The Motherhood Badge of Martyrdom

Know what really grates on my nerves? The Motherhood Badge of Martyrdom that some women wear emblazoned on their being. It can be spotted from a mile away. Women who wear this badge like to portray themselves as some kind of saintly beings for all they sacrifice in their role as mother.

Case in point: my best friend's sister, a woman whose sole purpose in life is to convey to the world how completely put out she is by nature of being a mother. She's always huffing and puffing, and putting on the poor me facade, "I can't remember the last time I had a full night's sleep", "I can't remember what it was like to have a night out with hubby", "I never get any time to myself", "I am so wiped out from chauffering the kids all weekend". She loves to post daily updates on Facebook about how many times she was up the night before cleaning up throw-up, or how she spent the whole day doing 13 loads of laundry, or how hubby is out of town on business so she has to run the entire household by herself. It's as though her entire life is a big pity party and we're all invited.

For some reason, this behavior is not only tolerated from mothers, it's expected and reinforced. Always there is this perception of mothers as self-sacrificing saints, who give tirelessly of themselves for the benefit of others. The longer they stand on their martyr pedestal, the more we are supposed to recognize how hard they work, how wonderful they are and bow down to worship them appropriately. This is such a crock of BS.

Hubby and I own a house that has a large mortgage and immense property taxes, which, combined with all the other escalating expenses in life and the declining state of the economy, have become quite burdensome for us.

Now, imagine if I was constantly climbing onto a soapbox, whining and complaining about our financial obligations, posting Facebook updates every day about how draining my mortgage payments are, how hard I am working to make the payments, expecting everyone to feel sorry for me for the huge financial strain I undertook. Would anyone tolerate this or think I am some saint for meeting my responsibilities by paying my mortgage bill every month? No. The response would (rightly) be: you made the decision to buy the house, so you have to pay for it. Now shut the f*ck up already.

How about when I was going to graduate school? I was working full-time, going to class in the evening and burdened with tons of reading and a massive final thesis. Imagine if I was constantly climbing onto a pedestal to whine about my workload, expecting people to think I was some kind of saint for undertaking the endeavor of a graduate degree. Would anyone treat me like a saint for that, or offer me martyr status? Nope. Their response would be: so who put a gun to your head and made you go to graduate school? It was your choice, so stop complaining about it.

Same goes for having kids. Having kids is a choice, people. If you choose to have kids, it is understood that you are also choosing the tons of dirty work comes along with that lifestyle. It's part of the deal. People do not deserve martyr status or a pity party for taking care of the children that they decided to bring into the world.

I know I am a broken record, but I will say it again. People bring kids into the world for selfish reasons - not for the betterment of humanity. They want a little Mini-Me - a cute, cuddly being who looks like them to love unconditionally. They want to have fun buying little baby clothes, they want to be a powerful influence over somebody who is dependent on them and thinks they are god, they want someone to carry on their name, to take care of them in old age, they want to become a member of the Parent Club, they want to feel like they have a purpose in life and have accomplished something, they want fit in and fulfill other peoples' and society's expectations. The list of selfish reasons goes on and on. So when women like my sister-in-law put on the Big Martyr Act - the old Woe is Me routine, it truly makes me want to retch. I am supposed to feel sorry for her because the life she chose for herself is difficult? Spare me.

Oops - gotta run - time to make the mortgage payment.

Parent Worship Further Deconstructed

I hope you don't mind, but I would like to take my previous discussion about Mother's Day a little further. This subject really knaws at me and the more I think about it, the crazier it makes me, so bear with me. I'd like to examine this "worship your parents and be eternally grateful to them" ideology a little more closely because I think it needs to be critically deconstructed a bit more.

As I touched on in the previous post, our culture (and probably most cultures) relentlessly promotes this idea that parents, by nature of bringing us into the world and taking care of us, deserve undying gratitude and honor for all eternity. They are beings to be worshipped, respected and appreciated for all they have sacrificed for us. Parenthood is the highest calling in life, the greatest role one can pursue and so on.

I've already argued that excessive gratitude to parents for caring for their kids is uncalled for, since having a child is a choice, and once you have one you must take care of it. You are simply carrying out your duties.

My argument today is that all of this excessive worship of parents is misplaced because people have children and take care of them, not for selfless, saintly, self-sacrificing reasons, but to satisfy their own selfish desires - to fulfil wishes for all sorts of self-gratifying things - receiving unconditional love, feeling needed and important, enjoying the activities of "family life", carrying on a last name, gaining acceptance into society via conformance, feeling a sense of accomplishment (since having children is equated with "having it all" and accomplishment in our culture), having a caretaker in old age, and on and on and on - the list is truly endless. People do not have children because they are selfless beings who want to struggle and sacrifice themselves for the betterment of the world or to help a needy person. They may enjoy thinking of themselves this way, but parents are not Mother Teresa. A selfless being does not reproduce and bring more people into the world when the world is already overpopulated with millions of needy, homeless children rotting away in orphanages, clamoring for homes. A selfless being does not need a genetic mini-me who reflects herself back like a mirror for the purpose of self-admiration and worship.

