Motherhood and the Pursuit of Perfection

It seems that, over the years, mothers – particularly, women bearing children – have become more constrained, limited and regulated than any other group of people in America. Including laws dictating what they are allowed to do with their babies, expectations on how they should treat their bodies during pregnancy and employment regulations that compel them to attend to their newborn after pregnancy.

In a most of these cases, society appears to be treating these mothers less like humans, instead treating them as sort of mediums through which children are brought to life. In some ways, our expectations of women as child bearers now resemble the oppression that they faced before suffrage and many of the equal opportunity rights that they received throughout the 20^th century.

And the oppression that they face seems to be universally accepted by us.

But the important question is why. That is, why have we, as a society, felt so compelled to regulate and constrain mothers as much as we have throughout the years? Are we simply trying to cultivate a society of women that go through their pregnancies with as much responsibility as we have determined to be acceptable? Are we simply trying to protect those children and the families that surround them?

Or are we attempting to shape and create some sort of ideal that aligns with our own goals and seems to be more concerned with protecting our own expectations rather than individual rights of the mothers that they are intended to protect?

Certainly, it appears that a lot of the laws that we have put in place have been created with our own best interests in mind. America’s banning of abortions in 1965 across all 50 states seemed to suggest that human life, regardless of circumstance, is more important than the personal rights of the individual. Although the constitutionality of those laws were eventually overturned in Roe v. Wade, the initial banning of the practice was certainly indicative of America’s willingness to protect their own expectations over those of the mother.

Additionally, laws supporting and protecting the right to maternal leave for mothers seem to align with our own expectations of how mothers should compose themselves during and after pregnancy. We have come to the overwhelming conclusion that women and strictly women should be caring for their newborns, it appears unacceptable and simply unethical should they not.

To a degree, these laws are put in place to protect the unborn children. Laws and constructions often become complicated when the parties involved aren’t simply a single person, and especially when that person isn’t necessarily a ‘person’. Certainly, it makes some sense that the individual that person that conceives of the baby should therefore take care of that baby.

But it also feels like we are passively trying to guide the hands of mothers in America. Individuality and strong feminist values are supported in America, but it seems that that individuality all but ceases during pregnancy.

Still, maybe those laws and expectations are in simply place to protect the individuals and families that surround those mothers, with no ulterior motive beyond that. It just seems suspect and sort of unfair that the individuality that America has heralded for such a longtime doesn’t carry over into pregnancy.