A lot of the people I regularly spend time with are, like me, without children (whether that was the plan or not), but I have many friends from different chapters of my life who do have kids–as many as four. I see their photos online, on their blogs or Flickr streams or their Facebook pages or whatever. Cute stuff.
And, starting a couple weeks ago, I started to see a lot of FB statuses that went something like this: “Mama Bear can’t wait for school to start again so I she can have some peace and quiet. Does that make me a bad mom?’ Or “I Have Kids let her girls stay up watching cartoons until late o’clock so she could get some stuff done! Bad Momma!” Or “Mrs. Chaos is a bad mother. She didn’t make a special lunch for Little Darling’s first Day of school.”
Obviously, these statements are tongue-in-cheek, intended to skewer the very idea of the Bad Mommy, like the funny/smart mommy-blog Her Bad Mother. After all, their self-proclaimed peccadillos are minor. I’ve never seen a post that would actually make me think someone is a bad mother. There are no comments like “Resentful Lady just slapped the crust off her toddler. Does that make her a bad mommy?” or “Party Gal is leaving the kids with Larry the Dubious Boyfriend while she’s off to Vegas for her Bad Mommies Weekend! Ta!’ Such women would probably not choose to announce these things in public.
But the fact that I see these low-level confessions regularly, and witnessed a particularly heavy spate of them at back-to-school time makes me think they’re not only tongue-in-cheek; there is some real concern among young mothers (mothers in their early 30s or younger and/or mothers of young children) about being a “bad mother” simply by not loving every single waking moment of your life as a parent.
I’m sure some of this sort of posting is about seeking affirmation from one’s peers. Certainly, after such posts, a flurry of comments appear reassuring Mom that she is not, after all, a Bad Mother for doing X or not doing Y, along with the occasional “but I’m even worse!” admission thrown in for good measure. Mom invariably responds with gratitude and further details of her so-called infraction. It’s a virtual kaffeeklatsch. I get that.
But I think there are a few other things going on here. It may be that my mom-friends make their maternal “sins” a matter of public record as a way of assuaging their private guilt, or that they want to head off criticism from others by pointing out their failings first. But really, this performance of confessing to Bad Mothering is a way, I believe, to prove that one is actually a Good Mother. A Good Mother questions herself. A Good Mother knows that she could always do more. A Good Mother recognizes her errors and endeavors to improve. Not like those Bad Mothers, who are thoughtless and eg0-driven and who probably don’t really love their children. A Good Mother just needs a little break every once in a while, and a place to vent feelings that Good Mothers aren’t supposed to have.
Let me be clear: I’m not mocking my friends’ insecurities about their mothering nor hinting that their parental skills are in any way subpar. Nor am I trying to re-incite the Mommy Wars (saints and angels protect us). What I’m doing is wondering aloud about a trend, among a certain subset of moms, of commenting in this passive-aggressive way about their failings as mothers.
I don’t have kids, so all I can do is wonder aloud. But I bring this up because I see parallels in other groups of women–childfree, career-focused people like me (who worry about dropping one or more of the many balls we’re constantly juggling), college-age women like my students (who preface their in-class comments with “I might be wrong” or “well, I’m not sure, but…” at least 80% of the time), even women like my mother (a woman with a Masters + 30 and a nearly 40 years of teaching special education students, who has told me half a dozen time in the last several months how she never could have gotten a PhD; my brother and I are just so much smarter than she is, etc.). We’re all going through the same rituals of disclaiming our work, undercutting our efforts, and asking forgiveness for sins we never committed. Knocking ourselves down and hanging ourselves out to dry over things that almost nobody else cares about. We’re asking, constantly: Am I Bad Wife? A Bad Student? A Bad Employee? A Bad Friend? We’re begging: “please don’t be mad.”
I’m not immune to this, either. I’ve been struggling not to preface this post with a little comment about how unripe my thoughts are on this subject, how I’m trying to suss them out in words now, how tired I am from the upheaval of the last month, et cetera. (Am I a Bad Blogger?) Though I’ve written previous posts on not being sorry, women are coached to please and placate, and it manifests in nearly every aspect of our lives. Since mothers are arguably held to an even higher standard, it makes sense that they would feel an even greater need to disclaim and qualify and self-flagellate, to prove that at least they know better and are appropriately ashamed of their failings. (This is all feeling very Catholic to me…)
Of course I’m not just talking to the mothers out there, although I’d be interested to hear from our mom-readers about this behavior. Do you see or hear it? Do you perpetuate it? And for those who aren’t mothers: how often do you ask forgiveness for for (likely imagined or at least teeny-weeny) missteps? Are you aware that you do it? And most importantly, for all our readers: how do we stop it? How do we unlearn this behavior?
