Worldwide, mothers are overworked, underpaid, often lonely and made to feel guilty about everything from epidurals to bottle feeding. Fixing this is the unfinished work of feminism
It’s the middle of a dark, November night, and I’m about to have my first baby. But instead of the joyful experience I’d hoped for, I am being rushed into the operating theatre to have an emergency caesarean under general anaesthetic. I have a dangerous complication and my son’s life is at risk. Four hours earlier, I’d been sent home by a midwife who told me I couldn’t stay in hospital and have an epidural because labour wasn’t properly “established”.
It’s a week later and I’m back home with my son who, thankfully, made it. But I’m struggling. If someone asks me how I am, in a kindly voice, my voice cracks. I’m spending a lot of time sitting on the bed in a milk-stained dressing gown. In a few days, my partner will go back to work.
At a time when women are supposed to be more liberated than ever before, modern motherhood has become rigidly perfectionist
Related: The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read by Philippa Perry review – how to raise your kids
Related: Why does writing about motherhood provoke so much rage?
Natural motherhood is exclusively presented as woman-centred. Midwives are portrayed as helping women achieve the drug-free births everyone is assumed to want
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