Postpartum? More Like Postpersonhood

The moment a woman gives birth, the world treats her like a used portal. A walking feeding station with eyebags and emotional bruises. Her name disappears. Her phone autocorrects to “Mum.” Suddenly, her value is gauged not by her dreams, desires, or Spotify Wrapped, but by how well she can fold a buggy with one hand while bleeding out of multiple orifices. The baby gets an NHS number, a balloon, a hashtag. The mother gets adult diapers and a personality deletion.

Historically, we’ve never really liked mothers as people. The Greeks made them tragic. The Church made them saints. Disney made them dead. And capitalism? It made them invisible until it needed a Mother’s Day sale. In most Western societies, once a woman gives birth, she’s meant to absorb into the wallpaper. Caregiving is seen as natural, which is a euphemism for unpaid. Even now, most maternity policies read like they were written by a man who thinks “perineum” is a brand of Italian wine.

They didn’t forget mothers. They designed a world that runs better when we stop seeing them. The erasure of women post-motherhood isn’t a side effect; it’s the whole business model. As long as we see motherhood as a divine duty and not a labour, society doesn’t have to pay for it. We get women to perform 24/7 unpaid domestic and emotional work, then tell them they’re blessed. Like being permanently exhausted, under-resourced, and praised only in sentimental fridge magnets is some kind of spiritual upgrade.

Let’s sprinkle in some stats, because we love empirical rage:

• In the UK, women are 64% more likely than men to lose earnings in the five years after having children.

• 43% of working mums consider leaving their jobs due to lack of flexibility.

• In heterosexual households, women still do 60% more unpaid care work.

• And (this one’s a crowd-pleaser) maternal mortality in the US is three times higher than in 1987. We call it modern medicine. Mothers call it Russian roulette with a breast pump.

When a man becomes a dad, he gets applauded for attending school plays and frying an egg. When a woman becomes a mum, she gets three new types of guilt, a crushed pelvic floor, and exactly zero tax relief. One gets a bonus at work. The other gets told she’s ‘letting herself go.’ She’s not letting herself go. She’s just trying to pee without someone knocking on the door to ask where the crisps are.

Ah yes, the mythical “good mum.” She’s selfless. Smiling. Makes organic porridge from scratch while planning stimulating playdates that involve no screens, no gluten, and definitely no screams into a pillow. The good mum is gentle, grateful, and always has time for crafts. She also doesn’t exist. She’s a cultural hallucination created to keep mothers too busy comparing themselves to ever organise a revolution. Because the truth is: if mums stopped caring for one day, the economy would collapse before your oat milk could froth.

Here are just a few of the offences women commit once they become mothers:

• Having a personality (Jail)

• Wearing crop tops post-childbirth (Prison, no parole)

• Not losing the baby weight fast enough (Public stoning via Instagram comments)

• Going on holiday without the kids (UN sanctions)

• Daring to want sex, silence, ambition, or a sandwich without interruption (Excommunication)

• Breastfeeding in public? “Disgusting.” Not breastfeeding? “Neglect.”

• Having a nanny? “You don’t love your child.” Not having help? “You’re a mess.”

When we turn mothers into martyrs, we don’t just harm women — we harm everyone. Children grow up watching exhausted women disappear. Partners lose their lovers and gain live-in staff. Society loses thinkers, artists, scientists, and comedians because the labour of motherhood is so isolating, so unpaid, and so misunderstood that even writing a joke about it feels like a betrayal. But I’m not betraying mothers by mocking the system. I’m betraying the system by reminding you: these women had names, dreams, playlists, and hot girl summers before they were renamed “Mum.”

So here’s the radical idea: mothers are people. They don’t stop being people when a placenta exits their body. They don’t become ghosts in gingham. They’re not saints. They’re not sacrificial lambs. They are women. Human. Tired. Brilliant. Messy. Deserving. Of help, of time, of pay, of care. The next time someone says, “She’s just a mum,” correct them. Say: “She’s just holding the world together and hasn’t screamed once today. What have you done?”