Motherhood is costly

A little piece I felt inspired to write about motherhood

In my privileges I think about the mothers waking up with their alarms every morning.
Rushing to get kids ready.
Drop offs and pick ups.
Working full time just to afford full-time childcare.

To stay home with our children, to pour our time and skill and soul into the shaping of small lives and the nurturing of a family and a home
is not considered work.
But pay someone else to do that same work, and suddenly it's a job with value, worthy of compensation and recognition.

We don’t question the system that forces this bizarre loop.
A system that measures value by output, not impact.
A system that treats caregiving as invisible unless it’s commodified.
A system that relies quietly, constantly on the invisible labour of mothers.
A system that would collapse without mothers.
A system that punishes mothers.

Motherhood is costly.
Motherhood costs women.
Not just in sleep and stretch marks and the endless giving of one’s body and time.
But in invisible wages.
In passed-over promotions.
In opportunities delayed, ambitions shelved, identities stretched thin.

In my privileges I think about the mothers that choose to stay with their children and built a home, yet somehow end up homeless.
Mothers that were not just failed by the system but failed by their partners.
Mothers whose devotion was met with divorce.
Mothers that become single mothers.
Single mothers left to rebuild not just a home but their sense of safety and stability.
Single mothers left to do the impossible, left to do it all alone.

To stay home with our children, to pour our time and skill and soul into the shaping of small lives and the nurturing of a family and a home
is a risk.
A risk that leaves many mothers without savings, without security, without a safety net.
A risk that too often becomes a reality.
A risk many mothers are no longer willing to take.

We don’t question the system that forces mothers to choose between their children and safety.
A system that leaves mothers to carry the cost alone.
A system that leaves mothers behind.
A system that does not support mothers.
A system that depends on mothers.

Motherhood is costly.

In my privileges I think about the mothers that don’t have the choices I do.
In my privileges I think about the mothers that don’t feel safe like I do.
In my privileges I think about the stay-at-home mothers
the working mothers
the single mothers

paying the price, because motherhood is costly.