Ugh, I hate that culture of public self-flagellation. It’s just plain masturbatory and it makes me cringe. Deal with your insecurities privately–no need to inflict them on others or go trolling for validation.
As to your second question:
The only time I ever preface statements with that cringey “oh, sorry” is when I’m dealing with arrogant, bad-tempered or overly sensitive people and I know that starting out with “Maybe I’m wrong” or “Look, I’m sorry for asking…” is going to get the job done faster and keep me from getting my head bitten off. In that case, it’s all about the end justifying the means.
OK, I never actually post stuff like this, so my perspective might be different but… when my friends (who tend to totally share my views on gender and parenting) say these kinds of things to each other it’s a totally sarcastic jab at cultural expectations as well as (maybe more importantly) a comment on how irritating the constant scrutiny of your parenting is. I’m still amazed by how invested complete strangers seem to be in my parenting. Or rather, how eager they are to find something to criticize. I usually get a lot of shit for dressing my toddler in (and allowing my 5 y/o stepdaughter to choose) clothing that’s not “gender-appropriate.” Or letting my daughter’s curls be all wild and untrimmed and not slicked down or tied back with cute little bows. Or letting my stepdaughter choose a boy costume (horrors!) for Halloween. Or talking with her (in an age-appropriate way) about things that are thought to be too hard for her to understand. Or for encouraging her to be critical of the media that surrounds her by having conversations that start with phrases like “What I don’t like about the Disney princess stories is…” People are really, really threatened by this shit, in spite of the facts that my kids are well-adjusted and always test ahead of the curve developmentally and seem to be happy, healthy kids. So I can’t speak for your friends, but I think that when my circle of friends occasionally engages in this kind of dialogue, it’s a way of venting our irritation with this cultural phenomenon and maybe also reassuring each other that the whole world isn’t like this. Which may tie in with your point about demonstrating your Good Mother status, but I think it also has to do with feeling like you’re a part of the minority, and reminding yourself that there are smart, thoughtful people in the world who agree with you.
@Becky – I totally use the “I’m sorry” prefacing meme in a passive-aggressive way sometimes. As in “I’m sorry that this fact threatens your entire worldview and your inflated sense of your own importance, but…” And writing this makes me realize how much of a bitch I can be.
*thinks about it for a second, shrugs*
Oh well.
@Rachel: Oh hell yes, I do that too. Often in commenting threads, now that I think about it.
I can be guilty of this a LOT. Or I used to be, especially in my workplace because everyone I work with expects me to be. (I had an original thought! Oh wait, I’m sorry for that, I respect you and all your non-orginalness…) But actually after reading your previous post (and being directed there) I now make a conscious effort to NOT apologize. It is a mental block there now, before I open my mouth, I think “do I really have anything to be sorry about here, or am I just trying to keep the peace?” If the answer is yes, I am playing peacekeeper yet again, I DON’T SAY IT.
And wow, do people notice. My friends, my family, my coworkers. Someone actually told me this week I am not as “nice” as I used to be. No, I am still as nice, I just own my thoughts and feelings and will not be ashamed of them. If that is difficult for you, then deal. I am not sorry for what I think or how I do things if I know in my heart it is right. But boy, did it take me a long time to get here.
I’ve actually got a lot better about this since I started commenting on the internet. The anonymity has let me slowly pull away with the “I could be/probably am wrong” statements and I do think its trickled into my face to face conversations as well.
@bluebears
I find the same to be true for me, even though I don’t comment all that often. Also, I grew up in a liberal household, in a conservative town. Most of my friends (more like their parents) were conservative, so just getting out of there and talking to people who had the same opinions as me helped me.
I try hard not to live vicariously through my kids. Do these statuses on FB hint at that?
Is it that some moms worry that they ARE living too much through their kids?
