Motherhood Isn’t Sacrifice, It’s Selfishness

RisingWorld 2017-08-05

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Motherhood Isn’t Sacrifice, It’s Selfishness
Motherhood is not a sacrifice, but a privilege — one that many of us choose selfishly.
We would spend days by the ocean and take trips to the boardwalk, where they would scream with delight while riding the roller coaster
— the same one I’d ridden when I was their age, then ridden alongside them until Hurricane Sandy deposited it into the Atlantic.
A woman is expected to sacrifice her time, ambition and sense of self to a higher purpose, one more worthy than her own individual identity.
I don’t believe for one second that motherhood is the hardest job in the world nor that it is all sacrifice.
When we cling to the idea of motherhood as sacrifice, what we really sacrifice is our sense of self, as if it is the price we pay for having children.
One male character declares that the woman must “learn in silence with all subjection” and
that “she shall be saved by childbearing.” In this scenario, the act of motherhood is subverted for the benefit of those in power, and they get away with it because of the concept of motherhood as sacrifice.
Calling motherhood “the hardest job in the world” misses the point completely because having
and raising children is not a “job.” No one will deny that there is exhaustion, fear and tedium.
When my mother asked what we would be doing on our vacation, I told her we would be together — going to the beach
and the nearby amusement park, cooking, playing in the yard.
By reframing motherhood as a privilege, we redirect agency back to the mother, empowering her, celebrating her autonomy instead of her sacrifice.
In my experience, when women talk among women, our ambivalence or frustration is rarely about our roles as mothers.

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