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Healing Out Loud's avatar

All of this 😭😭😭

The ideal mother is selfless, as in self-less, as in has no needs and no self and no existence outside of her role as mom.

People say, “but you’re such a great mom!”

And like, thanks, but I miss being seen as a person.

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Jessica Mills's avatar

It’s always rubbed my up the wrong way how women are no longer their own person after having a child🙃You are so much more outside of being a mother!!

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Healing Out Loud's avatar

Me too, except that I didn’t see it happening in myself until I was spiraling toward the bottom. As I dragged myself back up I realized I couldn’t continue this way, and not only did my pleas for support fall on deaf ears, but my ex husband continuously told me I was overreacting and that “other women would be fine with this” and that his mom and therapist “were both stay at home moms and they said it’s not as hard as you’re trying to make it seem.” The harder I pushed trying to get support and the more I stopped doing for him because I simply *couldn’t* anymore, the more abusive he got, until I finally had to take the kids and go stay with my family where it was safe.

There’s a reason that the likelihood of postpartum depression skyrockets in women who live in inequitable households.

Being an actual single mom is so much better than living like I was, but it’s still hard to find the balance, especially when my kids are so little still.

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Schminkie's avatar

So you’re pissed off right? I think I got that. I don’t have experience with childbirth or children. I did this on purpose. So everything in your piece comes as a surprise. Not a good surprise.

In my entirely life It never occurred to me that women were second class persons. Hardly. My family included two strong women. should one want to deem them inferior to men in any way they would make their life a living hell. Someone tried to cut ahead of her at the deli counter. You could hear her all the way from Long Island to Kansas.

Imagine a woman/mother experiencing everything you’ve experienced, but without a national health system. Welcome to America.

Ps. I hope you’ll read my first of many posts. Coming attractions: the diary of the chambermaid of Marcel Proust.

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Taylor V's avatar

I agree that without moms society would probably crash. I think women in general don't get the respect they deserve, especially moms. Once a woman has a baby then society congratulates that new mom then tells them to survive. There are people who want to provide assistance to new moms, but there are more people who act against that and those same people wonder why women are having less babies. Moms do the hard part, and if only society could help take some weight off of their shoulders.

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