after the then-editor of Cosmopolitan magazine, Helen Gurley Brown, published her 1982 classic Having It All: Love, Success, Sex, Money, Even if You’re Starting with Nothing. From this point onwards, her title became something of a feminist rallying cry: men had always had it all, now women could have it all too. The irony being that Brown was a woman without kids. Despite being credited with seeding the idea that women could and should pursue fulfilling careers and financial freedom while also raising kids, children are mentioned just six times in her 492-page book. Reading between the lines you can read the implication that men have been able to pursue freely precisely because they are not saddled with the responsibility of childcare. 

But, this was never going to fly in the 1980s. With the patriarchy reeling from the feminist advances of the 1970s, newly minted ‘career women’ were painted as heartless, ball-breaking automatons. That, or dangerously deranged. Suggesting that women could succeed in their careers and still be selfless and nurturing softened the blow to the gendered status quo. The legacy of this has been the impression that pursuing either one of these life paths to the detriment of the other will never be enough. Being a stay-at-home mother may be seen as ‘playing small’, but there’s always been a sense that a woman is somehow completed by her children. For a woman who chooses her career over children, not only is she missing out - something fundamental is missing from her life. Of course, neither scenario is necessarily true. Fulfilment comes in many forms, and what makes life meaningful to one individual will be unique to them. 

And then there’s the fact that very few mortals possess the superpowers (read: time, energy, money and other resources) necessary to keep all of the plates spinning all the time. Meanwhile, attempting to do it all often leaves women feeling as if they’ve failed at both motherhood and in their careers. That they’re failing, period. Telling women that they should have it all no longer feels feminist, it feels sadistic. Especially when the gender pay gap is actually revealed to be the motherhood pay gap. Married mothers and single mothers earn 75 cents and 54 cents respectively on the married male dollar; for women without kids, it's 96 cents. And the mothers are the ones with the extra mouths to feed. The COVID-19 pandemic only drove this home, when closures of schools and childcare facilities forced women to drop out of the labour force like flies. 

These women deserve more credit and more support than one day a year. Visibility of these issues and a willingness to create community to support each other, and policies providing more support to mothers is what is needed. My childhood neighbour, Millie Walton, recently launched an evolving research project called Babe Station exploring the relationship between making art and motherhood. Millie initiated the project after the birth of her son Arlo and it aims to build a community that supports and promotes the creative practices of any person who identifies as a mother or has experienced child loss through discussions, workshops, exhibitions and publications. 

I also recently read an article about therapy groups being set up in the UK to support those who choose to be voluntarily childless, or ‘child-free’, due to the levels of discrimination, pressure and stigma that they face. Ensuring that all women have a space to feel supported and encouraged, whatever their choice and whatever their journey to motherhood may be. 

Motherhood is a complex topic, and I have in no way covered all of the nuance and breadth of experience in this short post. But the point of this post is to encourage more women to share their experiences - even if only with friends. Awareness of the joys and the struggles of motherhood are what the next generation of women deserve. Honest and open conversation deepens friendships, and I am grateful to the women in my life who open up and share with me, and that have allowed me to share their experiences here with you. I encourage all of you to make an effort to understand where your own individual opinion and experience meets deep-rooted pronatalist thinking and to be more compassionate to women everywhere. 

To all of the strong women in my life, you amaze me. And thank you to the women who chose to let me include their stories ❣️

Written by Monica Innes, Co-Founder of Re Cabins - Tues 5th March 2024 - with excerpts taken from Women with out kids by Ruby Warrington