when mother is not "mothering": the devaluation of motherhood

Educational, thank you :ddd

I dont think motherhood is devalued due to patriarchy. I come from a very traditional patriarchal country and mothers are reverred, venerated and highly supported in my culture. You get a lot of help from your family and village at large and a lot of grace from them. Your parents and grandparents go to great lengths teaching you how to take care of your child as it's not automatically assumed that you know how to do it.
I think this is more the result of being highly materialistic. Unfortunately, unpaid or voluntary work is not valued at all. Women in liberal western countries tend to be valued only based upon how attractive they are so there's heavy pressure to "bounce back". There's an expectation for women to immediately work before they've even recovered and there's an expectation of them to do everything on their own before they even recover from birth.

Western society doesn’t value being a parent. Like, especially look at father.

As someone who actually stepped away from a very promising (but somewhat personally unfulfilling) career at a major tech company to raise my child, thank you so much for this video. For me, the change from being somewhat lauded as a successful woman engineer to the intense scrutiny of motherhood was pretty jarring.

One thing that I dont think you touched on, is that when sharing motherhood online, it can be almost impossible to share those difficulties without 'feminist' childfree people chiming in with unhelpful and incompassionate comments like 'this was my reminder to take my bc pill'. I understand, from the perspective of the commenter, it can seem funny because they are bragging about avoiding these troubles. But from the perspective of the person who is posting, you're effectively insulting them and their child. Think of a grad student sharing online about how living on such a small stipend is hard, and commenters jumping on to say "SO glad I didnt go to grad school. Miss me with that struggle." Its tactless, and not remotely as clever or funny as the commenter thinks it is (because its really just public shaming).

Or, how any discussion about how children are actually allowed in public spaces will inevitably devolve into a shaming of bad children with bad mothers. Discourse becomes impossible because the opposition relies on total purity of the offending group (moms + kids) to even allow for discussion. Discourse around motherhood is only considered acceptable if endless disclaimers and concessions are made for those who choose not to have children.

It is not eugenics to say bad, uneducated, destructive, abusive people shouldn't be parents. Stop using words you clearly don't know

Disagree with the intro. The slang term mother is rooted in black and Latino queer scene and is more aligned with found family and celebrating cultural mentorship than the literal role of the maternal figure you’re implying.

This video has really validated how i feel about pregnancy cause i have told almost everyone in my life how i feel of it but i've been dismissed about how i dont want to be pregnant for so many reasons but they always tell me that its a beautiful experience and i wouldn't regret it things like that but i dont really think that way (idk how to describe it but yea)

I just call myself and my husband “parents” and don’t use the M*** and F*** words and me and my husband are partially equal parents!

As for me, one way to look at motherhood is just unconditional and immeasurable love to her unborn child. I mean just imagine knowing that various things are going to be very challenging physically and mentally, and yet being courageous enough to take such hug decision shows how loving a woman be. Ofcourse there are some mothers who can't experience it and need alternative method like surrogacy; but still those decisions of having surrogate mother requires a very high emotional strength from Both partners. And as for me as a male, i see pregnency as incredibly admirable and loving act of a mother towards her unborn. ❤

Disclaimer: Please don't judge my family harshly. My mother was trying her best.

