Mask of Motherhood Today it

Mask of Motherhood

Today it is not uncommon to see kindergarten girls playing the roles of wives and mothers, dreaming about marriage and parenthood. Often parents and even daycare professionals respond to these dreams of girls' positively, while manufacturers further feed their dreams with toys specifically designed to teach little girls the values of motherhood, not to mention the media and popular culture that portray the ideal image of a mother-wife who lives a happy life with her imaginary prince. But many feminists increasingly argue that these are fantasies that do not reflect the reality. These fantasies actually mask the true motherhood. In reality, motherhood involves wholesale transformation, requiring many sacrifices and involving numerous challenges, mental and health problems, low self-esteem, and problems with intimate partners.

The mask of motherhood is everywhere around us. For example, many health professionals and community counselors talk about the benefits of marriage and motherhood to women's mental health and the stability in family. This may indeed be the case in the lives of many women. But statistics also show that many women go through periods of emotional stress and low self-esteem after marriage and experience even more problems during and after motherhood. Sometimes being a wife and being a mother clash, making it more difficult for a women to continue normal life with her intimate partner, while at the same time meeting the demands of motherhood. A time being spent with a partner may suddenly be disrupted by a baby cry and the decrease of attention given to a husband because of childcare may spoil the mood for her, or him, or both. Media and popular culture propaganda about the values of being a wife and a mother does not always show these pictures.

The fantasies of motherhood mask the true experience women go through in bringing up children. Wee pictures of happy Moms, smiling and holding their angelic babies and their husbands constantly supporting them, in magazine covers, tabloids, movies, and even documentaries. But once a woman embarks on a path of motherhood, she realizes that it involves "morning sickness" that lasts days and nights, mental stress, disruptions of daily life, sacrifices on jobs and private life, and much more. Then comes the excruciating pain of labor, followed by months of recovery, more pain and nausea, sleepless nights, thousands of diaper changes, mood changes, constant disruptions of breakfasts and lunches and dinners -- not to mention frustrations in the face of baby crying because of colic or reflux, quarrels with the spouse because of the couple's inability to fix these problems easily and quickly -- as had been the case before the beginning of the journey to motherhood -- and disappointments.