What mothers won't tell us

"If you go back to the past with existing knowledge and experience, would you still choose to be a mother?"

As children, we seldom hear our mother tell us the answer of "regret". Or we are afraid that our children will be disappointed, or our society does not allow such voices to appear. However, after similar questions were put online, they received "regret" from nearly half of women.

(The results of the survey "Do you regret being a mother" initiated by people on the Internet)

Israeli sociologist Ona Donas interviewed 23 people who regretted becoming mothers. Their ages range from 26 to 73, and five of them have even become grandmothers. In Donas's research, these mothers do not regret the birth and existence of their children, nor do they want their children to disappear from this world. They still love their children and regard them as people who have the right to live. They just fantasize about getting rid of motherhood and becoming a woman who is not anyone's mother again.

Pregnancy, breastfeeding, education ... Every step of the mother seems to revolve around the child.

Barry (one of the interviewees in Donas), whose child is less than 4 years old, said: "I think about her 24 hours a day, thinking about my responsibility to her, just like the lingering background noise."

In Being a Mother: Confessions of an Intellectual Woman, the English writer Rachel kask talked about her first attempt to free herself from breastfeeding and crying, but when she tried to feed her with a bottle instead of a nipple, she found that she could not let go because of her ever-present responsibilities. When she put the bottle in the child's mouth, the child began to cry, so she "unconsciously touched the button of the shirt." I want to appease the children and even give up the plan. Even if she went upstairs and sat on the bed, she was "tearful and her stomach hurt a little." A few minutes later, she sneaked downstairs to look.

From the moment a woman becomes a "mother", there is a rope behind her to connect her with her children.

Kask plans to go to a concert after the baby is born and entrust the baby to her mother-in-law. Even though she had planned to shorten her time out and go home between performances, on the bus to the concert hall, she "felt that she had done something wrong, as if she had stolen something." As soon as she got off the bus, she rushed to the nearest telephone booth. "It's like an oxygen mask."

On her mother-in-law's phone call, she heard the child crying. Although she knew that the child might stop crying for a while, she only stayed in the concert hall for five minutes, and then hurried home.

When she was pregnant, she made many plans to maintain her independence: going to parties and festivals, skiing in the German forest, lying down and enjoying the sunset in the Mediterranean, sitting at a table and thinking … but all this was disrupted by the birth of a child.

"With children around, she can't be herself; She can't be herself when the child is away. Therefore, whether the child is around or not, you find it difficult. Once you discover this, you will feel that your life is contradictory, irreversible, or caught in some mysterious trap. You are trapped in it and can only continue to do useless struggles. " (Becoming a Mother: Confessions of an Intellectual Woman)

After becoming mothers, some women chose the role of housewives. In this choice, she gave up her public value and got a series of private meanings.

But even the "007" at home, nine to five is not respected by ordinary people. They are called "people who eat three meals and take a nap", and "mom bug" is a derogatory term for full-time mothers in Korean society. People say that "what you do is not work", completely denying your all-weather hard work.

Housewives' housework is soaked with sweat and bitterness, but under the banner of "free" and "dedication", they can't get their due economic and spiritual income.

In Patriarchy and Capitalism, Ueno Chizuka criticized this: giving symbolic value to "love" and "motherhood" and putting them on the altar is actually an ideological mechanism that has long squeezed women's labor. "Love" is actually a mechanism for a woman to take her husband's purpose as her own in order to mobilize her energy. "Motherhood" is a mechanism for women to restrain their own needs and make their children's growth become their own happiness by arousing the spirit of self-sacrifice and sacrifice. American sociologists Finch and groves clearly pointed out that the so-called "care" and "care" in women's exclusive field is actually "working in the name of love".

Housewives left the workplace for a long time, bent down to do housework and take care of children, and when they looked up, they found themselves trapped in the family and could not escape. They left the market and lost their social status, leaving only the name "so-and-so mother".

"What I lost was my own independent personality. I have changed from myself to someone's mother. Even if my parents and family call me, they will say that our baby is hungry. What about myself? What about my original name ... I haven't heard anyone call my real name for a long time. " Netizen "sweet oleander" said.

