Millennial Mom-hood
“I know some women who have decided to forgo motherhood altogether — not out of an empowered certainty that they want to remain child-free, but because the alternative seems impossibly daunting. Others are still choosing motherhood, but with profound apprehension that it will require them to sacrifice everything that brings them pleasure.” In Vox, Rachel M. Cohen writes about “How Millennials Learned to Dread Motherhood.”
As an old millennial, I feel compelled to say that being a mom is awesome and easily one of the most interesting and meaningful things that’s ever happened to me. But talking about how great it is can feel like tempting the gods. As Cohen notes in her piece, “When I started asking women about their experiences as mothers, I was startled by the number who sheepishly admitted, and only after being pressed, that they had pretty equitable arrangements with their partners, and even loved being moms, but were unlikely to say any of that publicly.”
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Wow. So much to say here. I'm a Xennial. I love my children, but the burden here is no joke! I guess you can say I "have it all." But I definitely don't want it all! I have a decent income and a supportive partner, and this is HARD. The village is gone. Daycare is as expensive as college tuition, and NO ONE talks about that. It's understandable that people might want to avoid parenthood, because modern society is not set up to support the modern parent.
I'm an elder Millenial with 4 kids. We are by ourselves. Our families have zero interest in us or our kids. Every kind of help is extremely expensive. Food is so expensive. We own a small business and I'm fortunate that I don't have to clock in at a desk job, but that means there's no downtime at all for either of us.
Good read. In recounting all the various studies examining parental satisfaction vs. burnout, I do wonder if anyone parsed by kid age. Because dang, being a parent of an under 5 is a *thing.* You lose much more agency and control of your time when you have young kids. Older kids, it's a different ballgame. Or, I hope it is, as I'm the burned out elder millennial parent of a 3.5 year old.
My partner and I turned 40 this year; we’re parents to a four- and six-year-old. We absolutely dove undersea to bring two tiny people two years apart into our family, eyes wide open and with thoughtful intention. We knew our wider families would be unavailable. It’s been simultaneously divine — to let go of most of the things we cared about pre-parenthood in order to survive and achieve some level of peacefulness in our being — and agonizing to come up for air a few years later with wispy senses of self outside of work and childcare. Timed with midlife, creakier bodies, and many years of careers ahead of us, we’re now searching for our separate creative identities without imploding the family we worked so hard to make. Not sure if this advertises to other millennials that we’ve felt having children is worth it? We do, and woof.
Only a few more years into the game with 5 and 7 year olds, early 40s, both of us with full time jobs, no support, there is some real light after the sub 5 years. We're still taxed by it but the frenetic, perpetual engagement home energy of the early years has started to ebb and flow more. More frequent board games and occasional independent play/reading become welcome moments to enjoy the present (along with an easier discussion for each parent to get self time). The expression about life with kids being "twice as hard and ten times as rich" still resonates.
I hadn't heard that -- twice as hard and 10 times as rich. That resonates for me, too. Thank you.
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