Will moms ever escape the motherhood penalty?
More than breakfast in bed, moms deserve respect. So, let's talk about the actual issues mom-figures face this Mother's Day.
Hi hi. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Thanks for opening your inbox to an old (or new, if you’ve recently joined us) friend. I honestly didn’t intend for this newsletter to stay dormant for this long — I honestly thought I’d take one or two weeks off to recover from a mix of physical fatigue & brain fog (covid) and burnout and exhaustion (work/writing-related things) but here I am, almost two months later, still recovering. But I actually missed writing this newsletter, so I’m back (with whatever effort I can sustain). 💜
Content warning: This issue talks about Mother’s Day — if this is a difficult topic for you, feel free to skip to the fun links at the very bottom.
Every time someone mentions a negative opinion1 around Mother’s Day, it’s usually one of two things — one, think of all the people who can’t celebrate Mother’s Day due to grief or estranged relationships and two, the ridiculous commercialization of the entire holiday.
Well, first things first — not wanting to celebrate Mother’s Day or feeling shitty that others are celebrating it when you can’t (for whatever reason) is 100% valid. We’ve already talked about how grief can hit extra hard when everyone else is (seemingly) happy and with their loved ones. Of course, there’s feeling horrible and then imposing your grief on others, but that’s not something I want to get into — I know that you understand the nuanced differences in this one reason.
The commercialization? Well, that’s the joy of living in a capitalist world. We’ll come to that in a bit.
Personally though, there’s something else that kinda bothers me about Mother’s Day. Not only does it feel incredibly performative and fake for the most part, but it also seems to reinforce the whole ‘motherhood is in your bones’ thing people say to women to entice them to have kids and fully adapt to being the quintessential mother figure.
Now let’s quickly get one thing clear — little ones making a cute card or doing something nice to appreciate their mother figures is not fake or performative. That’s not the part that bothers me.
No, the whole let’s-celebrate-moms-once-a-year, but then kinda leave them to fend for themselves for the rest of the time is what doesn’t sit right with me.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
It’s difficult to say how, when, and why Mother’s Day originated in every country. From worshipping the gods of the time to simply commemorating mothers who’d passed away during childbirth or early on in their kids’ lives, there are plenty of origin stories we can trace the ‘holiday’ to.
But the Mother’s Day we know (and love?) today came to be because of one Anna Jarvis, who wanted to commemorate her mom, a peace activist who cared for wounded soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War. She wanted there to be a day when moms around the country would be able to ask for their sons and husbands not to be killed in wars.
As the years went on, it turned into a cash grab, with companies coming up with marketing campaigns to tie gifting to Mother’s Day — understandably, Jarvis was pissed. She campaigned against the exploitation of the day and threatened some companies with lawsuits.
Now? Almost all the searches around Mother’s Day will garner gift ideas and last-minute things to do so your mom doesn’t feel like you’ve forgotten to celebrate her on the one day everyone acknowledges her efforts.
Mother’s Day is the one day off mother figures get from child and home care. Their partners make them breakfast in bed2 (who hasn’t seen some version of this on TV), and then they get the day off to chill and do whatever, as harried husbands deal with kids, allowing moms to rest.
Even in today’s modern society with its equal-seeming rights and laws, most of us have grown up with moms shouldering a bulk of the childcare and home responsibilities. In fact, thanks to the collapsing economy, most of us grew up with a working mother — she had to handle work, kids, and home all within the same 24 hours our dads had. And so, of course, the one day she gets off is for herself.
But Father’s Day is the opposite — it even originated because people felt that fathers needed to be a bit more involved and that involvement needed celebration.
Father’s Day, by contrast, is thought of as the day that Dad does spend with his children. It’s a day for a family barbecue, or to take Dad fishing or on some other activity he enjoys. Dad doesn’t need a break from all the caretaking he does all year — rather this is a day to engage him in family life.
The Motherhood Penalty vs The Fatherhood Premium
This is primarily what bothers me about Mother’s Day —it’s just one day. The other days of the year, no one really thinks about or does anything concrete to help them out (and not just around the house).
First, before women even become mothers, they’re trained to hone a maternal instinct in them (whether or not they have or want it). Most of us grow up with baby dolls that we care for, quickly teaching us that’s the right or final bit of our journey when we grow up.
