Peribeth

Moms, we need to talk. 😒 I keep seeing videos of women complaining about motherhood, and I’m just going to say it: Some of you aren’t going to like this. Feminism didn’t just change womanhood. It helped destroy something essential about it. Somewhere along the way, sacrifice became oppression. Your children need too much from you? They’re children. That’s what they do. Your husband needs something from you? You’re married. Get over it. You don’t get to do exactly what you want every minute of every day. Welcome to being an adult. It is not all about you. For decades, women have been told endlessly about what we deserve, what we're owed, and what we should never have to sacrifice. Far less is said about what we owe the people we chose to love. Now everything is: My happiness. My peace. My boundaries. My fulfillment. My identity. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. And I don't think this “Me-First Motherhood” culture appeared out of nowhere. For decades, our culture and institutions have increasingly treated the traditional family, and especially motherhood in the home, as something women needed to be liberated from. Mothers entered the workforce en masse. Two incomes increasingly became a necessity rather than a luxury. Children began spending more of their waking hours in institutional care and schools. Families paid more taxes while outsourcing more of the work families once did themselves. And at the same time, we were sold an increasingly adversarial view of men and women: Men vs. women. Husbands vs. wives. Career vs. motherhood. Independence vs. family. Personal fulfillment vs. sacrifice. And who loses when the family becomes weaker? We do. Our children do. Because now social media is filled with women publicly complaining that their children are exhausting. That they’re “overstimulated” by them. That they desperately “need space.” That motherhood took something away from them. Having a difficult day is one thing. Building an identity around resenting the ordinary demands of your children is another. Imagine growing up hearing that. Imagine knowing your mother sees you as a burden because being your mother requires something from her. What does that do to a child? What happens to a generation of kids who learn not to need too much because Mom is already “overstimulated”? Who make themselves smaller so Mom can “protect her peace”? Who grow up believing everybody’s individual happiness comes before responsibility to the people they love? What are we teaching those children about love? Love isn’t always convenient. It isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always fulfilling. Sometimes love requires you to get over yourself. Motherhood requires something from you. Marriage requires something from you. Being an adult requires something from you. Sometimes you come second. We’ve become so obsessed with making sure women don’t “lose themselves” in motherhood that we never stopped to ask whether children are losing their mothers in the process. Not physically. Emotionally. Because while Mom is busy protecting her peace, finding herself, choosing herself, prioritizing herself, and telling the internet how exhausting her children are… Those kids are learning: Don’t need too much from Mom. Don’t bother Mom. Don’t become another burden. And then those children become adults. What kind of husbands and wives will they become? What kind of mothers and fathers? What happens when an entire generation learns that love means prioritizing yourself until someone else's needs become inconvenient? Maybe instead of serving a culture that continually pulls families apart, we start building our families back up. We spend an awful lot of time talking about what motherhood costs women. Maybe it’s time we start asking: What is “Me-First Motherhood” costing our children?