WHAT WOULD YOU ANSWER TO A MOTHER WHO SAYS THAT RAISING CHILDREN IS 1% HAPPINESS AND 99% WORRY?

If we ask mothers what it means for them to have children, surely most would answer that it is the best thing that happened to them in life. Not because it's a posture, but because it's really what we feel. However, there are mothers who do not feel the same about their motherhood. There are women who do not feel fulfilled or happy in their role as mothers. And although many of us cannot understand it, it is an absolutely respectable opinion.

One of them is Corinne Maier, a French writer, mother of two children, who says in a controversial interview published on BBC that she regrets having had children, and among other things, that raising children is 1% happiness and 99% worry. What would you answer this mother?

Not all women are happy being mothers

It is a social phenomenon that few talk about, perhaps because it is not well seen, because it is a taboo subject, but more and more talk about repentant motherhood. Israeli sociologist Orna Donath talks about it in her book Repentant Mothers and says there are many more than we believe.

Many have been mothers for a mandate, because it was what they touched in their lives without really considering whether it was what they wanted. Women who after having been mothers, although they love their children, regret having taken the path of motherhood.

Corrine Maier, author of the book No Kid: 40 good reasons for not having children believes that adults are so obsessed with their children, and so exhausted by having to take care of them, that they have no energy for anything else. And he speaks thus of motherhood:

"It is not that I am in a position to defend a reduction in the birth rate. Having two children, I cannot tell others:" Do not do what I did. "However, it seems hypocritical to hide behind a screen of Idealistic smoke ("There is nothing more beautiful than a child's smile") to justify my questionable decisions in life. I am strongly against brainwashing and pathos. It's time to stop selling the idea that babies produce a spell of happiness. Enough of this great illusion! "
"I am a blissful mother (or father), my children are my joy." It is mandatory to find pleasure in motherhood. In my experience, the reality is very different: raising a child is 1% happiness and 99% worry. Being a father has become a very demanding job. Many parents become more involved in the education of their children and become "hyper" parents, present on each front: ensuring a balanced breakfast, extracurricular activities, help with homework ... I am perfectly aware of how involved I was (very involved, in fact) and how I became, whether I wanted it or not, in the stereotype of a Jewish mother. That produces hypercontrolled and hypervigilated children. I wonder how they will manage one day to become adults.

He also says that raising children is very expensive and that by encouraging birth, it is also encouraged that there is "an increasing number of small consumers who will never tire of capitalism that needs to sell more and more products."

What would I answer

Advertising, the media, society can show us images of perfect mothers, but we who are mothers know that this idyllic image is not true. I'm not stupid, I know perfectly well that it's not easy and I don't buy that picture of a perfect mother. I don't feel cheated by the advertising pressure.

Or if, remotely, I imagined an idealized motherhood before being a mother, when I really was, I realized that it is not easy, that it is very different from what we had been "sold", and that, even with its shadows, Motherhood is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Yes, it is a very demanding job, if it can be called work. But I don't see it as a military service. Worrying about my daughters' food, their education, their health, their activities is tired, of course, but for me It's dedication, it's care, it's love, because you're raising a child, forming a being not marking hours in a job you hate.

Even with its shadows, motherhood is the best thing that happened to me in life.

As for the economic, I don't see him as her, really. I have three daughters and today it costs a lot to pay for the education and support of three. Yes, I deprive myself of many things. Trips that I would love to do, things that I would like to have and I don't have, because I have chosen it that way. But I don't see it as a frustration. On the contrary, for me having children has been a life choice that I don't regret.

And finally, I do not agree with your percentage of happiness, or close. Of course, having children generates concern, from the moment you find out that you are pregnant you do not stop worrying about a possible abortion, how the birth will be, then when you are born because you do not get sick, when you start walking because you do not get hit, then do not take drugs, do not smoke ... Anyway, a lifetime of worries, one after another. But all this is also part of the happiness of being a mother.

I respect very much those who regret their motherhood and admire the courage they have to express it, but I am on the other sidewalk. We would like to know your position. What do you think about the claims of this mother?