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Pros And Cons Of Motherhood

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In societies like Singapore where the cost of living is relatively high, women have to shoulder the burden of having to manage the household and at the same time, have a stable career to bring in income to support her family. Working mothers especially, constantly face the societal pressure to be a “good mother” and to also excel in her job, else face the criticism from the society. This occurs due to the socialisation of gender roles, social construction of gender and gender stereotyping, and the false perception that motherhood is always a rosy, all-fulfilling experience.
According to Ann Oakley (as cited in Tong, 2013, p. 85), “motherhood is a myth based on the threefold belief that ‘all women need to be mothers, all mothers need children, …show more content…

This implies that unless a woman’s ‘maternal instincts’ is met through childrearing and childbearing, she will become dissatisfied. When a woman gives birth to a child, she is assumed to know how to care for her baby. This creates such a dilemma because some women realised that they are not able to immediately bond emotionally with their child or that they have trouble soothing or breastfeeding their babies, thus making them feel like a failure. NZ Herald (2016) reported that a woman had expected to feel overpowering love the moment she locked eyes with her new-born but was left feeling nothing but mentally exhausted after the labour ordeal. Some confessed of having the feeling of “disgust for breastfeeding” (Wolf, n.d., in Hayt, 2002) and some are “shocked by feelings of inadequacy (and) guilt because they don't like their child”. (Lacey, 1997).
Feminists argues against the rosy idea of motherhood that has long been perpetuated by the society and the media. Mothering is not instinctive and automatic but is in fact, a learned skill, which mothers need time to learn of their babies’ behavioural …show more content…

Society needs to shift away from the traditional mindset that nurturing and caretaking is primarily a woman’s role, especially more so now, as more women are going out to work to help their husbands with household expenses. As Abott, Wallace and Tyler (2005, p. 165) stated, “[t]he idealisation of motherhood means that men are often exclude from the care of…children”. In addition, society needs to abolish the stereotype that a mother “ought to be capable of giving [her] all to her child”. (Boonzaier, 2006, p. 187). The needs and sanity of the mother has to be weighted in, as a child’s welfare heavily relies on it. It is unfair to expect women to be the best mothers they can be for their children, without any form of economic or emotional support. As such, parenting duties should be divided equally between both parents, so as to reduce the burden a woman has to

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