Perhaps I am over-analyzing here, but to me this whole parenthood = sainthood ideology is such a ridiculous and obvious sham, it makes my head spin. It is particularly irritating to me as a childfree person because so frequently the childfree get slapped with the selfish label, while parents walk around wearing a badge of sainthood for this phoney, non-existent selflessness - taking care of the little creations they made to satisfy their selfish desires.

And let's not forget the fact that our self-congratulating parents never asked for our permission to bring us into the world, and yet we are commanded to be grateful that they produced us, as if life on Earth is the best thing going. Maybe it's not - we have no way of knowing. One thing we know for sure is that every human being who is born is born with a death sentence.

The bottom line is, people have children for themselves - for everything they will get out of it and for all the ways they think parenthood will benefit them and make them happy. So putting parents on this pedestal of sainthood for the purpose of expressing undying gratitude and appreciation is simply wrong on every level.

Selfish Saints

Now that I am completely (and sadly) out of vacation mode and have slipped fully back into my curmudgeonly American persona, it's time for another rant! (Hurray! Admit it, your life has been lacking without them).

As you know, there are many things that perplex and fascinate me about the subject of parenting and motherhood and which I like to complain about in this blog - our media's fixation on celebrity breeding; noisy, obnoxious parents polluting our environment with their self-absorbed entitlement. The usual suspects. There's another topic, though, that I haven't touched on too much and it deserves some attention - the engrained, persistent notion of motherhood as sainthood.

To be a mother in our culture (and in most cultures) is to wear a badge of the highest honor. To become a mother is to receive instant esteem in our culture. Motherhood is equated with (among other things) goodness, virtue, selflessness, sacrifice, femininity, wholesomeness, and even patriotism. A woman becomes pregnant and the seas part - she is an instant celebrity - parties are thrown, she is showered with gifts and heaped with praise about how beautiful, how glowing, how magnificent and miraculous she is. She becomes an instant lifetime member of the Mom Club - a group whose members fawn over each other and hang on each other's every word. No wonder so many women can't wait to be mothers!

It doesn't stop there. For the rest of her life, she will have special stature. She will have a special holiday just for her and will be held in high regard simply because she reproduced. She will always be held up as the example of caring, compassion and selflessness. Her status as mother will be such a badge of honor that for the rest of her life she will be known as a mother first before anything else. She will find tons of validation and support everywhere she looks as her choice to reproduce is celebrated in every facet of culture, community, religion and the media. For crying out loud - she will even get her own premium parking spot. Never will her role be questioned or criticised, for motherhood is the sacred cow that is never spoken of in any terms other than those of reverence and endearment (well, except maybe on childfree blogs).

Well, I would like to take this opportunity to challenge the foundation of this mythology about motherhood. My argument? Mothers cannot be saints because they are selfish.

It begins with the decision to reproduce and bear biological children rather than opting to adopt one of the millions of homeless and orphaned children waiting for a home - orphans whose adoption would not only be a great benefit to the children, but to our environment, since the more children who are adopted (and the fewer who are newly bred), the lower the world's population and the less negative impact on the environment. After all, there is a direct connection between world population and the looming destruction of the planet. Global warming is a testament to this.

Women (and men) decide to have children for a plethora of reasons and most of those reasons are selfish. They want a little being who will love them more than anyone. Selfish. They hope for a little "mini me" who will (hopefully) reflect themselves back like a mirror - a little carbon copy of themselves. Egotistical and selfish. They want someone to carry on their name. Egotistical. They want to relive their childhood because they really don't enjoy being adults. Selfish. Their lives are empty and meaningless and reproducing is a quick remedy which requires little thought, talent or consideration. Lazy and selfish. They hope to have someone to take care of them in old age. Selfish. They long for the acceptance and status that comes with parenthood. Selfish. They want their lives to be full of activity and excitement. Selfish. They love the idea of family and all the warm, fuzzy notions that accompany it - holidays with a big family around the table, vacations to Disney World, traditions like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Selfish. Shall I go on?

Claiming that a parent or mother is selfless is akin to saying that I am generous because I pay my mortgage. I chose to purchase my home, therefore I am responsible for paying my mortgage. Paying my mortgage makes me responsible, not generous. Likewise, people who choose to bring children into the world and then exert all of their time, effort and money to care for them are not selfless. They are responsible. And sadly, many parents cannot even lay claim to being responsible (the aforementioned orphans are a testament to this). There is a clear distinction between selflessness and responsibility and it's a distinction that has to be made.

I am tired of hearing childfree folks referred to as selfish (not only by parents, but often by themselves). I am tired of parents (and especially mothers) getting all this phoney worship for being selfless when their motivations to live the way they do are no less selfish than mine. We all choose to live the life that we think will make us the happiest and for this we are all inherently selfish. It's not necessarily a bad thing to be selfish, but we need to get real about what selfishness and selflessness are and who possesses these traits (we all do) and we also need to get real about who is a saint (none of us).