The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood

competitive. Few births are predictable and a good proportion don’t go exactly the way we might have hoped. A recent survey found that half of all new mothers experience regret, shame, guilt or anger after birth, mostly due to unexpected complications and lack of support. More than 70 per cent say they felt pressured to do things a certain way.

in a society with a focus on competition, capital and accumulation, optimizing children fits right into neoliberal economics. There is an unnecessary, insidious cruelty to the societal construction of motherhood. An “invisible violence,” as Adrienne Rich puts it.