I came across an insta post this week that really resonated with me. For anyone that doesn't have instagram, I_am_mum_bum made a short video articulating her guilt over the way she seems to have forgotten her values since becoming a mother. She explains she used to identify as really principled. She was an activist and campaigner for various environmental and animal rights causes, lived by really strict ecological and political principles, and generally defined herself as someone whose priority was to make a difference and be a force for good.
She explains that she just caught herself 'hoying an empty plastic mayonnaise bottle into the bin, instead of washing it out and recycling it'. She expresses shock and disappointment and guilt. But goes on to give a powerful and heartfelt explanation of how she just doesn't have time for anything any more, how depleted she feels, since her life began revolving around meeting the needs of her children.
I think there is something really important in this. It connected with a realisation that I had that maternal instincts are not necessarily or even ever an overall force for good. Though we tend to think of motherhood as soft and loving and selfless - and it is! -there is a dark truth too, which it creates a powerful and I think biological shift in our priorities that makes us insular, selfish, Karens who will sometimes protect our offspring to the exclusion of everything else.
There is evidence that oxytocin - the so-called love hormone - makes new mothers more racist as well as more devoted to their babies. And I suspect this goes a long way to explaining the well-known shift towards the political right that often occurs as people get older. We are all idealistic lefties in uni, but by middle age we often become a lot more Tory. Its often explained as being about home ownership and simple wealth accumulation. But I think the maternal thing probably makes a large contribution too. Socialists suddenly become elbows-out tiger mums. And struggle to see the irony.
Its also true, i think, and as explained by Mum Bum, that mothers are genuinely overwhelmed and under-resourced and this exacerbates the shrinking of their moral circle. They often don't have time or space to care for themselves, let alone anyone else who isn't their children. and i suspect there are political forces at work here too.
Keep the women exhausted and overstretched so they don't attend protests or power-broking council meetings. Keep them from being school governers and attending public hearings. Keep them from reading or thinking or meeting and they'll lose the ability to articulate their rage at all the men who have ripped them off and excluded them from the soft levers of power.
The drudgery that stems from their learned helplessness doesn't only ensure that we're doing work they don't want to do. It's also shutting us out and shutting down our resistance. It maintains our appearance in the eyes of young women as irrelevant and boring. It makes us really damn easy to ignore and manipulate. Directed to capitalism-friendly self-care until we truly believe we inhabit a dog eat dog world where the elbows must be out or the family ship will sink, be trampled in the societal rush towards smoother faces and larger cars.
I'm tired.
Yes, I know that I should stop scrolling instagram if i'm so tired but also, if you're thinking that but you're not a woman single parenting young children while working a full time job than you can get fucked.
