I always thought being pregnant was going to be a magical experience. While it has been incredible and mind blowing, it really has just been downright uncomfortable; backaches and extreme congestion are my main complaints. (Yes, I have it good, compared to those with nausea, vomiting, and other complications along the way.)
On the topic, pop superstar Chappell Roan recently came under criticism after going on a podcast and stating that she is not interested in children at the moment because, “I literally have not met anyone who’s happy, anyone who has like, light in their eyes, anyone who has slept.” This sparked heated debates across social media platforms with parents and specifically mothers creating videos and posts to share their thoughts about motherhood. A video trend even went viral with the audio clip from the interview and mothers posting beautiful and fun moments with their children to counter Roan’s comment, they have no light in their eyes. As a first time mom-to-be, these comments were alarming and I wondered if the light from my eyes would also disappear or if there were other factors that contributed to the dimming of people’s light in motherhood.
Then I remembered a study I had just read about a few days before, Nature, one of the top medical and scientific journals, shared the news on their website about a groundbreaking study published in Science on the true toll of pregnancy on the human body. As a result, drawing a picture of the most detailed account of pregnancy yet. In their report, accounts from over 300,000 births reveal the major physical, metabolic, and biological toll of carrying and birthing a child. With this huge data set of births, researchers took account of over 44 million physiological measurements revealing never before known information about what carrying and birthing a child actually does to someone. In their study, biologists took samples of urine, blood, and other tests from the time of conception to a year after giving birth. They found that the postnatal or postpartum recovery period is a lot longer than previously believed. In fact, a year after giving birth many of the markers that changed had still not returned to baseline levels. Even more so, some of those markers might not ever return to levels previous to pregnancy.
Many are made to believe by society that one has to “bounce back or snap back” right after birth, but this study affirms ancient knowledge deeply embedded into cultures that know the 4th trimester is a sensitive time of recovery from the physical to the spiritual. From the traditional 40-day Mexican and Latin American cuarentena, to the “sitting the month” in Chinese culture, to Korea’s Sanhujori–the 3 week rest period following birth–many cultures know and practice the deep wisdom of slowing down to bond with baby, staying warm, not leaving your home, and having ancestral healing foods prepared by loved ones. These traditional practices can sometimes feel at odds with the hyper-individualistic and capitalistic culture of the United States, where fitting into your old jeans as soon as possible is culturally valued.
However, this new study begs the question that Roan so directly posited, in a world that expects young women to want to mother and birth children, how can people critically and honestly reflect on if parenting is right for them?
This moment of reflection and agency is crucial. I always knew I wanted to be a mother and birth a child, but the graduate school journey towards a Ph.D. and a tenure-track job pushed my parenting goals back, requiring lots of planning and funds to make the parenting dreams of my spouse and I a reality. My hope is that this Mother’s Day, young women are okay with asking themselves this very question and living in ways that ring authentic to where they are in their life’s journey, without shame or guilt.
Take it from a pregnant person, it’s okay to question if this is right for you or not. Beyond the toll it takes on the body, there is a financial one too. Afterall, as some say Gen Z youth have expressed, “having a kid is a flex” because of how expensive it is to be pregnant, deliver a child either at a hospital or birthing center costing in the thousands of dollars, the very costly expenses required to raising a child, up to the cost of college are now estimated to be about $1.1 million dollars.
And perhaps, if there were better support structures in place in the United States, from paid leave, postpartum care, affordable housing and food, child care for all, and a community or village that knew how to show up, mothering and parenting would most certainly be easier and more desirable. Whatever people decide to do with their lives and bodies, it is important to destigmatize those who aren’t able to or willing to put their bodies through this arduous journey or afford the costs of children.
About the Author: Silvia Rodriguez Vega is an Assistant Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project at UCSB.
