Motherhood=Sacrifice?

That Wife recently wrote a post about her experience with being a first-time mother. She does not like it, even though she loves her child, and compares being a mother to Jesus's sacrifice for humanity (she is religious). In a way, I am not surprised that she dislikes motherhood, because she got married young (before finishing college even) and had a baby right away, meaning that she never got a chance to do typical 20-something things (travel, live independently, work at various jobs). She didn't even get to have much of the fun early part of marriage (especially since she is religious and thus didn't have sex until she was married), where you spend hours chatting with each other and doing things like spending all day in bed having sex or traveling to another country on a whim. Of course you can have lots of fun after children too, but then you have to plan it or it takes place in little snatches rather than continuously. And I don't think that planning on having this kind of fun after the children leave (20+ years later) is realistic: then you have many obligations (financial and otherwise: elderly parents, for example), may have health issues, and probably aren't interested anyway, since you are at a different stage in life. That is why having children before you have had significant life experience is a really bad idea. If I had R at 21, I would probably regret it too.

But what interested me more was her idea that motherhood=sacrifice, that mothers have to suffer in order to have children (which for her is a religious obligation). I really disagree with this, and actually think it's a very harmful attitude. My own mother had a little of this attitude (she also had children young, though she had more life experience than That Wife). There is no reason to be a martyr. It puts pressure on your children, who can sense your unhappiness and feel guilty about it (since you are supposedly suffering for them), and often on your spouse as well.

It is also fundamentally dishonest. While sometimes life is just painful, and you have to suck it up, most of the time you can actually improve your circumstances significantly if you are willing to put in the effort. But because this effort would require emotional pain (like admitting to yourself that you are not really good with small children, and that your child would be happier in a preschool several days a week, or that you have an anger management problem, or that you are an alcoholic), people avoid doing so. Certainly I have experienced this phenomenon myself many times, because I wanted to avoid facing my character defects. If your life is making you unhappy, it is a sign that you need to be brave and face what is bothering you.

There is no reason that motherhood should be different from any other lifestyle choice: it has its pluses and minuses, but on the whole should make you happy (or something is wrong). This is especially true given the fact that barring the extremes, there is no right or wrong way to parent (and thus you have a very wide range of styles to select from), and that much (most?) of children's personalities/outcomes are genetically determined, meaning that parents' influence is rather limited in any case. After all, parenting is first and foremost a relationship, meaning it ought to be mutually satisfying and contribute more than it takes (just like a marriage or friendship).

I think this especially given the sacrifices people often cite having made for parenting. There is no reason you can't travel, have sex, look good, or pursue hobbies even if you have children: other people do all of these things, and there is nothing special about them. Rather, people are purposefully limiting themselves, either because they in truth don't want to do those things and children are a convenient excuse, or because they are frightened. (My sister-in-law is an excellent example of this, who used her children to quit a career she didn't like; gain control over her husband (by bossing him around constantly, ostensibly to do things for the children); and avoid traveling, which she doesn't enjoy.) If you really wanted to have sex with your spouse, or take a vacation to Paris, children would not actually prevent you.

While a relationship with anyone will require giving up some things (what Dan Savage calls the "price of admission"), you should make those sacrifices gladly and without resentment, not because you are saintly, but for self-interested reasons: because the price is worth what you get. In fact, they aren't really sacrifices at all but trades, where each party should benefit.

If That Wife feels that she has given up too much, maybe it's time to rethink what she has given up. For example, her son could go to daycare full time; she could hire household help; she could decide to do less around the house; hire a sitter for a few hours every day; etc. I want to always remember to not give up anything that I regret, and to only do for R and B what I can give freely and gladly. To do that I need to listen to myself and protect my boundaries, and be comfortable in admitting that I cannot do something, even if someone I love wants it. I also should state my needs for whatever is important to me, even if it is inconvenient to others. I have a tendency towards being proud, thinking that I can handle everything and provide whatever B (and R, probably) wants, so this is a very important lesson for me to remember and keep in mind.