In honor of Mother’s Day this coming weekend, it feels rude and irresponsible not to devote this week’s post to all the moms out there, who we know are pretty much always doing more than the dads.
This blog itself is a perfect example. It’s theoretically about aspiring to be a great dad, but guess who typically gets stuck with doing the actual, unglamorous parenting while these words are being written?
I typically spend the mornings writing while my wife makes breakfast for our children, gets them ready for the day, and deals with all the associated chaos. Ideally she should have some time to work out, relax, or sleep a bit more. But by virtue of being a man, this financially irrelevant project takes precedence.
*Important disclaimer; our children don’t sleep, and when they finally do, I will wake up even earlier to write this. Occasionally I am able to write while everyone else is still snoozing. But if you really wanted to delve into our sleep situation for the past year, you’d be horrified.
With that, here are some things I’ve noticed about the unique difficulties of being a Millennial Mom:
Moms are pulled in way too many directions
The mid 2010s Netflix sitcom BoJack Horseman about a depressed talking horse may not be the most obvious fit for an article like this one, but bear with me.
One of the show’s main characters, Princess Carolyn, is a top Hollywoo talent agent and workaholic who, despite wanting to have a family, dates a string of immature, inadequate men out of a fear of being alone. Over the course of several seasons she begins to feel a deep void stemming from a desire to “have it all.”
When she finally settles down with a nice guy (er, mouse), they have trouble conceiving. She ends up leaving the guy and decides to adopt. She refers to her baby as the “Untitled Princess Carolyn Project,” who she is now tasked with developing in the same way as her clients.
In an arc that I’m guessing might sound familiar to many moms, she spends the last season discovering that trying to be a fully present mother while simultaneously sustaining her career trajectory is basically impossible.
Instead of having it all, she constantly feels like she is failing at both.
This all comes to a head during an episode in that revolves around a Manatee Fair magazine “Hollywood Women Who Have It All” photoshoot, which exposes the contradictory nature of the very statement.
Princess Carolyn initially doesn’t attend the event. As she notes, “I’m too busy doing it all to pose for a photo of Women Who Do It All.” But after being pressured and shamed into attendance, she makes a faux-pas in not knowing she was supposed to bring her child to the shoot—confirmation of sorts that she just can’t get anything right, in direct juxtaposition to the other women at the photoshoot who are apparently all perfect (they’re not).
In an article about this very episode, The Atlantic’s Hannah Giorgis astutely comments on what she describes as the “performative” nature of trying to have it all:
“Indeed, Bojack seems to understand how performative the job of trying to ‘have it all’ or ‘do it all’ can be. During the photo shoot, Princess Carolyn’s fellow honorees quickly find themselves agreeing to plan a grand ‘Do It All Ball’ to celebrate just how well they’re balancing everything in their life. Wanting to keep up, an already overworked Princess Carolyn agrees to help organize the event with her former nemesis Vanessa Gekko. Shadow cat figures multiply in the background.”
The “Do It All Ball” sounds pretty stressful. Not to mention, who will most likely be in charge of texting with the babysitter, making sure the kids have dinner, and picking up a prescription for their aging parent? All while somehow needing to find time to get ready for the actual event. And deal with a pressing matter at work.
You guessed it.
The Anxious Generation, Mom Edition
Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation primarily centers around how our newly always-online reality affects teenagers. As I wrote a few weeks ago, its sleight of hand is that in a way, it’s really about all of us.
Of course, I’m not a mom. But from living with one—and from constantly existing undercover-in-plain-sight amongst moms as a stay at home dad—I’ve noticed that the digital age seems to have fundamentally altered motherhood by turning the social comparison game into a never-ending MSNBC-style news ticker.
Here are some recent developments I’ve noticed in the era of the Millennial parent:
Similar to how social media brings high school hallway chatter to your teen’s pocket 24/7, there is something similar going on with motherhood. On a date? Not without constantly checking the baby monitor to make sure everything’s ok. Don’t want to look at the app? You must be a terrible mom. Want to just sit there and read a book? Better have the monitor up on your phone. Dad sure doesn’t, he deserves a break apparently.
The pernicious combination of social media and product marketing uniquely preys on the fears of parents. Don’t want to buy this $1,000 stroller? You must not love your child. This stuff is annoying for dads, and can only imagine how bad it is for moms.
I can’t say I’m super well versed in the world of mom influencers. But from what I’ve seen, the tradeoff of periodic great advice and (highly curated) relatability comes at a steep cost. By its very nature, social media influencer culture is highly filtered distortion of reality. It’s great trick is making it all feel attainable. If you also had an army of 7 people working for you, you could probably also have time for weekly trips to the spa while espousing the benefits of the simple parenting life.
We all know the friend who posts one thing, but the reality of their life is quite the opposite. For parents this can be uniquely infuriating, as these barely disguised misrepresentations can feel like an indictment on how you are raising your children, despite it all being knowingly fake.
Dads are doing more, but Moms are doing even more than that
The center-left everything pundit Derek Thompson recently wrote about modern fatherhood on his substack. (Thanks to subscriber Brian for sending this along).
Within this subset of graphs and conclusions that I’d encourage you to read—one great takeaway I got out of it: super-involved parenting is arguably a status signal that makes parenting more stressful for everyone—there is a section about motherhood. He observes that sure, dads are doing way more. But moms are doing even more than that.
Says Thompson (bold is mine, not his):
It’s not just that moms spend more time with kids. They also pick up the most stressful responsibilities. While fathers spend more time playing sports with their children, mothers spend more than twice as much time providing medical care, planning appointments, and taking care of the so-called mental load of parenting (i.e., not just driving your kid to the birthday party, but also remembering that classmate’s birthday party existed in the first place and buying a present ahead of time). In fact, the more stressful the childcare activity is, the more likely mothers are to do it.
An additional fact to consider is that 45% of mothers are now breadwinners, and an additional 24% are co-breadwinners (this is defined as earning at least a quarter of the family’s income, which I guess could be more loosely defined a “our family unit needs this job”).
A more blunt way to say this: While dads are always talking about how big and important their job is, moms are almost equally likely to have one. They just aren’t sitting around pontificating about it, because they’re also busy driving their kid around to dance class and engaging in an ongoing social comparison competition about everything else in life.
These days, women doing it all isn’t so much as an aspiration made possible by advances in the workplace. In many cases, it’s just the bare minimum for keeping food on the table and the household running.
On a personal note, I am especially grateful to all of the moms for a very particular reason. You probably aren’t surprised to learn that even though this initiative is called Millennial Dad Journal, the majority of subscribers are…well, I don’t have to tell you.
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