Why Women Hate Mother's Day

No, I’m not all women, but I’m nonetheless sending out a special Substack today to try to educate men about why women hate Mother’s Day.

The quick answer is simple: patriarchy.

Misogyny also has to be high on the list.

What am I talking about? Surely Mother’s Day is the opposite of misogyny. Ah, but it isn’t.

Mother’s Day is when the patriarchy tells women what the expectations are. And those expectations are enormous.

No, fathers do not have these kinds of expectations enforced on them. That is why Father’s Day is both “not a big deal” and sometimes men insist that they should get the kind of “fuss” that women do on Mother’s Day. Yeah, no. They don’t want that.

Fatherhood is easy. It begins as easy at the beginning. Women are the ones who carry life within them. You can make this sacred and say how incredible it is all you want, but if you have never done it, I’m probably not going to think much about your opinion. The rash of horrible new laws denying women bodily autonomy that are being passed across the country after the fall of Roe v. Wade are one example of the thousands of ways in which women are told at every point in their lives that their bodies do not belong to them. They belong to “the baby.”

If you’ve ever been pregnant, you know that it’s not just about the lack of energy you feel while being pregnant, nor the awkwardness of a body that has been taken over by a parasite (albeit human). It isn’t just that you have to eat more food, but a specific kind (healthy—for the baby) and that you have to take vitamins and go through classes that are solely to teach you how to manage the pain that will be coming soon and that you haven’t ever faced before, nor can you actually prepare for it because no one knows what it will be like for you, how long it will last, or what the ultimate result of labor will be (at best, a healthy baby, but there are changed to your body that will never be reversed).

Pregnant women experience dozens of microaggressions a day. From men who want to touch their stomachs to strangers staring at their size (or trying to guess if they’re pregnant or not) to everyone on the planet thinking it is their business to tell the pregnant woman that she can’t have alcohol, or caffeine, or tunafish, or xys (whatever the latest “scientific study” shows that pregnant women can’t have). You don’t belong to yourself anymore.  You are a vessel that is carrying human life. You are supposed to be grateful for all this “attention” and for people telling you what to do that’s “best for the baby.”

Then, when you’ve actually given birth, you discover that the microaggressions haven’t stopped. They may have, in fact, gotten worse. Because now everyone will have an opinion on how you’re raising the baby. Are you breastfeeding? Co-sleeping? When are you introducing solid foods? What about peanut butter? What about wheat?

Fathers are never EVER told that it is their sole responsibility how their child turns out. They simply are not. Occasionally, yes, they might face accusations of not being “strict” enough. That is all. Let me tell you that it’s not like that for women who become mothers. We are constantly told that we have to do everything for our children. And also that if we get it wrong (which we will because the information is constantly changing), it will be our fault. If our child is anxious, the mother’s fault. Autistic, because of a cold mother. Angry, because we didn’t give them enough of what they wanted.

Enjoy motherhood, ladies!

And then there’s Mother’s Day, where you will hear sermons at church about “angel mothers” who have given up all of their own interests and every moment of time to themselves for their children. They get this one day to savor that worship.

After Mother’s Day, it will be another year before anyone thanks a mother for her sacrifices. Instead, back to the list of failures and selfish acts that every father takes for granted. Going to the bathroom alone? How dare you?! Your child needs you every moment of every day. Your child hurt another child? You haven’t raised them properly. Your child still sucks their thumb? You aren’t building their self-esteem.

But you know, Mother’s Day. One day a year where you’re told exactly how perfect you are expected to be, yeah, that will make it all better. One day a year where someone will buy you a token gift that shows they know nothing about you because you suppressed all of your personal interests and even personality to try to become perfect so how could they get you a perfect gift? But be grateful for it. Because that is all you will ever get.

Subsidized childcare? Nope.

Shared responsibility for parenting with fathers? Likely not.

Universal medical care for your own birth and your children’s health? Of course not,  you greedy bitch. That’s on you.