An Exploration into the Perils and Disillusionment of Motherhood

(A Research Narrative for Honors 101)

     Why would one want to be a mother in a world that seems to only make being a mother more difficult? Why would one want to be a mother in a world that tells her that she will never be good enough? Why would one want to be a mother in a world that restricts her access to proper prenatal care and childcare? Why would anyone want to be a mother at all? It is an often-selfless job that struggles to even be recognized as such, and when the outcome of a child is not expected or ideal, the mother is often the first to blame.  

     The role of the mother has arguably been at the center of what a family is. That family is part of an ecosystem that branches from a community that branches from a larger society that branches from the world. The mother is generally seen as the nurturer. In my own life, my mother has always been the more nurturing figure despite also being my disciplinary figure and working as an educator. For some time in my life, like many young girls, I dreamt of the wonderful life of a mother. However, with age and exposure, I know that motherhood has very little to do with having cute babies and cooking the newest cookie recipe. As the product of a mother and grandmothers who have been criticized endlessly because of the choices they made in response to the trauma that was inflicted upon them, there has been a constant struggle for me to understand how anyone could choose motherhood. This leads to the question at hand—how has the role of motherhood in society been tainted through societal pressure and criticism?

     In my Honors 101 course, Just Mercy, a memoir by Bryan Stevenson, was one of our primary assigned readings. This was my second time reading the memoir, and for the second time, the stories of both Marsha Colbey and Charlie resonated with me the most. In both stories, there was such a great focus on the role of the mother and the often-misunderstood pressures that accompany motherhood. Emotions were evoked within me that I typically felt when I would watch the women in my life struggle with domestic violence, selfish employers, and judgmental peers and family members. My mother would always say that she was staying for her children’s sake, but I just could not fathom what she meant, and honestly, I still struggle to. Why would you want your children to see you struggle for years and years? Was this my mother’s way of telling me that this is what I should tolerate in my own life for the sake of my children? Even though I sought out my mother’s thoughts on motherhood, these are questions I found too difficult to ask. It brings tears to my eyes that I wish I could avoid. Therefore, I first started to investigate why many mothers stay in dysfunctional families that are often a detriment to their well-being.  

     One vital aspect to the livelihood of a mother is her mental well-being, which has often been overlooked in the modern world. If the mental health of the mother is lacking, then the overall functionality of the entire family is bound to be depleted. One of the clearest ways this characteristic is displayed is through post-partum depression (PPD), which is defined as a type of depression seen in individuals who have recently given birth due to fatigue, psychological implications of birth and parenthood, and hormonal changes (Williams, 2024).    

     PPD is of particular interest to me because of the role it played in several of my mother’s pregnancies. My mother gave birth to four children between the ages of 24 and 33, and with every one of us, as I know through talking to my mother for years and our recent conversations for this essay, there were a host of struggles with us all, both domestically and with proper healthcare. As an African American woman, this only added an additional layer of difficulty for her. “We found low levels of postpartum depression treatment among all low-income women in our study, with particularly low treatment initiation rates for black women...The differences in initiation and continuation of care uncovered in this study imply that a disproportionate number of black women and Latinas who suffer from postpartum depression do not receive needed services” (Kozhima​nnil et al., 2011). Even though my mom was not considered low-income during her last two pregnancies, she still faced financial hardships in addition to continued tolerance of domestic disputes with her partners. I am my mother’s youngest child, and the sibling I am closest in age to is not even eleven months older than me. My mother exclaimed, “I was just so tired of being pregnant. I felt hopeless.” My mother never received any formal diagnosis or special treatment in response to these internal struggles. She was officially a mother of four young children who required her to give her all in order for them to thrive. Eventually, with her responsibilities as an educator and financial contributor to our family, she had to return to the daily toils of her career while balancing raising four children. Of course, life should not just stop moving on account of a woman’s personal struggles, but not even being given much sympathy by those around you can be heartbreaking. 

     As I continued to seek out more information to help me better understand what motherhood looked like in my family, I knew I had to understand more about my maternal grandmother. With her passing due to complications from her decades-long battle with kidney failure, I went to inquire with my mother.
     Before my mother was even a mother, her mother (my maternal grandmother) had four children between the ages of 15 and 20. My maternal grandmother married my grandfather soon after the birth of her first daughter. However, their relationship was filled with manipulation and abuse—both physical and emotional. Eventually, my grandfather left his family for Ohio towards the final years of the Great Migration. By the time she was twenty years old, my grandmother had the task of raising and providing for four daughters on her own. By the grace of God, there were family members that my aunts and mother had, but much of the parental pressures fell on my grandmother. “Moreover, 91% of the mothers with PTSD had not obtained psychiatric services for their children...indicating the importance of programs designed to encourage abused mothers to obtain early mental health interventions for their children. In a related finding, the mothers with PTSD tended to underestimate the distress experienced by their children” (Chemtob & Carlson, 2004). My grandmother had been through so much trauma at such a young age, but it was such a common occurrence in 1960s-70s Mississippi, and no one was coming to save her but herself and God. Like my grandmother, so many young women are faced with the harsh realities of single motherhood, which adds on an additional layer to the already difficult role of a mother. However, her daughters carried some of those same burdens with them through childhood and into adulthood.

     My mother recounted a day when she was in high school and needed to visit the local laundry mat. As she graced into the establishment, there was a gentleman loitering around the washing machines as people walked in. That man was her father. That man was my grandfather. That man had become a drug addict. My mother could count on her fingers the times she had seen her father since her adolescence had begun, but she knew that it was him, and there was a sense of emptiness that came with that. “For women...their identities are achieved through relationships with others...They tend to define themselves based on the quality of their relationships with family, friendships, as well as any other kind of relationship...Therefore, the lack of a father-daughter relationship for a girl may make her feel incomplete as an individual” (Castetter, 2020). Nearly every child, especially a daughter, yearns for the love and affection of a father, but my mother never received that. After interviewing my mother, who was the product of a single mother, much of her reasoning in her decision to stay with my father stemmed from a fear of failure and a fear that she was incapable of giving us all we needed on her own. It pains me to recognize that my mother’s trials throughout her life caused her to make certain decisions, but I completely understand, and the things that I have experienced in my childhood and adolescence will likely influence how I proceed with my future relationships. 

     I still am not sure about how millions of women have taken up the torch of motherhood and freestyled their way to success. Frankly, even if I was to become a mother--which I still have hope for despite the struggles--I am not sure I will ever understand. I know that there will be times where I fail as a mother, but I have an inherent fear of my children viewing me as a failure. There is this fear that when I send them to their rooms for nightly prayers, they will pray for God to send them another mother—perhaps, they will wish for one who is more equipped to help them with school activities, or one that does not work so much, or one that is nurturing enough to cure all their ailments with a smile.

     Biologically, a female is born with all the eggs she will ever have. This means that when a woman is carrying her female children, she is also carrying her grandchildren. From my maternal grandmother’s four daughters, she also carried the weight of thirteen grandchildren, and there is such a beauty in this that many refuse to ponder on. The sacrifices of a mother are some of the greatest imaginable. God created the human female body to carry other living beings within itself. Every kick, breath, and heartbeat start with the mother. The toll that the body must go through to birth life is revolutionary, and the raising that occurs thereafter sets the tone for the whole of humanity. There is no society without the mother, and dare I say, without the mother, many more would be eternally lost in this ever-changing world. ​

In honor of my beautiful grandmother—MamaJean. May I grow to be as resilient, giving, and exceptional as you were. I love you.