Work Only a Mother Can Do

L ike all millennial women, I was raised on a steady diet of empowerment messaging: you’re just as good as the boys, maybe better. But “just as good” meant just as analytical, strong, and assertive as men. There was no praise for feminine virtues like intuition and compassion.

We were told, implicitly and explicitly, that true power meant conquering the professional world of men. Motherhood, if acknowledged at all, was portrayed as an inconvenient detour on this road to self-actualisation. Now, as a mother to a baby and a toddler, and temporarily outside the paid workforce, I’m confronted by how deeply I’d absorbed those narratives about female achievement.



It took months of inner struggle to recognise the competence, meaning, and worth in my choice to care for my children full-time. New mothers today face an identity crisis, torn between their instinctive desire to be present for their babies and the internalised belief that societal respect requires maintaining..

..