Between that and giving birth, women have to deal with so much with their pregnancy, a mostly uncompensated and unacknowledged part of their familial life. A divorce lawyer’s reel made me realize that when couples split up and say, “Oh I bought this, and you got that, so let’s split it that way,” no one mentions the 9 months moms carried their kids. He theorizes that it’s probably because historically, men have been the breadwinners and women, the childcarers — but that’s not true anymore.
So moms who go through pregnancy put their bodies through a lot for 9 months. And then, the world rewards them with a 30% reduction in their income and fewer opportunities. This also applies to those who don’t go through pregnancy, don’t worry; the workforce discriminates fairly. This is the motherhood penalty — people assume moms are incompetent or less committed to their jobs. It can cost mothers up to $600,000.
If you push back, that doesn’t help — you’re just considered rude and unlikeable:
Highly successful mothers tend to be discriminated against in hiring and promoting decisions because they are viewed as less warm, less likeable and more interpersonally hostile.
Also, to become a highly successful woman you’ve got 10 years because research shows that your chances at landing a leadership position plummet right after (this is usually arpound the time women have their first child).
Women who are mothers receive competency ratings that are, on average, 10% lower than non-mothers, and are six times less likely to be recommended for hire. And while 26% of men are promoted or moved to a better job in the first five years of parenthood, just 13% of women can say the same. (Source)
Men who become fathers get higher wages, more opportunities, and increased respect at their workplaces, though — the fatherhood premium— isn’t that fun! It’s actually really nice, but it would be nicer if this applied to moms too.
That’s the professional and physical aspect. On the mental health front, most mothers shoulder almost all the mental load of raising their kids. Have you seen those videos where dads can’t even get their kids’ ages and current grades right, forget allergies and which doctor they consult? They infuriate me because if a mom didn’t know those things about her kid, no one would laugh, there’d just be so much criticism, and if they were based in the US, someone would threaten to call CPS.
This mental load isn’t even automatically shouldered by mothers— it’s expected and thrust on them by society. Schools will email moms even if dads have shared their emails. Moms are asked to volunteer their time and energy to school events. The internalized misogyny runs strong, pitting homemaker moms against career moms (those are actual terms) — it doesn’t matter; in the end, every mom loses against the system designed to favour their husbands/the dads.
So, all in all, Mother’s Day, while a great idea, needs to become a bit less performative. Instead of merely telling us what our moms would like as gifts from their website, maybe companies could:
Consider how they evaluate gaps in resumes and CVs that might be due to childbirth/childcare.
Support mothers who are returning to the workforce with adequate training and flexible working hours (after all, our society still expects them to handle a bulk of everything at home)
Ensure they’re paid fairly for the skills they bring to the table.
Understand that moms bring some hardcore management and dedication to their roles — you think it’s easy juggling so many things?
As individuals, I’m not saying that we have to stop celebrating this day — no, I’m gonna get my mom something as a thank you all the same, but it’s important to be aware that if they get one day to shine, we’ve got to make the spotlight bigger and talk about some critical issues they face every day.
To all the mothers/mom figures reading this, Happy Mother’s Day!
To all of you who struggle with this day but still read this issue: thank you, and I hope the hurt/pain eases.
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Stuff I found cool/interesting/funny over the last few weeks:
A fanfic about 2 fossils (like, legit, from the Triassic era) (h/t Sal from
)An exploration into our disappearing & broken focus (thank you reels/short form content/an insatiable desire for more & new) by me for Freelancer Magazine's latest issue.
200+ freezer meal prep recipes if you need inspo on what to cook for dinner this week.
Apparently, there's actual science behind positive affirmations! (h/t
)Apparently we can no longer embed tweets on Substack (something about a feud between Twitter & Notes, whatever). So here’s an image I’m trying to live by:
Image credit: @badwonton
🎁 Hehe.
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I liked this article that explores how the general criticism surrounding Mother’s Day is actually sexist.
On Mother’s Day, moms get gifts that thank them for their service throughout the year (spa days, breakfasts in bed, perfumes, etc.). But if you have kids or take care of a home (and this is primarily true for heterosexual relationships), on Valentine’s Day, many women get gifts that help them be better mothers and wives — kitchen appliances, homecare devices, etc. And let’s not even talk about the performative bouquets and platitudes you get for Women’s Day.