I’m exhausted. And it’s clear why.
We are looking at everything the wrong way.
And no one is looking towards the mother.
Mothers have so many expectations placed on them; most unrealistic which makes them feel inadequate.
Take daycare for example. It’s offered as the village we need but don’t have which seems great...
Except its almost impossible to get in if you’re not on a waitlist before falling pregnant and the stress involved in trying to manage back to work dates, finances and the unknown without a daycare place is intense. If you do get a place, mothers mostly manage enrolments, paperwork, meet and greets, labelling of everything, pick-ups/drop offs, and grapple with the guilt and fear of leaving their child with strangers and wondering if they will be safe and cared for. We pay people to care for our kids, yet mothering is not given the value it deserves.
Let’s not forget the sick days. All 5 million of them. I have never been more sick than in the first year of Linc being in daycare. And I was not prepared to have to deal with the guilt of calling in sick to work to look after Linc and then a week later making the same call but for me because I caught everything he had. I looked unreliable because I was. I was seen as a burden instead of a mother with a son who needed me. Mothering is not given the value or support it deserves.
People talk about the childcare crisis and the struggles of getting into childcare which is real and valid but no one talks about what happens when you get a place and you’re not satisfied with the care provided.
These are our children. We care about them more than anything and as babies and toddlers our kids can’t communicate effectively about their day. Transparency is crucial in building trust with care providers, yet the shortage of staff means educators are often in jobs without the right qualifications and centre managers are out on the floor, putting pressure on admin functions. Things like communication fall to the wayside as educators are busy surviving leaving us parents guessing. In the void of information, our negative bias kicks in and while we know it’s not good enough the childcare crisis has us self-silencing out of fear we won’t have the daycare days we need for the job that we need for bills and food and you know, to survive. And if we do say something we're labelled crazy or rude for advocating for those we care about most.
What choice do we have as mothers? Spend more money than our mortgage on childcare costs each fortnight and try to get ahead financially or stay at home with our kids on one wage and hope to cover costs and live in perpetual state of stress and lack (which happens either way) or try part time work and deal with the demands of work as well as our family and somehow balance it all? We are told we have a choice. But we don’t. We are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. Judged for every decision, yet no one seems to cares about the mother’s experience.
In fact, daycares as private companies are profiting off a mother’s vulnerability, capitalising off a rigged system where mothers are shown no support and told that value only comes from paid work. So we pay daycare fees for the privilege to ‘work’ while the work we do behind closed doors is not given the value it deserves. Make it make sense.
When do we win as mothers?
When does someone start caring about how all of this affects us?
When does society start giving mothers the value we deserve?
Motherhood Milestones exists to disrupt the motherhood narrative and get people shifting their focus from the baby to the mother because she needs to be held just as tight. Shop heartfelt cards for real life mums that start conversations and support women as they navigate their most vulnerable role in motherhood at www.motherhoodmilestones.com