On the other end is what happens when “Bad Mama” is not mentioned in the status message. For example, I posted once that my 3-year-old son got shampoo all over the bathroom floor, and that I was rather frustrated by that. The responses were either to insult my intelligence “why don’t you put it up where he can’t reach it?” or to invalidate my feelings “he’s only a toddler”. Like I really need to justify the fact that this bathroom literally has no cabinets or shelves to hid it in (whoever designed it is a moron), or that I really think that he’s a malicious little deviant.
The fact is, it’s rather a boost to one’s sanity to hear “I’ve been there!” or “how silly!” Especially single mothers need the reminder that their struggle isn’t an exception, but the rule. I won’t play the “Bad Mama” game, but the need to connect and to break out of isolation is still there, and I can’t fault anyone for trying to reach out for assurance/sanity as best they know how.
I see my wife and many of her friends do this all the time and I find it kind of weird and annoying in light of the fact that they’re all damn good Mothers. Me and my boys OTOH, have no such anxiety about whether or not we’re good fathers. This is probably due to the fact that the bar for being a good Dad is (in general) stunningly, embarrassingly low.
One thing I do find interesting is that it seems like patriarchal gender roles are flipped around when it comes to parenting. With men being (in my experience) supportive and cooperative when dealing with parenting issues and women being a bit more competitive and judgmental. For me, dealing with family/parenting issues is one of the only times I feel like I can let my guard down and tell my friends, “Yo, I’m struggling and I need help,” without fear of being mocked or ridiculed.
I guess I call myself a “bad mother” (or hint at it in my tweets and status updates) because it’s easier to admit I have flaws outright than to try and be a “perfect mother”. If everyone already knows I make mistakes they’re less likely to comment on the ones they see. I hope.
It’s so easy to see a mom (especially on the internet) who makes all her baby food from scratch and spends five hours a day teaching her 3 year old French and hand sews all the costumes for the school play and still finds time to volunteer at the food bank who makes you feel like a totally loser because you barely managed to put on pants today. But when a whole bunch of moms join together and say “Yah for pants!” it really takes the pressure off. Being in the Bad Mothers Club is like having a whole cheering squad. No one cheers for the mom who has it all together. Which is…kind of sad.
I don’t make posts on FB like that, but I find I apologize to keep the peace a lot more than I should be – it’s something I’m trying to work on. I find the number one place where I do this is with my parents and the fact that I’m doing it less has been noticed. They expect the apology when I don’t fall in line with what they want or think. For me, part of my motivation to change is that I’m about to be a mom and I really don’t want to be saying I’m sorry for parenting my child in a way my parents may not agree with just to keep the peace. I want to empower myself to stand up for what I believe is best for my child, myself and my family and I know there will be a lot of pressure to do the “nice” thing and keep the peace when I’m in front of them.
@Melly I hear you about the parents thing. I’ve made parenting decisions in the past based on what my mother wanted that was mostly against what I wanted. Even though the incidents were 15 years ago, I still remember them bitterly. I am the parent. Ultimately I must decide what is best for my child. Yet I didn’t.
(Am I a bad mommy?
)
I tend to think of passive aggression as being a little malicious, and I don’t think this is. I think most moms do feel super-judged, and it’s a relief to be around (or be FB friends with) moms who will reassure you that they’ve done the exact same things.
I don’t do the ‘am I a bad mom?’ thing, but I do notice that I want people to know I have an excuse if I’m being less attentive than usual. If I’m on my netbook at the sandbox and all the other moms are sitting in the sand handing their kids toys, I have to stop myself from making excuses for my inattention. Which is dumb, because my kid is the only one who should care, and he hates it when I hover.
I think moms are judged just enough that we imagine we’re being judged more often than we are.
The reason moms do this is moms are STILL held accountable for their children in every way. i.e., if your child is polite, you are a great mom. If your child shouts out something inappropriate, you are seen as a bad mom. It’s a lot of pressure, and it comes mostly from other women.
It comes from this whole idea that your children are yours to mold, shape, and create, which is another thing wrong with our society.
When you shift the paradigm to the idea that children are born with their own basic personalities, and you can’t do much about it, you see that kid throwing a fit in the store with a different view. The new paradigm causes one to NOT immediately give a disapproving look at the mother.
