We Should Stop Complaining About Motherhood

The right thinks it is bad for the birth rate and whiny AF

Fun news! One of my favorite follows on Instagram, Gen Padalecki just chose Everyone is Lying to You for her August book club and I am very excited for all of you to read along with her!

I love everything Gen does and I’m a big fan of the sustainability work she does with TOWWN. I actually had no idea this was happening so it was a delightful surprise when I opened my Instagram yesterday.

We’re on the road heading down to the Avalon Public Library for a beachy book event for Everyone is Lying to You. Getting out of the house this morning was the usual sort of chaos despite the fact that we packed the night before. And even though the car is stuffed to the gills we still nearly pulled away without diapers and wipes for the toddler. Truly exceptional parenting.

My big complaint this morning is that we booked a very lovely, fancy and fairly expensive hotel down the beach and when I checked in to see if they had a pack n play I found out there was a $35 a night charge for it. In all my years of hotel staying and travel writing I have actually never been charged a fee for a place for my baby to sleep somewhere, not in a high end five star hotel or a road side motel. Never. So this was a surprise and out of principal we ended up Tetris-ing our travel crib into the car. I’m that petty and also cheap. Which is probably why we forgot the diapers.

But maybe I should stop complaining. Apparently that is the new trope in branding on the right about motherhood, that mothers should shut up and be more grateful. I have to say that I hate this for us. It feels like yet another extension of the mommy wars pitting women against one another. This new trend in conservative media is to say women should stop complaining because it’s “bad for the birth rate.” Others just seem irritated that moms are venting at all. Either way, there’s a new wave of think pieces and viral essays telling us that sharing the reality of parenting, puke-filled car rides (I have three car pukers btw), postpartum misery, toddlers pissed off because you want them to wear a diaper is ruining motherhood for everyone else.

Evie magazine recently posted this banger of an essay in their substack.

It argues that while sharing struggles online may sound like stigma-busting honesty, it actually terrifies women out of wanting kids. The author holds up influencers like Nara Smith and Hannah from Ballerina Farm as aspirational icons. These women are beautiful, effortlessly stylish, making homemade pasta in Ferragamo while glowing through pregnancy, and according to the piece, that’s what we should be posting. Not exhaustion, just soft-lit gratitude and homemade Cinnamon Toast Crunch (which I tried to make from Nara’s recipe and it was a disaster).

They write:

While sharing the struggles of motherhood online may sound great for “breaking down stigmas” surrounding the realities of being pregnant, raising children, and postpartum depression, it has ultimately had a lasting impact on women that is anything but positive. Many women are now terrified of becoming mothers, and understandably so. It looks awful: Pregnant women recording themselves puking violently into paper bags in the car and screaming at their husbands, “You did this to me!” New moms filming themselves and their one-week-old babies throughout the night to show how exhausted they are, waking up every few hours to breastfeed. Experienced moms trudging through toddlerhood filming their child having a meltdown in public or smearing poop on the walls. It’s not only inexplicably wrong for these children to have a permanent imprint on the internet in this way without their consent, but it gives an attitude of resentment toward motherhood as a whole.

You know what I think is genuinely “brave” these days on social media? Putting out content that is uplifting, beautiful, and aspirational. Content that helps us reframe our mindset and focus on the positive aspects of what motherhood can be.

I just want to jump in here to say they are advocating for only posting content that is mostly fake, created by professionals and designed to sell you things. There is professional makeup, a photographer, a videographer, lighting specialists, video editors and lots and lots of $$$$$. But it goes on.

I may not be able to quit my job and become a homesteader right now, but I can take parts of their days and weave them into my life, and that is genuinely inspiring to me.

Maybe someday I will be in the kitchen, consumed by the smells of homemade noodles, wearing a silk Ferragamo dress, teaching my children to cook right alongside me. At least, that’s a goal I can work toward. At least they make it look appealing.

Nara and Hannah, and some others, are showing us that we can still take care of ourselves as human beings despite also loving motherhood. We can still strive to be a hot mom while embracing being the caretaker of the household and supporting our husbands without getting totally overwhelmed and accepting a victim mentality.

Evie is obsessed with the trope of being a hot mom. This was yet another recent headline.

The takeaway? Motherhood is beautiful and worth it, stop making it look awful online. Stop complaining about it in person. If motherhood is hard for you then it’s your fault.

But wait there is so much more.