Lately, I keep hearing these questions: if motherhood is so tough, why does anyone do it? Why don’t we talk about the good bits of parenting ? Where are all the happy mums? “As someone who is still on the fence about having children, I feel like I’m overwhelmed by negative stories,” explained Eleanor Halls on Straight Up , the podcast she co-hosts with fellow journalist Kathleen Johnston. “I have got to a place now where I am craving not idealised, glossed-over versions of motherhood and birth, but just nice ones—nice, positive stories that don’t dwell on all the tears and the marriage breakdowns and the regret.” Meanwhile, on a recent episode of Australian podcast Shameless , host Michelle Andrews expressed similar feelings: “I keep being swamped with content that is telling me it will be terrible for my mental health, terrible for my body, terrible for my marriage.
And I want a baby, I really do,” she said, “[but] I don’t want to sacrifice my happiness that I have now for a promise of, ‘Well, it’ll be worth it.’ None of you can actually tell me why .” Listening to Andrews—who spoke with generous vulnerability, making no attempt to disguise her clear frustration and fear—I felt a distinct pang of guilt because she’s right: both online and IRL, so much of the contemporary discourse around birth and motherhood dwells deeply on the more difficult aspects of those experiences, and my own work is no exception to that.
And while I stand by my .