Also, the “confession” part is necessary because women, on a societal level, are told that we will be fulfilled when we have kids. If we are not, and are deeply frustrated, it comes out in little self-depracating comment and “confessions”. Because it’s pretty tough to say “I had 2 kids, and I really frustrated with my life and wish I could put the kids back for a few months and have some adult time”. Our society just does not accept women NOT loving motherhood. Only “bad moms” don’t love it.
Yes, I’ve spent years arguing these subjects with my feminist mom friends.
I could say this is just one of the many reasons why I don’t have facebook but that might not be relevant.
On the other hand I apologise the whole time, of course i do, I’m English, saying sorry is simply a reflex, we don’t actually mean it but it allows us to feel smug when other people don’t say it.
More seriously – I’m actually really having to work hard on this with my two year old whose obviously picked it up for me and keeps saying sorry when she’s done nothing wrong (and being a two year not saying it when she’s been entirely evil).
As for the bad mother thing, I get entirely why people do it, in this country and in the UK people seem to be increasingly obsessive about motherhood and what makes a bad or good mother, for many people the need to find other people who acknowledge the imperfect is probably quite a relief.
Personally I don’t get involved but that’s largely because I have far too much difficulty juggling my life as it is without worrying/commenting on what I might be doing right or wrong. After all it’s really between my husband, me and my kids how I’m doing – until the day that they sign six figure deals to spew their personal lives in a tell-all misery memoir that is.
1. I highly recommend everyone to click over to Her Bad Mother–she has a post on the Polanski case up that is worth reading.
2. Someone once said something very wise about parenting to me: “children survive in spite of their parents”. If I ever have kids, I hope I keep that in mind, because I think it’s a great way to keep yourself from going crazy in the face of the pressures to be a loving, devoted, selfless mother that abound in our society (see: depiction of motherhood among celebrities, which is always accompanied with a storyline about how their lives have changed for the better since having children). It’s the same old burden that’s been there since the industrial revolution, it’s just repackaged in ever-new ways.
3. In response to Ms. M: while I disagree with the idea that there is one right or wrong way to be a mother and try not to judge, I’m going to admit that I am one of those people who, when she sees a kid throwing a tantrum in the store or restaurant, gets annoyed with the parents (although I try not to show it). I realize that everyone has different parenting philosophies, but the way I see it, even if you don’t want to force your child to shut up (to state it crassly), you can at least physically move them to somewhere where they won’t be bothering other people, no? I know a tantrum-y kid can be slippery, but some parents don’t make the effort at all, pretend not to hear it. And that I don’t get. But if others see it differently I’d be genuinely interested to know why.
4. I probably apologize too much, but I blame it, like Emilyanne, on a heavily Brit-influenced socialization. It’s definitely a cultural thing there. In Germany, it’s the opposite, though, which had a positive effect of me when I lived there that I hope has continued since.
I don’t have kids either, and as the second eldest of 8, I learnt a couple of things about parenting from my mum. Though as my mum gets older, she often apologises for things that she didn’t do when all of us were younger. I definately don’t want to do that!
@Endora – sometimes the best way to deal with a tantrumy kid is to ignore the behaviour. Once the child realises that no-one is watching, the child will often stop. On the other hand, once when I was looking after my nephew he chucked the mother of all tantrums whilst we were in the line to pay at the supermarket because I wouldn’t let him get some lolly. I then decided I would mimick his behaviour and chucked a tanty too (I got on the floor, flailed my arms and legs, and said loudly “Why is Krispin having a tantrum? I don’t understand.”). He quickly got up, wiped the tears from his face, said “Mackey, you’re embarassing me”, and tried to grab me by the hand before ignorning me.
@ Endora
The flip side of that tantrumming child is the idea that if a child is behaving, it is because the mother is a “good” mother. Society in general is still judging the mother for the child’s behavior, and that is what is a fundamental flaw. Men are NOT judged by the behavior of their children in the same way. If a child is whining for candy, other people will smile at him in sympathy. If the mom is with a child, she will likely get a lecture about what a bad mom she is for either not getting the candy or getting the candy (damned if you do, damned if you don’t).
