San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)

Motherhood myths make moms miserable

- By Anna Nordberg

In “Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustaina­bility of American Motherhood,” Jessica Grose combines a journalist’s perspectiv­e with ferocious personal candor to lay bare the subject of motherhood in America. Grose, a New York Times opinion writer who focuses on parenting, interviewe­d over a hundred mothers during the pandemic — all while slogging through lockdown with her own two young daughters — so if this book feels like it’s sounding the alarm on the state of American motherhood, well, that’s because it is.

Part of the reason American mothers are struggling is obvious — the cultural and economic forces that flooded the workplace with profession­al women in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s were not accompanie­d by a basic safety net that prioritize­d child care or paid leave. But the even greater challenge may be our cultural notions about motherhood, which Grose skewers while also acknowledg­ing their devastatin­g impact.

The contradict­ion embedded in the DNA of American motherhood, Grose argues, is that women internaliz­e the message that raising children should be perpetuall­y joyful, representi­ng one’s highest purpose, and that this state of nirvana should be achieved without help, meaning that if something goes wrong, it’s your fault.

Raising children is joyful. It’s also incredibly hard. And while mothers in the U.S. are not a monolith, a persistent sense of maternal guilt is the consistent element in Grose’s interviews. On a personal level, Grose describes how during her first pregnancy, she “failed

at ideal motherhood before I even had a child,” because she suffered from crippling prenatal depression and had to quit her dream job. It’s bracing to see her write so honestly about her decision to go back on antidepres­sants during pregnancy, and to stop nursing after two weeks because she realized her mental health as a mother was more important to her baby’s well-being than following rigid parenting norms. She’s also candid about the anguish that accompanie­s these decisions, and how hard it is to push back on the oftenabsur­d expectatio­ns we have for mothers.

The notion of mothers needing to be the “perfect vessel” for their children has been around since the dawn of our republic and was supercharg­ed in the early to mid-1900s, when the scientific community believed that “hysteria” during

pregnancy caused children’s health problems. While we’ve moved away, in theory, from this Freudian framework, it’s amazing how much it still resonates, bringing home the point that while a lot has changed for mothers, a lot hasn’t.

One of the book’s most fascinatin­g passages relates the experience of Eliza, a mother in the 1800s, who writes to her mother about her postpartum agony — she’s up all night trying to nurse the baby with what is most likely the breast tissue infection mastitis, and then her older children wake her at dawn, all while her husband wants her to focus more on him. Update the language, and it could be any mother

SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE: THE UNSUSTAINA­BILITY OF AMERICAN MOTHERHOOD (Mariner Books; 240 pages; $28.99) during the pandemic screaming into the dark on a message board.

The picture the book paints of American motherhood stands in stark contrast to the gauzy, Instagram world of parenting bliss, which Grose argues is also making us miserable. While the original online parenting forums were raw and confession­al, the moment advertiser­s realized there was money to be made in the “momternet,” the product they wanted to sell was breezy mom perfection. But outside of a small number of momfluence­rs, women are not benefiting from this economic boom. They’re just feeling bad about themselves because they’re not prancing around in a peasant blouse and perfect hair while their kids frolic alongside them.

The fact that this perfection­ist ideal of motherhood makes money while the actual labor of raising children and caregiving is invisible in the U.S. is perhaps the best example of how we value and devalue mothers in America. But COVID has at least sparked a reckoning about the importance of caregiving, with more support for policies like paid leave and child care.

We need structural change to support families, and on this point, the book pivots to familiar territory, calling on mothers to advocate for change. But it’s always mothers who are asked to do the work — the very same people who may be most strapped for time, financiall­y strained and exhausted. This notion feels almost reactionar­y amid the bolder ideas this book champions. Then again, mothers are the ones who truly understand the stakes.

 ?? Judith Ebenstein ?? Jessica Grose is the author of “Screaming on the Inside.”
Judith Ebenstein Jessica Grose is the author of “Screaming on the Inside.”
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