Good Life:

Motherhood In The Modern World

This week, social media saw many conversations about motherhood and marriage. It was hard to decide which one to address for the newsletter. Still, my mind kept returning to one story that couldn’t get out of my head.

Singer Chapel Roan commented on the Call Her Daddy podcast, claiming that all her female friends who were mothers hated their lives. She laughed as she said she didn’t know a single mother who loved her life. 

I can’t stop thinking about how her words will affect millions of single women. Here you have arguably one of the most famous artists right now speaking on a podcast primarily for single females, telling them that motherhood is not just a waste of their time but the worst imaginable outcome for their lives. 

This is more than just societal destruction on a large scale; it is soul-crushing. It’s clear that she entirely misunderstands the value of motherhood. 

But that is entirely because she has never experienced the joy. So, I decided to dispel some of the most common mistruths surrounding this vocation. 

I know it’s not socially acceptable to say this, given our culture, but women are meant to be mothers. Not after they become successful or travel the world. This should be every woman’s dream. It’s entirely a modern societal norm for women to believe that motherhood is optional and not part of the way they were designed. 

Of course, there are some who want to have children but, for whatever reason, cannot. But that’s not who I am talking about here. I am speaking to the women who choose not to have children and look down on those of us who do. 

One of the hardest things about being a mother in our modern world is not having children or the trying toddler years. It’s defending our lives against those like Roan who mock us for bringing life into this world and bravely work to raise them. 

“Oh, but motherhood changes you. Don’t you want to have agency over your life and not be dictated by the whims of a 3-year-old?”

I can’t deny that motherhood changed every part of my life. I carried four lives inside my body. I never knew I could be capable of something so profound. While pregnancy and childbirth physically changed me, they also fundamentally altered the way I saw the world. This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I can never thank God enough for blessing me. 

I think the women who scream the loudest about never wanting to be mothers are really just terrified about losing the current version of themselves. 

To them, I say, “Let her go.” 

Eventually, she comes back to you, but just in a better version. It’s not that you lose yourself entirely. You learn more about yourself raising children than you ever could being alone. 

Motherhood is hard. I always describe it like you are in the fog of war. There’s no denying that it will test your mental fortitude. The cliche about mothers being exhausted and rundown is popular because it’s true. Women are undoubtedly responsible for the majority of the childcare and housework. 

But with every victory gives you the chance to reset. It’s not always going to be potty training and temper tantrums. While new stressors take their place, it does get easier. Then, before you know it, you are suddenly begging for these years back. You’ll want to give your daughter another high five for a successful potty run or see a spit-up rag hanging out on the counter. 

I always tell young moms when they are struggling that going from zero to one child is the hardest. That’s the initial shedding of your selfishness. But after you have your second child it gets easier because you are familiar with the path that lies ahead.

These women came to their friend to unload some of the heaviness they were feeling during this changing season of life, and in return, she used them as a punch line. They would have been safer finding another mother to talk to, but they are still desperately clinging on to their relationship with her and likely felt they could count on her for support.

Someone like Roan can’t understand this because she has never lived it. They do not hate being mothers. They are experiencing the most incredible transformation of their lives and hoped to share this with their friend. Instead, she betrayed them. 

Mothers are the most important members of society because God created us, and us alone, to experience the physical and emotional changes of parenthood. The bravest women in our society embark on this journey. The weak ones go on podcasts and mock them for it.