So it’s not so much a specific behavior I’m discussing, it is the difference in how moms are treated vs. dads are treated, and how women are constantly judged by the behavior of their children (good or bad). That adds a tremendous stress load to motherhood.
and what Ms. M said as well…
@Ms M and Mackey: I do get that some parents might want to ignore tantrums so as to not give the kids attention and encourage the behavior, but still, I tend to think exceptions would be made when you’re in a public place and other people are around.
I see what you mean about mothers being judged more harshly than dads though, and think that’s terribly unfair.
Oh, and Mackey, the idea of throwing a tantrum too is amazing, and must have taken some serious guts!
My only serious experience of the Bad Mother phenomenon was when I was a nanny. The one little boy was on the Autistic scale–very high funtioning, just had the attention problem and sometimes he would get overloaded and snap–and any time I had to be a little rough to break his attention, such as snapping fingers in between his eyes and the object he was focused on(Or grabbing his chin and making him make eye contact with me), or he snapped and had a tantrum, I was judged as EVIL NANNY!! The other mothers at activities would sometimes tell me tales of their Bad Mommy-hood, and I was shocked that these good mothers were confessing to being bad mothers to a friggin 19 year old NANNY on the playground, or the soccer field(one told me about her miscarriage and how it was her fault!!!) when they were clearly NOT bad mothers.
As I’m now older and a bit wiser, I do think it was their way of feeling that they had support and weren’t as terrible as society wants to paint a mother who isn’t cookie cutter perfect. It’s shocking how terribly we are judged in motherhood, as if there were a way to raise the Perfect Little Angels, every time, if only we would put our personalities and needs away and Be A Good Mother! There’s no such child, and no such perfect mother. We’re human, and all flawed and full of idiosyncrasies and opinions that affect and shape our parenting style.
There’s a blog I came across recently that some of you may want to check out. It’s called “I blame the mother” and it takes issue with how society and the media blame the mother for anything to do with their children and can be found at: http://iblamethemother.wordpress.com.
Melly, that blog is fabulous. I love her! Thanks for linking.
@Endora: Thanks, it was also cathartic and in a strange way fun.. The good thing was, he never chucked a tanty again whilst we spent time together..
Mind you, when the nephew went through his dressing up in superhero costumes, I figured I would show him some female superheros and dressed up too, so we looked pretty strange out in public.. though because I’m the aunt, I guess the “bad mum” tag doesn’t quite apply..
I really don’t like this kind of behavior, though I certainly do it, too. I hated that at my feminist womens college, women were always apologizing for their opinions, or, even worse, hard-won, research-based facts! There was such a timidity in this compulsory version of respect and circumspection that I needed to completely unlearn it for the working world. I’m still working on being more direct. And the pandering for reinforcement gets so tiresome. Perhaps because my mother does it ALL the time, despite being incredibly strong and abrasive herself, it gets my dander up.
As for doing this as a mother, there’s definitely a lot going on. Though I’m a 36-year-old, successful career woman, I’ve never raised a child before, and feel like I’ve entered a whole new world of expectations. Add to that the liminality of being a working mother, and there is always the feeling that you’re missing something, or not doing something you should. Of course I had that before I was a mother, too – but it was easier to say fuck it, if I’m not doing it, it’s not important enough – now it really is. There is this impossible standard to do it all and excel in all fields.
My favorite theory of motherhood is the “good-enough mother,” coined by early 20th-century psychiatrist and pediatrician Donald Winnicott. The part I love is that not only is being a perfect mother impossible, it places far too much stress on both mother and child. In fact, a perfect mother who anticipates and responds to EVERY need of the child and never allows the child to get frustrated ill-prepares the child for real life. Those lacunas, those ways in which the mother (or father) falls short are actually essential to a child’s development.
I wish more people thought that way.
So I know I’m way late on commenting on this, but whatever…
I do this all the time, and it’s really not self-flagellating. When I (and from what I can tell, most of us who do this)say I’m a bad mother for some small infraction, I don’t actually believe it. If someone jumped in and honestly said something like, “I can’t believe you did something like that- you are horrible,” they would be torn down immediately.
This is more about getting rid of the perfect mother ideal. It’s about admitting our mistakes, and knowing that those mistakes are normal. When it’s normal to go outside and have a stranger tsk-tsk you for not having socks on a baby’s feet when its 75 degrees outside, you really need to have that reminder that it’s okay to make mistakes, and all of us have been accused of being bad mothers at one point in time.