So my parents became parents later at life, they were both 44 when they had me and my twin sister. They blankly didn't have the patience and mental/bodily endurance to raise two children. They were exhausted by life, work, but were ready to settle down and become parents after having been together for 18 years. They only wanted 1 child, but we turned out to be twins. They felt blessed that my mother got pregnant naturally with twins. For the 18 years she's been with my father - 12 married - she's always done the majority of the domestic labour, the cooking and even picked out his clothes for him. The moment we were born everything changed for my mother. She suddenly had to take care of 3 people at the ripe age of 44, and if it wasn't for her parents, especially my maternal grandmother obviously, she wouldn't know what to do with work. As we grew older and started kindergarten and then elementary school, my mother had to do all the domestic labour, raise us, pack our lunches, choose our outfits and know when our clothes didn't fit us anymore and help with
our homework on top of working a 9-5 everyday. My father didn't contribute anything other than working, fixing stuff around the house and picking us up from school. As my mother became 50+ she didn't have the energy to take care of everything so she gave her all towards our education and her work and left the house unattended, thinking that she would figure it out. The laundry started pilling up, the house was untidy and my father wouldn't lift his little finger not even to throw out the garbage being perfectly aware that my mother was exhausted and anxious taking care of her kids, husband, house and elderly parents who lived 4 hours away by car. So the house became a mess. It still is 15 years later. We learnt to live like that. My friends of 15 years have never been over (just to clarify, the house isn't dirty, just very clattered and messy). Me and my sister are guilty of never doing our fair share due to school work and now college. When I was younger, I blamed ny mother for the way we lived having been taught that it was her responsibility and she let her family down watching my father belittle her and curse at her every chance he got for being a terrible wife and homemaker, never admitting that it's also his fault that we never got out of this situation cause my mother cleaned the whole house on her own countless of times over the years, but always became uninhabitable after a while due to the fact that me and my sister were never taught how to clean and put our stuff away and my father thought it's not his responsibility to clean. He even makes comments about how me and my sister ended up just like our mother, being 21 year old women who can't cook nor clean and that we shouldn't bother to get married cause we're unfit to become wives and mothers. My father even shames my mother for letting herself go, she gained lots of pounds and suffers from hair loss due to anxiety, because she wanted to make everyone happy. She internalised that everything was her fault so she focused on her children's education and her career to not be more of a failure in my father's eyes - our education was also her responsibility🤦🏻‍♀️. My father hit me and my sister, turns out he never had the mental capacity to deal with children so my mother also had to keep him calm and satisfied with our good grades. As I grew older and wiser, I became very argumentative and hateful towards my father, I realised that my father played a huge part in my anxiety, procrastination and hatred towards men, even my bf, who also thinks that housework is the wife's duty. I admit I've become a misandrist due to my father being a terrible husband, and I frankly don't think I can get over it. It's my way of protecting myself. Please don't trust your husbands blindly.

I just wanted to vent. Thank you to everyone reading. If you think that I'm at fault for not participating in the housework after becoming older, you're absolutely right and I plan on getting better at that.

🎉🎉🎉thank you for all your work

Very insightful and thoughtful videos

WE MISS U

Tokyo story is a sad film while it isn't about this type of subject it touches on how the nuclear family is destroying soceity and especially the elderly

DOWN WITH ENGLAND!!!

Agreed, career path is a journey. Parenthood is an odyssey. 2 completely different trips lol

Women ....you cant have your cake and eat it too. Mom or successful cat ladie. * dosnt do house work.* who works all day. ...pays for the detergent, food, clothes.....some of yall need to make up yalls minds take the wife/ class, us men do...its called life...and life plays for keeps. Be good in your role so can manage everything better and maybe have time for a hobbie. Or dont have children and live your life the best you can. Plus mf isnt a baby forever, yall lack discipline. Soooooo bad yeah right yall be gasing this shit sometimes. Push the start button on the washing machine. Single fathers are screaming " AM I JOKE TO YOU?!" 😂 with tht divorce rate and the fact tht women usually want divorce...and most of yall aren't getting cheated on or getting your ass beat. Just didnt think tht far ahead and gave under the weight of life because your a mom now and will be held accountable and for alot of ladies is the first time they actually have to pull their weight. And and its a child, gon be here for lil min. Yall lack discipline. Remember the one lady that spent a day as man...killed herself. And all yall have to do is think before you open your legs....maybe listen to father...wanna be wife mom. Mirror your mother if your parents are still together...if not do the opposite. No take backs.

True true true but every kid deserves parents not all parents deserve kids loke there is grey area like how yes not all women are born motherly and these days their not taught, or have no reason to. The divorce rate, birth rate , no affordable housing etc. Moms arnt moms they chasing the bag and the child is the ball n chain. Dose not deserve children.

I think that by also encouraging and sort of forcing the idea of having children onto women when you are young extra undermines the work it takes, not admiring how much it takes to be a mother. People don't accept me saying I don't want kids because I don't think I could mentally handle it even though it's a nice idea. Motherhood sounds so difficult to me that I've been saying since I was like 12 I don't want children, it might change but my stance on how difficult it is won't.

