"It was a mistake to become a mother"
Children are part of a good life. Really?
Even today, women are under pressure to have children. Allegedly, children are part of a fulfilling life and being a woman. Women who decide against babies missed great things and would be lonely and sad at the latest in old age, we are taught. The message is: You will regret it if you do not have children. Really?
There are also women who regret having become mothers. But remorse in the face of your own child is a very powerful taboo. That's why most people keep their negative feelings secret? out of shame and out of fear of being considered monstrous.
"It's enslavement, it's drag"
Israeli sociologist Orna Donath first gave these mothers a voice last year. For her study? Regretting Motherhood? (Regretting motherhood) she interviewed 23 women she contacted through parent forums about her feelings.
The question for everyone was: "If you could turn back time with today's knowledge, would you become a mother again? All responded with a clear no. But they made it clear that they did not hate their children, but their life as a mother. Caramel, for example, said, "It's enslavement, it's drag."
The excitement in the media was great. Under the buzzword #regrettingmotherhood, a heated debate surfaced on the internet.
Now is Orna Donath's book? Regretting Motherhood: When mothers regret? (Knaus, 16.99 euros) appeared, in which the interviewed women have their say. Here are some excerpts from the chapter "When do mothers realize that they feel remorse?"
When do mothers realize that they feel remorse?
"[...] Some women came to this insight only years after the birth of their children, others became aware of this during pregnancy or immediately after childbirth, so they sometimes felt remorse even before they gave birth to their children and got to know their personalities and the requirements of education.
Odelya (a child between 1 and 5):
Odelya: "Even during pregnancy, I felt remorse. I realized that what would happen? the birth of this creature?, that was not what ... I would not feel connected to it, I would practically not be there ... And I realized that it was a mistake, yes ... that it was superfluous was just superfluous for me. I would rather have renounced that. "
Me: "Do you remember what triggered this feeling before you were born?"
Odelya: "I just realized that it did not matter if he cried and if I would get angry or not, if I should tolerate it or not? it just meant that I would give up my life. It means giving up too much as far as I'm concerned. "
[...]
Sophia (two children between 1 and 5):
"After the birth, I sensed that I had made a very, very big mistake. I was really obsessed with the thought, by that I mean that he was constantly thinking of me: "You made a mistake, now you have to pay for it. You've made a mistake, now you have to pay for it.? But why did I make the mistake? Why did I do that? Was everything really so bad before? "
Tirtza (two children between 30 and 40, grandmother):
Me: "Can you remember when you felt and / or understood that you regretted becoming a mother?"
Tirtza: "I think I sensed that in the first weeks after birth. I told myself then that it was a disaster. A disaster. I realized immediately that this is not my thing. Not only that, but the nightmare of my life. "
Carmel (a child between 15 and 20):
Carmel: "I started to panic that very day when I came out of the clinic with him in my arms. Because I realized what I had done. And that intensified over the years. [...] I remember the day I came home from the clinic with him? and I had no postpartum depression or anything else clinical? and entered the apartment, did I have an anxiety attack? To this day, the only one I have ever had. I remember that for a whole week I just wanted to bring him back to the clinic. I invented something ... tried to convince me that he was ill, that he had to go back to the clinic immediately. That happened already then. I thought it was just the typical beginner's panic, but the feeling remained. "
Me: "What did you realize at the moment?"
Carmel: "That it is irreversible [long silence]. Look, that's enslavement. It's enslavement, it's drag. "
[...]
While many mothers face different challenges in the first postnatal period, which may gradually become less as the situation progresses, remorse describes an emotional attitude towards motherhood that does not change over time and also not improved.
Since there is no way to explain maternal feelings beyond society's promise of a satisfying ending, many mothers themselves are looking for answers to get their feet on the ground again. For example, some people doubt their own sanity, such as Sky, or claim that all parents, as it were, conspire collectively to be silent.
That they feel remorse may not be realized until later, but an inner turmoil often sets in just a few months after birth. In other cases repentance develops only with the years, and sometimes only after the second or third birth:
Rose (two children, one between 5 and 10 and one between 10 and 15):
Me: "Do you remember the" moment "when you realized what you felt?«
Rose: That was only after the second child. After the first birth, I realized that our relationship would never be the same again as before, that from that day on I would not only have to take care of myself, but also of another person. I understood that my life had changed forever. Only after the second birth did I finally realize that this was not for me. Let me explain this: After the first birth, I believed that something was wrong with me, that I was not really ready for therapy. And that's why I went into therapy and dealt with some painful places in me, but the real cause of the problem I missed? namely the fact that it is my parenting with which I fight. I thought maybe with the second birth this would come off because I had grown up now and had undergone therapy, and the people in my environment, and especially my husband, were very understanding and supportive of me? that I would do it differently now and all. But I did not understand that the problem was not mine, but the decision to become a mother. "
Sky (three children, two between 15 and 20 and one between 20 and 25):
"All that I'm telling you here, these insights, why did I do that? I can only explain that so well today. I first began to realize all this when I was 35 or 40 and in therapy. Until then, I was like a little kid who has no consciousness of his own, nothing. I felt it, I felt unwell. I was nervous and stressed, but I did not understand where that came from and always said, okay, something's wrong with me, but I did not tell myself ... that's it. That's the situation. I only started to understand it after I started the therapy. [...] The truth is that for all those years in therapy I really hoped that something would change in me, that I would be able to build a relationship with the kids and feel that they really were Part of me is that it would be as natural as it should be. So that I would finally have fun with my children, that I would miss them, that I wanted to see them with me, that I could give them something ... myself, in the most natural way possible. [...] I believe, I had understood in therapy after less than a year ... that it had been a tragic mistake on my part. Only. [...] Also in therapy it was very difficult for me. In the beginning it was very difficult for me to admit that. You see, even at the beginning of therapy, I was constantly trying to protect myself. "
The sociologist Orna Donath (39) teaches at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, among others
© Tami AvenSky and Rose reports show that each woman has strived to bring together the expectations of herself as a mother and her concrete experiences. Both made various efforts to reduce the discrepancy between their actual feelings and what they were supposed to feel, as they realized, and reconcile aspiration and reality. Rose, for example, had a second child because she hoped to improve, reverse and correct her situation. Other mothers like Sky went into psychological treatment to explore what "was wrong with them." For them, the crisis was not necessarily a developmental crisis over which they would "outgrow" over time, but a crisis that resulted from their inability to admit that it had been a mistake to become a mother. The confession of feelings for which there was neither the right words nor the right place. "
