Being a Mother in 2019

Happy Mother's Day! 

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking about what it's like being a mother in 2019.

Throughout history, mothers have loved their children fiercely, with a love that’s hard to adequately describe, and they have wanted their kids to be safe, strong, happy and healthy. Those feelings and desires, however, have been affected by the moment those moms have lived in history and the issues that they faced at the time, depending on the world those moms have lived in, and where in the world they have lived. I don’t know what it was like to be a mother in any age or any year before 2010, and I know that every mother throughout the ages has struggled with different problems, but what I can do today is describe what I feel it’s like to be a mom in 2019.

In talking with friends and managing my own feelings, I have noticed some themes surrounding motherhood in this current moment, and I want to acknowledge them here because I think we can be really hard on ourselves as moms—I think we feel a particular 2019 sort of pressure—but together, we can work toward relieving that pressure.

Pressure—I certainly feel a lot of pressure. Sitting like a heavy cloud, ready to rain, is the pressure to be a badass, hardworking, hustling mom. Pressure to do all the things. Pressure to plan kickass birthday parties, to look and feel your best, to feed your kids all the right foods. Pressure to keep it together. Pressure to keep up. Pressure to post great pictures. Pressure to #girlboss your way to the top and take advantage of the opportunities that women have today, for which other women have fought.  

We have the Internet, and thousands of moms who blog about their lives and even more thousands of moms that comment with their opinions about things. There are quickly-passing trends to follow and opinions to read about in order to make up your own mind about anything and everything related to raising kids. What’s the safest car seat? What should you feed your baby first? Should your baby sleep with you in your room or in their own room? Should you vaccinate or not? How much screen time should you allow? When should you give your kids their first phone?

There is so much discussion, so much banter about motherhood and its surrounding issues that we’ve created a lot of pressure live up to certain standards; otherwise, we can feel like failures.

Being a mother in 2019 can also be very isolating.

We have social media. We have Facebook, which “connects you with others.”

What they don’t advertise is the side effects, which may include: comparison depression, lack of absolute honesty (it’s just impossible), high risk of offending others, may actually separate rather than connect, or feelings of anxiety and fear about what’s going on in the world and what other people are doing that you aren’t (but should you?) This only threatens to compound the pressure we’re already feeling.

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram were intended to connect us with others, but they can often, ironically, isolate us from others. We can more easily default to communicating through our phones and computers. It makes sense because when you are home with the kids and can’t go out, you connect through social media. When you are up at 2 a.m. feeding your baby, you go on Facebook. When you are up at 4:30 a.m. because you woke up worrying and you can’t sleep, you scroll through Instagram. It seems like it takes a much greater, more conscious effort to make plans to actually see someone face-to-face. It’s just easier to go online.

Life in general is gradually feeling more isolated. We have self-checkouts, mobile orders and grocery delivery, all very convenient things that I use, but they do remove us another step from person-to-person interactions. We are encouraged to “visit us online!” or “book your appointment online!” instead of picking up the phone and calling to talk to a real person. We don’t call friends as much anymore; we text them. If someone calls me who usually texts me, I worry that there’s an emergency.  And what’s going on in our phones? We’re simultaneously in the middle of about 40 different text conversations or message threads that never really begin and never really end. It’s distracting. It can feel lonely.

A mother in 2019 also has a lot to worry about. Every mom has had worries when it comes to her child or children, and being a mother has probably been much more stressful in other ages, but 2019 has its own stresses; 2019 has its own brand of anxiety. Currently, there are staggering statistics about suicide in teens and young adults, the continuation of cyber bullying, sex trafficking, the dangers and effects of screen time and the creeps who post videos on YouTube that kids watch. We have to worry about what to allow our kids to do online, how to monitor their own social media accounts and who or what they may have been exposed to on the Internet that they may or may not tell us about. These Internet-related issues are parenting problems that our own mothers didn’t have—so how are we supposed to know how to deal with them?

I want to point all of this out because in this age of all of this pressure, the isolating world of our phones, all of these choices we have to make, all of this commentary we find ourselves reading online, all of these people we may offend, all of this hustling we have to do—this “proverbial” hot mess we find ourselves in that is 2019—we can help each other. We can relieve the pressure. We can dismantle the walls of isolation. We can support one another through these anxieties.

Go easier on yourself. I don’t know what it’s like to be a mom before 2010, but I can say that being a mom in 2019 comes with its own brand of hardships and challenges, and this doesn’t mean that you’re not a good mom. You’re living your life; you’re doing what you need to do, what you want to do, being the mom that only you can be for your kids. It wasn’t a mistake that you ended up with the kids you have. They ended up with you because you were the best one for the job.

Remember that even if you live your life differently than someone else, you were both faced with many of the same decisions.

Remember that we all just want our kids to be OK.

Remember that mothers have such a crucial, vital characteristic in common, which can be the point of connection with any other mother: we love our kids, and that’s what matters the most. It’s the quality of motherhood that has been innately within every mother since the beginning of time.

Remember that this is a LOT of pressure; we’re dealing with things that our parents didn’t have to deal with. To any parents raising kids since the Internet was created: we’re the first ones to navigate motherhood with the backdrop of the Internet. Googling our kids’ maladies in the dark hours of the morning, only to find out that it could be something more serious than just the flu. Wanting a few minutes of peace and letting the kids play video games for another half an hour, only to feel guilty about it later. Sending emails or booking appointments on our phones while half-listening to our kids. Struggling to “have it all,” whatever that means, and wondering why someone else on Instagram seems to have it together, but we don’t. Comparing instead of connecting. Setting our sights so high and feeling like failures when we can’t do the impossible.

Remember that we’re all meant to do different things and be different people, and if you can’t or don’t want to do what someone else does, well thank goodness; you are being who you are supposed to be.

Remember that we need community; we need face-to-face connection. Whatever you can manage, communicating with someone—period—is so crucial to our well-being as individuals and as mothers. Being part of a community relieves the pressures of motherhood.

We need to wrap our arms around one another, encourage one another, love one another—be 2019 mothers with one another. If you need someone to talk to, I would be honoured to listen.

I hope that acknowledging what it’s like to be a mother in this particular age, this particular millennium, century, decade and year, brings perspective and helps to justify all of the pressures, all of the guilt, all of the 2019 brand of exhaustion we face. If you had nothing else to do or to worry about except for the safety and well-being of your children, life would be complicated and challenging. But it’s more than that because we have a whole host of other things to worry about and do and succeed at, all at the same time.

Cheers to you, raising your kids in 2019. It’s a challenge we share, and if we don’t lose sight of it, we can build a community based on it and thrive.