Motherhood in a time of crisis

Before we had a yearning for the divine, we longed for our mother’s breast. Before we had an understanding of grace, it was our mother’s touch from which we sought solace. Before we said our first prayer, we worshipped the women who bore us.

With time, and with luck, most of us temper this pure adoration with the knowledge of our mothers as people, as human beings. But it’s hard to gainsay that motherhood as an institution is placed on a pedestal – and that can have unfortunate side effects. An overemphasis on “good mothers” – on motherhood and mothering as being inherent and natural to women – can and does place unhealthy expectations on women. These expectations can weigh heavily when mothers find that – not every mother is magically equipped with the skills, fortitude, and patience that supposedly comes with the territory. 

This May is the month for mothers, but we must be careful that we focus on the reality of motherhood, and not the myth. Real mothers can grow weary, lose their cool, flee from responsibility and break under pressure. Mothers have the right to be human, to make mistakes, to think about themselves and their own wants and needs. This is especially true now, with all of us living through the worst pandemic in modern history.

While a lockdown would rationally mean that both mothers and fathers are stuck in the house, data will show that this does not mean that household responsibilities are necessarily halved. The lockdown does not change pre-conceived biases in a patriarchal society regarding who bears the burden of most of the household tasks, including the care of the children. In fact, pre-pandemic studies of (heterosexual) couples in the realm of academia have revealed that “when both parents get parental leave upon the birth of a child, the father’s productivity soars while the mother’s tanks.” Much of this disparity lies with the societal expectations that lead to mothers taking up most of the emotional labor (the invisible work to make others feel cared for and comfortable) and the mental load (the time and energy required in planning family logistics such as meals, celebrations, chores) in their families. 

And all of that assumes a typical two-parent household. Mothers who are single parents – who accounted for two million out of three million single parent households in the country as of 2015 – have an exponentially more difficult task. Mothers who are caring for children or other household members who have chronic illnesses, or who are neuroatypical, are faced with greater hardships as well. The pandemic has disrupted calming routines, and blocked off support networks that for many are essential.

There is no doubt that many mothers are strong, that they are adaptable. They have to be. In some ways mothers are already familiar with being suddenly faced with a new world. As an article in the Washington Post put it, there are similarities between the isolation brought about by the pandemic and that which a first time mother experiences with a newborn, taken to an extreme. 

Yet the strength of mothers does not mean that society, their own families – or even mothers themselves – should take for granted either their work or their humanity. Many parents and mothers in particular are stressed to the breaking point. A recent poll of American families revealed that 57 percent of mothers and 32 percent of fathers of kids under 18 reported worsening mental health during the pandemic, and that gap was just a 5 percent difference two weeks earlier. In families, just as in other aspects of society, the pandemic and quarantine take existing inequities and magnify them.

In May, we celebrate mothers… But a real celebration would be one which acknowledges both their superhuman efforts and their all too human frailties. For family members, it means not only thanking mothers for their work, but actively finding ways to lighten their load, making visible and valuable the invisible labor mothers undertake and dividing the same equitably. It means being as solicitous of their needs as they are of yours. 

For employers, this means granting them the assistance, safeguards, and understanding that they need in order for them to juggle their responsibilities. For the government, this means doing what it can to restart the support networks that mothers depend on: from creating protocols by which non-COVID related illnesses can be given appropriate treatment and attention, to activating safeguards against violence such as the anti-violence against women hotline of the Philippine National Police Women and Children Protection Center  (+63) 919 777 7377.

But mothers must also come to their own aid, to care for not only others but for themselves. The idea of self-care is all the more important when it feels like you have no time to think of yourselves. We are in the midst of an unprecedented crisis, and it’s all right for you not to be okay – even if you are a mother, even if you feel like everyone is depending on you. 

It’s okay not to feel okay.

Think back again to your first days as a new parent, when you were so worried that everything you did or didn’t do, no matter how small, would affect the future of your children. The days when you felt like you were stumbling around in the dark, where you felt like you were a hopeless parent. The truth was: you weren’t hopeless, you were just adapting to a new environment. Now, during the pandemic, we are adapting again. We will make mistakes, we will have our lapses – but our children are much more resilient than we at times give them credit for. We do not need to fill their every waking hour with learning, nor replicate the stimulation they receive from both school and their social circles. 

The last thing we need during hard times, is to be even harder on ourselves. 

These are difficult times, and a mother’s work never seems to be done. But as we enter the second month of this health crisis, let us not forget that “motherhood” is always relational – one is always a mother in relation to another. We are not alone, and we should not be alone. The strength of a family lies in its bonds – whatever trials that are yet to come, if a family faces it together as one, sharing our burdens and hopes… that is all any mother could ask for.