The Tyranny of the Good Mother: How Our Beliefs About Motherhood Control Women

When I was three years old, I decided I had had enough of life as a mere mortal. The bedtimes, the grueling chore load, the parents who just didn't understand the oppression of life at three...it was all too much.

I needed an upgrade, and that's why I became the Virgin Mary. I donned a veil, demanded to be addressed as Mary, and regaled my parents with tales of the birth of my son, our lord and savior.

It was the last time I was widely regarded as a good mother. Because once a woman becomes a real mother, everyone--even self-styled feminists--is eager to tell her the many ways she is failing.




Women don't even have to be mothers to be tyrannized by the myth of the good mother. The CDC recently advised all women of childbearing age to abstain from alcohol unless they take birth control, since all women are potential mothers. You don't even have to have a child to be a bad mother.

Everyone wants to be a good mother. Children deserve competent, loving parents. The problem is that what we demand of mothers is both conflicting and impossible. No one can live up to the myth of the good mother. And that's exactly the point. We urge women to be good mothers as a way of controlling them.

The Good Mother: A 'Beauty Myth' for [Slightly] Older Women 
Naomi Wolf's Beauty Myth argues that an unattainable standard of beauty--dangerously thin, white, perpetually youthful, large-breasted with a flat stomach--controls women and constrains their options. Low self-esteem and quest for "beauty" sideline women, wreck their self-esteem, and subject them to public judgment.

The myth of the good mother does the same thing for women who are often too old to have any hope at all of achieving society's vision of beauty. It creates an impossible, contradictory standard. Most mothers know the standard is impossible to live up to. Yet because we all want to be good mothers, and because being a bad mother might be the only thing a woman can be that's worse than being ugly, we chase the ideal. It's like chasing a high we'll never get, and to varying extents, most of us sacrifice self-esteem and sanity at the altar of the good mother.

We're told to work outside the home, but maximize our time with our children while keeping a perfect house and never demanding anything from our partners. That would make us selfish nags, and men hate that. We're expected to lose all the baby weight within six weeks, but without taking time away from our children or letting our homes go. Our children should be well-behaved, but free to explore the world. We must discipline them without raising our voices, without kowtowing to them, and definitely without ever inconveniencing others with a public tantrum.

We must be ceaselessly giving, but never complain. We should savor our pregnancies but never annoy others with excessive Facebook photos. Our kids should be cute, but not vain, smart but not smug, active but not overscheduled. They should eat organic, healthy foods, but we shouldn't make a big deal out of it, lest we be deemed sanctimommies. We should breastfeed, even if it cracks our nipples, ruins our sleep, and wrecks our marriage, but we must never do so for too long, in public, or in a way that makes anyone uncomfortable.

It is critically important to do this all, and so much more, while appearing conventionally attractive and feminine. Otherwise we're losers who have let ourselves go.

Mothers as Public Property 
No matter how you parent your child, you will fail in some critical area of the good mother myth. Many people--often strangers, usually who don't have kids, frequently male--will be thrilled to tell you when you do. Because once a woman becomes a mother, she is deemed public property. Strangers feel entitled to grab pregnant women's bellies, critique their parenting, discipline their children.

Men are nowhere to be found in this equation. In the myth of the good mother, it's nice if men show up, but not mandatory. Parenting falls to women. A child's failure is the mother's failure. A failed mother is an unworthy human being who deserves to feel bad about herself. I have no doubt that the many people who have critiqued my parenting would be thrilled to learn that their criticism stings.

That is, after all, precisely the point. It's easier to control women who feel overwhelmed and hurt.

Rejecting Judgment 
If you want to support the mothers in your life, the single best thing you can do is reject any and all judgment. If you don't like someone's parenting, keep it to yourself, and remind yourself that you very likely don't know the whole story. Few mothers have ever responded to criticism with meaningful change, since most are already doing the best they can. So critiquing a mother serves only to hurt her. That hurts her child, society, and women as a class.

Keep it to yourself. You're not enlightening her. You're not being feminist or helpful or edgy or funny. There is no exception to this rule. Even if you're joking, even if you're close family, even if you think you know what you're talking about. Women are told they are parenting wrong every single day. So just as rejecting the beauty myth is a feminist act, so too is rejecting the idea that there is a single way to be a good mother. There isn't, and there never will be.