A Mommy Story

There are a lot of unhappy people out there.

I’d like to say I was surprised by all of the responses I received to this post, but I’m not. I see it everyday among my friends and family, those with and without children. Right now, there’s a whole lot of unhappy going on out there, in varying degrees.

I wish I could give an answer as to what is breeding this discontent, but I have none. I can give several theories, but they are as valid as any other theories you could come up with. Most of the theories I can come up with rest on one central point: modern life and technology.

As I said in the last post, it could be that thanks to technology, we have reached a point where many of the jobs we perform have little real value to society. Many of us work in jobs where we do not produce an actual product, or provide a necessary service for the survival of the people around us. At the end of the day, I didn’t save anyone’s life, and I didn’t do anything more than advise students and maybe register a few for classes, which is something they can do online as well. A hundred or two hundred years ago, few people had that kind of job. Most could go home at the end of the day and have something to show for their work: they made 4 wagon wheels, they shod 6 horses, they baked enough bread to supply everyone in town, etc.

I worked a short stint in daycare, and while I wasn’t thrilled with my job at the time, I did feel more of a sense of accomplishment than I do in my current position, sitting at a desk, enrolling students in college classes. After all, as part of my duties as a daycare worker, I kept those children safe from harm, and saw that they received food and attention. I provided a necessary service for their parents, without which they would be unable to work, or would have to put their children in dangerous situations.

So that theory makes some sense to me. But what of the moms who stay home with their children who also feel the weight of unhappiness on them? They are performing a task that is very important to society and so basic in our evolutionary mammalian roots that we still have traces of mothering instincts to this day. If mothering is such an important job, why should we not feel entirely fulfilled while doing it?

I think part of that has to do with how our generation was raised. We mothers today are the first and second generation products of the feminist movement. While I can’t say all of us were raised this way, I know I was raised to believe I could have it all. I was raised by a single mom, grandmother, and two unmarried (and very feminist) aunts. Up until I graduated college, my education was the most important task in my life. Unlike my grandmother, who worked as a secretary after raising her daughters, I could be anything I wanted to be. Going to college was encouraged, not something I had to fight for. And I was told that when the time came and if I wished to do so, I could marry, have children, and have my career with no problems.

I’m sure many other women were instilled with similar beliefs. But reality has turned out to be harsher than the grand dream of “having it all”, I think. Having it all is hard to do, and often in the process of juggling all our responsibilities to have it all, something gets dropped. And so often, as women, we blame ourselves for that one thing getting dropped, when in reality it isn’t always our fault. For example, as much as we wish for an even 50-50 split in housework and childcare with our spouses, it doesn’t always end up that way. (I consider myself lucky to have a husband who will change poopy diapers and do the dishes, but I know many don’t have that.) Which means that having it all often leads to doing too much and forgetting your own needs in the process.

And then once you have a child, that remnant of maternal instinct, buried deep within the most primal part of your brain, can surface and make the thought of returning to the career you prized so highly seem like torturous punishment. It can make you want to throw all career aspirations away just to be with this little person. This can lead to an identity crisis, as you feel you have given away your old independent life in trade for a life that now only revolves around your offspring and their activities. Your college diploma that you once displayed proudly is now boxed up to make more room to display the artwork of a three year old.

Or, you could still want to work, but feel torn about leaving your new, helpless child in the hands of another. So while you want to continue taking pride in your work, it is now overshadowed by the guilt you feel letting someone else care for your child each day. Either way, it can be enough to drive many moms into the sweet embrace of antidepressants and tranquilizers.

But what of non-mothers and men who feel adrift and unfulfilled? Clearly that theory doesn’t explain their feelings of unhappiness. And so I could also suggest that the modern media and internet could possibly have some root in the causes of this epidemic.

Think about it: our entertainment industry is there to help us escape from the real world. We go to see movies of people performing extraordinary acts in amazing, exciting jobs. TV is also full of these exciting jobs, but we all can’t lead the exciting life of Jack Bauer. You don’t see many shows or movies about average people living average lives, because it’s boring. (OK, Office Space might have parodied the average office worker, but we can all agree that no one wanted their lives, right?) You don’t see shows about the adventurous life of an accountant, do you? And even if they did have that, how many accountants could really hope to live like that?

I think it can be hard to see all of these exciting people “living” daring lives, and then go back to your desk at your office job and pretend that your job makes a difference. Many people want excitement and drama (of the good kind) in our lives, but there really isn’t that much out there for the average modern person. The truth is that while TV can show us exciting con men and world travelers seeking answers to great unknown questions, the average person must deal with a mortgage and a family and bills to pay. That unglamorous side of life is rarely dealt with for Laura Croft or Clark Kent or Indiana Jones. Somehow the bills just get paid, and their houses are still clean and ready for them when they’re home. Even superheroes need a day job to pay the bills – they just don’t talk about it much in the movies.

So I guess I took all of this time and space to say what I said in the beginning: I have no answers. Maybe we’re all just more ungrateful of all we have today; maybe we’re now so far away from real danger in our lives that we take everything for granted; maybe we have too much time on our hands to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves; or perhaps there really is something wrong with modern society that is leading to more and more people feeling unsatisfied with life. And perhaps this problem is something bigger and scarier than middle-class people feeling like they don’t have it all. Maybe this is one cause behind people who snap and do horrific things, like take hostages and kill children in schools?

What is the modern secret of happiness? Is it pursuing your dreams despite all costs? Is it finding time, in the rush of daily life, to care for your personal needs? Is it accepting that you can’t do everything and letting some things go? Is it learning to accept that your life probably won’t turn out the way you hoped it might?

I recently started reading Judith Warner’s book Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, and while I can’t comment on the book yet since I’m only on chapter 3, I can say that I’m already developing a pain in my neck from nodding in agreement so much. Perhaps I’ll find some answers there.

What I do know for sure is that from your responses to my previous post and from the experiences in my own family and those around me, many people are feeling this way, and I worry for all of us if we don’t find some way to combat it.