Even if raising children to the point where they don't need full supervision, housewives will still face a "trap" when they enter the workplace.

On the one hand, they lost their due income, and at the same time, they had to bear the unpaid labor in the name of love.

On the other hand, even if she can get a job again after work interruption, as a housewife with few skills, her salary will not be too high.

Those women who have not experienced the interruption of their work during the child-rearing period continue to accumulate their own achievements diligently, and when housewives re-employ, they get their due status and income.

Even if there is no interruption for many years, those women who return to their original posts immediately after giving birth are under great pressure. It can even be said that once a woman starts to get pregnant, the promotion of this position is almost closed.

Of course, many people will explain that "mothers have to take care of their children, and the focus of life will shift, which will affect their work", but will it really affect their work after becoming a mother? No one can be sure, but it has unexpectedly become the consensus of people.

In fact, just the conjecture that it will affect the work has already explained the "judgment" of the "mother" in the labor market, and this "maternity punishment" has even spread to unmarried pregnant women's job hunting.

"This position is only for boys." "If you want to come to our company, you must sign an agreement to ensure that you are not allowed to get married and have children for five years." ...

To take a step back, if the working hours of mothers are really reduced because of raising children, then there is also a kind of "maternal punishment" behind this seemingly correct reason. According to the 20021China Women's Workplace Survey released by Zhaopin, working mothers spend 1.7 hours a day doing housework on average, which is the most time among all working groups.

Family and society require mothers to take more responsibilities than fathers in housework and child care, but at the same time, the workplace requires them to make as much or even more efforts as men. This phenomenon seems to be that "women seem to have achieved the expected' double harvest of career and family', but this is not only a double realization of self-worth, but also a double burden, even a triple burden-wage labor, housework and child care (Bettina? Birch, 1982).

However, we seem to ignore this burden, but we are pursuing "new independent women" like "hot mom". Hot mom is not restricted by fertility, not only looks sexy and charming, but also can handle everything in parenting, family and work. This ideal state is also similar to what Cheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, called "neo-liberal feminism" in "Step Forward". Sandberg "inspires women all over the world to pursue their goals bravely and achieve the perfect balance between career and family life".

But the whole society's admiration for "hot mom" ignores the more pressure this balance brings to women.

Sociologist Shen Yifei mentioned in "Hot Mom: Motherhood and Women's Rights in the Process of Individualization" that the propaganda of "Hot Mom" completely blamed the risk of double burden on women themselves, and women's rights were completely lost in such a discourse system. Omnipotent, full of contradictions, desperate to prevent mistresses, hot moms are getting farther and farther away from women's rights and demanding more and more women, making women's lives like walking a tightrope. In such an individualized process, the struggle between women's rights and motherhood seems to have returned to the fate of the Revolution of 1911: women's rights were replaced by motherhood again.

Undoubtedly, the society's pursuit of "hot mom" is still a disguised "maternal punishment". The next step to ignore the risk is to allow "two pounds less" in the maternity allowance. 20021According to the Survey Report on Women's Workplace Status in China released by Zhaopin on March 8th, 43.9% of the respondents indicated that the company did not have special maternity leave, although maternity leave was a national holiday.

(Zhaopin Recruitment "202 1 China Women's Workplace Survey Report")

So, shouldn't you be a mother?

Although so many mothers have mentioned the difficulties they may face, being a mother can also gain many unique experiences: being practical, happy, developing a new career, reconciling with her mother and becoming more complete. ...

Instead of answering "Do you regret being a mother?" At that time, some netizens said: "In the 2 1 month since I was born, I asked myself more than 20 times and never got an answer. It seems that the happiness and pain she brings are two-dimensional units, which cannot be compared, measured and offset each other. "

Perhaps for many people, there is no definite answer to this question, and its complexity and difficulty in answering also prove that becoming a mother has always been a matter that needs careful consideration. But our society always tells women that motherhood is a natural and instinctive process, and people always emphasize or show the joy brought by motherhood.

What we want to tell you is that being a mother is not only joy, but also many difficulties. It is not a necessity for everyone's life, but a personal choice.

Writing | the crooked tree

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