Years ago, I asked a second wave feminist friend if she ever felt guilty about not wanting to be a mother. She didn’t hesitate. She looked me in the eye and said, “I’ll feel guilty about not wanting to be a mother when I live in a world that actually likes mothers.”
That line has stayed with me for decades, because she was right. We don’t live in a world that values mothers. We live in a world that despises them. If we truly cared about mothers, our maternal mortality rate wouldn’t be what it is. Mothers wouldn’t be so stressed, isolated, and financially insecure.
Instead, we sell women a fantasy. Ask how people manage childcare or what happens in the summer when you still have to work, and the answers get vague. What you’ll hear instead is, “But the baby will be so cute,” or “You’ll forget the pain once you see their face.” As if oxytocin will pay the rent. As if the glow of motherhood will erase the cost of childcare or the unpaid labor that keeps women trapped.
Even women who always knew they wanted children are furious at how much they were gaslit. They were told stories about joy and bonding, but not about how hard it is, how little support exists, or how much our culture actually resents mothers while demanding they carry the load.
That’s the truth: most mothers were never given informed consent. They knew they wanted kids, yes. But they weren’t given the full picture of the risks, the costs, the toll. They were only told the upside. And when we hide the truth, it isn’t an accident. It’s a tacit admission that motherhood, under patriarchy, is a raw deal. Everyone knows it. The men, the government, even the mothers themselves. That’s why the lies are necessary.
Because if women were told the truth, most of us wouldn’t do it.
