Recently, a trend went viral over the internet. “It’s their first time living too” is the name of this series of videos that claimed that mothers deserved empathy and kindness, since they were also humans that were learning and living for the first time.
This media showed moms receiving surprises or gifts from their children and encouraged viewers to try to be more empathic and to see mothers as people who were learning too and could make mistakes.
This topic could not be more relevant than now, since we’ve arrived on Mother’s Day! Despite the various personal feelings that may come to the surface around this holiday, one thing is universal: it’s one of the only times in the year that we really put our mothers in the spotlight.
Yes, we care about them but when will we really pay attention to what’s behind this trend and the impossible impeccableness expected of motherhood if not now? Let’s dive into it.
The pressure for perfection and its price
When we’re kids, we’re taught by society that our moms are there to: take care of us, teach, play, advice, be a shoulder to cry on, call us out when necessary, take care of us when we’re sick and basically, to be our perfect tower of strength. But who’s their tower of strength? As we get older, their insecurities and doubts start to be more perceptible for us.
Afterall, we can’t just expect mothers to shove their imperfections away, but actually this is what makes them human. Although they are adults and have kids, they’re still individuals who have their own dreams, doubts, fears, experiences and lives.
This kind of imposed expectations of being the perfect parent while also being a working mom “most of the time”,who has to actively participate in every aspect of their kid’s lives despite being overwhelmed with work, chores or even personal problems, and who was to abdicate of their own desires and needs in order to be a “great mom” can be very draining and lead to comparison with other parents and the feeling of never being good enough.
Since they often don’t have the support system needed to help them with the child’s basic needs, mothers can often get overwhelmed and develop serious mental health problems, such as anxiety or depression.
A character, Marlo, from the movie Tully (2018) is the perfect example that this pressure for perfection can cost mothers their well-being, mental health and drain their inner-peace. She’s a suburban mother of three who has to deal with postpartum depression while taking care of her newborn and her 2 other kids, one of whom has special needs.
Although she’s super overwhelmed and exhausted, her husband doesn’t do much to help. Things only start to get better when a babysitter, Tully, steps into the scene. Then, all the weight that Marlo has in her shoulders gets a little lighter, since she has a little helper to cope with the hard job of being the raiser of her many kids.
In conclusion, not only women in general have to try to achieve these impossible standards of perfection in motherhood but also to pretend that they’re fine when they have to carry the weight of the world over their shoulders. Mental health is hyper important, especially for mothers who are overwhelmed, but is still overlooked in our society.
Being somebody’s mother and the individualism paradoxes
When a woman becomes a mother, society usually stops viewing her as a living and breathing individual and starts to view her as somebody’s mother. Somebody who has to always do the right thing, at the right time and has no right to have flaws. Just by being a woman there’s already a pressure; there are so many judgments and expectations all the time in our misogynist society.
But being a mother accentuates this constant judgment even more. Fathers don’t have to be perfect; if they do the bare minimum, they’re the heroes. Because they have more privileges, more control. But when it’s a woman every little flaw is counted. But what people don’t really think about is that: not every maternity is planned or perfect, and not everyone is ready to be a parent.
The 2007 movie Juno proves exactly this. After losing her virginity to her best friend, Juno becomes a pregnant 16 year-old, while still attending high school. It becomes evident in the first scenes of the movie that neither her or the baby’s father are ready to be parents, because they’re still just kids.
After reflecting, she decides to give the baby to a couple who were trying to have a baby but couldn’t, because her dream was that the baby would grow up in a functional household full of love. Yes, Juno made her mistakes and was judged by everyone around her, being dehumanized and called out for being the “pregnant girl”, but she also looked after the wellbeing of her baby while also fulfilling another woman’s desire to be a mom. That shows that even when life gets messy, love, empathy and altruism can make a great impact on everyone’s paths.
With love, mom
My ultimate inspiration comes from my best friend, a dazzling woman from whom I received my name and my life’s blood: Lorelai Gilmore. My mother never gave me any idea that I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do or be whoever I wanted to be. Thank you, mom.
– Rory Gilmore in Gilmore Girls
Videos of girls expressing their love and gratitude for their mothers online flooded the internet, all because of this trend. It’s heartwarming and wonderful to see daughters surprising and celebrating their mother’s lives.
The use of this Gilmore Girls‘s audio (transcripted at the beginning of this section) in many of these videos is very symbolic, since in this series the main characters are a mother and a daughter Lorelai and Rory Gilmore who have an incredibly wholesome relationship.
One looks after the other and despite having their problems and differences just like everyone, their mutual unconditional love is above all of that. Lorelai is also an example of an imperfect mother who despite being a young and unprepared mom gave all her strength to raise her daughter in the best way, in order to make sure she had the best education and followed her dreams.
In this world, we have to hold our dear ones close to our hearts and souls. As said before, being a mother isn’t easy by itself, but being judged and criticized just makes it all worse. To have this gentle and sensible look over these strong women who raised us is like a warm hug for all true moms.
Biological, adoptive, non-blood related… Being a mother is above all of that. It’s the one who’s always there for you, taking care of you, no matter how hard things get.
Are they really “just girls learning”, like the trend is trying to tell us?
Yes, everybody should have the right to learn and make mistakes in this life. Like I mentioned before, that’s what makes us human. But, saying that mostly grown women with kids are girls seems a bit infantilizing. When you become a woman and have to be perfect, you have to be told that you’re just a fragile little girl to be able to make mistakes? Well, it seems like it…
But that phrase, despite its original effort to make users be more empathic with their mothers, expresses not only infantilizes adults but also excuses them to take responsibility for their own actions.
Many videos tell us about different types of stories that are being shoved aside by users. They fight against this kind of statement, often used against children of parents with whom they have unhealthy relationships.
That is really unfair and a kind of “Victim Blaming”, term used to situations where a victim is pointed as the guilty one for the occurrence of this type of events just to take the blame for the situation – which is unfair, since kids are unable to protect themselves and adults should have control of their behaviour.
Making a mistake that will not greatly impact the life of their child is one thing, but actively choosing to do things that are harmful and create long term damage is another, and unfortunately that happens to a lot of people. Making harmless mistakes as a parent is normal, but deliberately doing things that hurt a child and leave lasting damage is a completely different matter — and unfortunately, it happens far too often.
Well, if you got to this part you’ve seen that this trend isn’t just about cute videos and messages to our moms: they hit way deeper, saying a lot about the rigid vision of our society towards motherhood, mother-daughter relationships, the tool that being a mom can take on mental health, the problems of making a generalization of this kind of statements and that we have to understand that mothers are people too.
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The article above was edited by Ana Rita Rodrigues Fernandes.
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