I thought I hated kids in public but then I realized it’s just white kids. White kids are insanely bad and disruptive because the parents feel entitled to everything, who cares if their kids are bothering everyone. They’re “kids”. And yet POC children are typically so well behaved, well mannered, and very attached to their parents in public. No wondering.

no sabes cómo te banco china, malllll, aprendo inglés contigo

Girl knocking scared the shit out of me stop 😭😭😭 good video btw

MILFs

I'm enjoying the video I just want to say that all people in the western world are racialized. Even "white" is a ln arbitrary category based on phenotype that stands to uphold racism.

So what you're telling me is childcare is a subscription (even though i created the child) of $1000 a month?

love my mom shes the best mom

pretty cool

If you are making "content" about being a mother, you are not raising your child right.

Ur so tufff

As the eldest daughter of 4 in a Nigerian, Christian, and conservative household where women do most of the house work and men don't, the videos I see online that glamorize motherhood to an unrealistic degree really piss me off. I myself have never been a mother but I've been cooking for my family since I was 13, changing diapers since I was 10, doing laundry for myself and others since 5th grade, helping my mom plan meals, reminding her of me and my sibling's school events so she doesn't forget, makeing lists of all the groceries or toiletries we need to buy, etc. There's so much more to motherhood than Nara Smith or other rich, privileged women show online and I hate how the internet always has something to say about how women are raising their kids. Not to mention the number of people who just don't know how much it costs to feed, cloth, and house children.

My mom has also gone to school and worked the whole time she's had me and my siblings. Sometimes she gets tired and makes a "lazy" meal or doesn't leave the house spotless and I'd hate to see people online criticize her for it when they simply don't know the amount of physical, mental, and emotional labor that goes into being a mother in today's society.

I just hope more people educate themselves before speaking on matters they are not familiar with.

that book sounds so good.
also bring back "what i eat in a week" that video is cozy af

Nice

Motherhood is sacred.

Nobody is criticizing mother for being "sexy" they're getting criticized for acting like an onlyfans user, you said reproduction required "nakedness" but you also forgot that theres "time and place" for everything

I find it sad you have this view point and a lot of people agree. I’ll be praying for yall

Completely off topic but your clothes are SOO COOL. Again sorry. Sounds like i didnt hear anything you talked about... Dont ask me though, cause then ill forget ✌️

I feel like it should be pretty evident that "being a good mother" per a lot of traditional SAHM standards is really "be astounding at the following occupations: accountant, clerk/receptionist, housekeeper, chef / nutritionist, child psychologist / general emotional therapist, nurse (in U.S. due to medical costs), event planner, interior designer, personal coach, (probs like a couple more I cannot think of)" AND have both unyielding compassion / empathy for everyone around her (except if they are a danger to her kids; not her, only if threat to her kids, then the expectance of the most rage) with next to no faults.

it's easy, goddamn I wish i could do that, so easy GEEZE

my daughter is only 12 days old today and i thought i did everything i could to prepare for her during my pregnancy.. nothing could have prepared me for the first week with her and even now it's getting easier but it is not easy! i have so much more respect for my mom and all the moms before me.

Hi

misandry girl lmao

"those assigned female at birth"

get rid of this nonsense, its absolutely disrespectful and degrading to women. this isn't a fantasy land

oh my fucking god girl you have so much knowledge to share and it makes me so excited to see people like you spreading awareness!!

This is why I was happy the military allowed fathers lots of time off, they get to see what goes on.

HELL YEAH DONT STEP IN MY KITCHEN. Its baileys and muscle milk breakfasts yuh hearrrrrr.

Nah, you tell a mom that she could’ve done something “meaninful” with her life instead and what you’re gonna get is a flip flop or a croc to the head. Moms today don’t have time for your bullshit.

Hearing mothers describing their struggles as someone who's been neglected by their mothers hits different... Like, sure, how hard it must have been. Now imagine how hard it must be for a child to feel like a burden?

I think your argument against the hate for the donut mum was one sided. Pls incorporate nuance! While I do get that being a mother is expensive but feeding your children healthy food is of that expensive. The food she feeds her kids isn’t really that cheap.. the money she puts into groceries can be put into healthier food.