These days, I’ve been flipping through my cell phone screen endlessly when I came across a post by an influencer who is a mother of a six-month-old baby. In the caption, she said that the child never prevented her from working and continuing to be herself. I confess that I felt uncomfortable and stopped to observe what exactly was bothering me.

Photo – Unplash / Disclosure

I follow some mothers on social media, preferring the ones that show the raw reality of a mother’s routine. Here I feel more accepted, I recognize myself and I share the same problems with raising children. You know that “it doesn’t just happen to me” feeling?

In 2016, the term “real motherhood” invaded the internet and revealed what no one had said about motherhood. A topic that had not been taken seriously was exposed by several actresses and influencers, and the romantic idea of ​​motherhood collapsed to the ground. The discourse about how motherhood completely changes you, makes you better, began to be questioned.

To read from a mother who has just come out of the postpartum period (in which she most of all sat while breastfeeding) that it did not affect either work or life sounds strangely unrealistic.

The question here is not the privilege of paying someone to take care of a child and not the deprivation of freedom of self-expression in one’s own network, but the romanticization of motherhood in mid-2023. I am writing this text not to judge, but to help with further discussion.

Real for who?

As I said in the first text of this column, the term “real motherhood” is real for whom? It depends on the lifestyle of each family: some mothers tighten the callus more than others.

There are people who are a little better at dealing with guilt, putting more effort in some aspects and less in others. The only certainty is that when it comes to motherhood, perfection does not exist. It is made up of failures and successes, and many failures are due to one person not being able to handle everything.

From birth, women are oriented towards a list of roles. Right in early childhood, the role of a caregiver appears, who surrounds the girl with dolls, then goes in search of a prince in order to marry and fulfill the “saving” mission of becoming a mother.

Motherhood is considered “natural”, the only way to be happy and complete. If you still have doubts, take the following test: ask a woman in her 30s who has not yet become a mother how many times she has already been asked about marriage and children.

It is because of this women-only “mission” that today in Brazil, 11 million single mothers are crushed by the daily routine of home x work x children. For the same reason, Brazilian courts prohibit the termination of pregnancy for pregnant children who are victims of rape.

When cutting the rock, the hole becomes even larger. Black women make up 61% of single mothers in the country. They are paid by more privileged women to take care of their children. And who takes care of the children of a black woman? Other women, whether in society or in kindergarten, when they have them.

Things might be different if the world were not sexist, racist, misogynistic and insular, and if the burden of motherhood was seen as a public health issue, not only by the mother, but also for the good development of children. Therefore, it is necessary to question the ideology of motherhood.

Of course, being a mother is good. But the words that it is easy do not help and even normalize inequality. You need to look deeper, get out of the bubble, clear your eyes and, most importantly, really want to see the structure that works against people who decide to have children.