In the chaotic dance of modern life, women are often expected to pirouette seamlessly between two conflicting realms: their motherhood and their career. It’s a relentless performance where the spotlight rarely shines on the real struggles beneath the surface.
Let’s strip away the facade and confront the raw truth: Being a mother while pursuing a career is a Herculean task, and the stage is set against us from the start, but picking an alternative path as a woman is sometimes judged harshly, too.
Today, the pressure to excel professionally while nurturing a family feels more suffocating than ever. Despite promises of equality and progress, the reality often feels like a cruel joke where women are scrutinized for any option they choose, whether it’s being a traditional wife and stay-at-home mom or a career woman. The myth of “having it all” perpetuated by newer-wave feminists has left countless mothers feeling like failures when they inevitably fall short in one arena or the other.
I want to also add that by stating the above, I’m not a “right-wing conservative bigot.” I’m simply stating the obvious truth and one that I’ve experienced myself. As a millennial, I was raised in a society that was embracing the plight of feminism and the struggles of women who came before me and fought for equality. I truly believe those traditional first waves of feminists who worked tirelessly to gain women the right to vote, to have legal rights and equality before the law, to be protected against gender-based violence, etc. were an example to follow.
What I don’t support is taking these foundations and warping young women’s minds into wastelands of total hate and a desire to eradicate any value traditional ideals such as motherhood and family have. Moreover, I don’t support the propagation of hatred towards all men.
While it’s true that some men can be absolutely scary and terrible, it’s also important to acknowledge that some men can be protectors, honourable, allies, decent and so on. And some traditional roles that some women are more than happy to subscribe to, even if I may not agree with them in one way or another, can be valid. We need to get away for this “all or nothing” extreme thinking. I thought the whole point was about women having the right to choose the direction of their lives.
This brings me to elaborate on my central experience: the paradox of motherhood in the 21st-century, for that is the path I chose and can speak intimately about.
Motherhood in the 21st century
The bitter pill to swallow is this: Women are penalized professionally for embracing motherhood, and taking time off to raise children is seen as a career detour or demotion rather than a valid life choice.
Motherhood is no longer exalted and honoured, and being a stay-at-home parent prioritizing your children’s spiritual, mental and emotional well-being isn’t seen as productive or valued. Promotions slip through our fingers like sand as we watch our childless counterparts sprint ahead in the corporate race, all while being fed the lie that enriching the one percent will lead to eternal fulfillment, regardless of the sacrifices made or the regrets that may follow.
The irony of this is that all the tasks completed by mothers every day have monetary value assigned to them the moment you outsource that exact work, and the skills mothers attain in juggling and “project managing” so many competing priorities are valued as transferable skills when discussed in different fields of work.
Again, I’ll reiterate, to those women who are happy climbing the corporate ladder to the very top and feel fulfilled, all the power to you. You’ll likely be mocked at some point for not having children, and that’s not cool, either. But the point is, it should be OK that it’s your choice, just like the alternative should be my choice without penalty.
Regardless, it also appears as though the glass ceiling may have cracked, but its shards still pierce through the dreams of ambitious mothers who dare to challenge it.
We’ve been sold a bill of goods
We’ve been sold a bill of goods disguised as empowerment—the false promise that we can seamlessly balance career ambitions with motherhood without sacrificing one for the other. But the truth is far harsher. The reality is that something always gives.
Whether it’s missing out on bedtime stories for a late-night conference call or skipping school plays for a crucial meeting, the guilt gnaws at our souls like a relentless predator. Unfortunately, society does a mediocre job at providing the social infrastructure women need to be able to consciously choose a better path for themselves. In the workplace, things like accessible and affordable childcare, along with comprehensive parental leave and sick policies, usually aren’t available to most. If they are, they’re incredibly limited. Similarly, flexible work arrangements are often lacking, leaving women feeling trapped between the demands of career and family.
Without robust support systems in place, the choice to prioritize one’s well-being and family life over corporate ambition can feel like an impossible luxury reserved for the privileged few. Most of us mothers are also faced with the growing costs of surviving in this economy and having to work, even if we’d like to stay home and be more present for the essential formative years of our children.
And let’s not forget the vanishing village. In a world where communities are crumbling quicker than sandcastles at high tide, the burden of motherhood becomes even heavier. Millennials, in particular, find themselves adrift in a sea of isolation, lacking the support networks that previous generations took for granted. The days of dropping in on a neighbour for a cup of sugar or relying on extended family for childcare are fading memories, replaced by the cold glow of screens and the hollow echo of loneliness. Motherhood in the 21st century can feel incredibly isolating.
Let’s embrace true feminism
It’s high time for society to stop paying lip service to the ideals of feminism (and adjacent ideologies that have hijacked what the movement once stood for) and start walking the talk. True feminism is about choice—honouring a woman’s right to decide her own path, whether it leads to the corner office or the kitchen sink. We must reject and dismantle the structures that penalize mothers for their choices and erect new ones that support them instead; we owe this to our future generations.
True feminism is about choice—honouring a woman’s right to decide her own path, whether it leads to the corner office or the kitchen sink.
That means affordable and accessible childcare, paid parental leave, flexible work arrangements and a cultural shift that values family and motherhood as much as corner-office ambition. It means recognizing that the pursuit of motherhood is just as valid and worthy as the pursuit of a career, and that women shouldn’t have to pay a professional toll for choosing the former.
So, to all the mothers out there struggling to keep all the balls in the air: You’re not alone. Your worth is not measured by the number of promotions on your resume or the accolades on your LinkedIn profile. You’re warriors, navigating treacherous terrain with grace and grit. And it’s high time the world started recognizing that.
Until society catches up and remembers that truth, we’ll keep fighting for a world where motherhood isn’t a barrier to success, but a spiritual gift and a badge of honour.
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imágenes: Depositphotos
