Courtesy | Unsplash
Imagine pulling up the archives of New York Magazine to find out your mom wished you had never been born.
Give it ten years, and some kid may do just that. A recent article from New York Magazine site The Cut features the stories of three young women who say they regret becoming moms. The story appears as the latest installment in “Oh, Baby,” a series that has set out to explore “how we made the choice — and whether we regret it.”
Ostensibly, the piece warns the wider world of the underplayed perils of parenting to help others make an informed choice. It reads more like a vent session for women to complain about their husbands and their mental health diagnoses to the World Wide Web.
“Parent regret is more common than you might think,” the introductory blurb to the symposium says. “The r/regretfulparents sub-Reddit alone gets around 70,000 weekly visitors who anonymously commiserate — though stigma makes it hard to admit in real life.”
The modest proposal is implied: Protect your sanity; avoid or abort the child.
After reading both the article and much of the sub-Reddit, I am convinced the social stigma against wishing away your children should, in fact, remain. The piece seeks to normalize the unnatural breakdown of a relationship that should form the basis of a healthy society.
There is a productive way to write about the difficulties of parenthood. This was not it.
All three of the women featured in The Cut cite real mental health struggles common in early motherhood: postpartum depression, body dysmorphia, and loss of identity or purpose. These struggles are real for many women and should not be ignored.
It is also worth mentioning that many families struggle to give their children the support they need due to financial hardship, distance from family, and jobs that won’t bend to a new lifestyle. More could be done to make raising children more affordable. But these difficult realities hardly redeem the message of the piece.
The Cut and its readers are not interested in finding ways to support families who struggle to provide for their children or women who feel lost in early motherhood. Instead, it suggests that everyone has been lying to you about the joys of family life. In reality, it says, motherhood is a trap that will strip you of your autonomy and make you wish you had never set eyes on your husband.
“I love our children and would never want them to think, ‘Mom and Dad would be happier if I wasn’t here,’” the first woman says. “I’m giving them the best life I can. But thinking about life without them, I’d be happier overall.”
“If I could go back, I would redo everything,” the second woman says. “My fantasy is an alternate universe where I graduated, went straight to a doctorate program, and lived alone.”
“It’s been a year. Genuinely, if there is a hell, I’ve been living in it since I gave birth,” the third laments.
“Destigmatizing” such a self-centered view of happiness and parenthood does not help these three women or anyone else planning to have children. Rather, it normalizes disorder and exploits the mental health struggles of these women to advance an anti-family agenda.
If anything deserves a social stigma, it’s wishing away your children in a public forum.
Moira Gleason is a senior studying English.
