Mother’s Day in Germany is a reminder that motherhood is a battle that is not mine Caroline Warville

R.Be honest, mothers make me sad. Especially mothers working with young children. Sometimes, when I see a woman late in the afternoon – pushing animal carriages, a young child in clouds, carrying bags that swing from her shoulder and two circles circles around her eyes – I want to cross the street. It is not a ruling, but because I cannot bear the extent of its exhaustion. Quiet despair engraved in her face. I feel sorry for her. It is very unfair. Studies and statistics reserve: The current status of working mothers is bleak.

For years, I watched this closely, also – in friends, co -workers, relatives and neighbors. Their internal struggle. Excess pregnancy. The sorrow of the palace in any delusions they have. Anger in their limits and circumstances. Since it is really difficult to work, and at the same time, keep an organized life, with stored refrigerator, a bright basin, a happy child. It is still ideally an attractive sexual partner, an active citizen, a friend currently. Care everyone – and yourself. It is a life that lives on the verge of collapse.

At the same time, I sometimes find myself annoyed by complaints from mothers-in media discussions, on social media, in books, podcasts, blogs and newsletters. This general offer for their fate and self -sacrifice. Come, I think. No one must have a child in the twenty -first century. Women have options now. Isn’t it?

But then I stop quickly. Is it really an option if you give up the idea of ​​motherhood because you saw how brutal reality is? Since you understood that having a child means, for several generations of women, tear in impossible directions?

Perhaps not, perhaps gay women, and the eastern German women who love to work and grew up with a firm hand, facing a particularly difficult time to reconcile with motherhood. We do not imitate a housewife. The housewives were seen suspiciously, and looked down with a kind of contempt – like the delicate characters of the fairy tales in Grimm. Not only was the work – it was expected. It is in our bones. You are not one of the trap we received: you are flexible.

I still remember completely how the teachers and mothers dug her and my teenage friends: marriage, and they have a child, but they never rely on a man. Find a profession that meets you but also brings financial independence and security. The goal was to become a wonderful woman who liberated her on her own – including motherhood. Because that, too, was part of being a suitable and productive citizen.

I know this might look good in theory. Maybe even progressive. Did socialism help women liberate themselves?

If you only look at the numbers, you may say yes. In 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, 91 % of all women of working age In GDR it was working either or in training or higher education. In West Germany only 51 % of women workedMost of them were part -time. The divorce rate in Gran Mennsoria was about 1.5 times higher than it was in West Germany. Being a single mother was not a scandal – it was common. Not people are more easily easily. You can survive on your own because the system is your support, with daytime care, nursery and post -school programs that were all Practically for free.

These effects still exist. There are more children’s care options in East Germany and The younger sex gap. And emotional? Perhaps East German women have never clung to the concept of romantic love of life. It is empowerment, yes. But also alone.

For me, this way of thinking also means: Don’t rely on someone else and certainly don’t expect much – perhaps nothing at all – from men, fathers and partners. For my generation, who grew up during the era of reunification after Germany, parents were mainly noticeable because of their absence. They went to work, returned home for dinner, complained and spent weekends washing the car or cutting the grass. This was how it was for us – and for many, it is still.

For this reason I do not have children. I don’t want to be a mother. Certainly, there are days – usually before ovulation directly – when my body and hormones go to an excessive degree, fill my head with the ideas of the child and the uncompromising occurrence of the biological watch. I suffer. I am dealing with myself, I think I am a selfish prostitute who refuses to do its duty. Stop being very dramatic. Come here. Don’t be stupid – you will regret it later. But somehow, the internal struggle was not enough to change my opinion.

I recently asked a friend how she knew she wanted a child. “You just feel it,” she said. That phrase. It is the same people who use it when talking about finding a new partner or apartment. But this is the difference: you can get out of an apartment. You can leave a relationship if you are not well – and let us be honest, most of them (this is a statistical fact) that does not last forever. But the child forever. Motherhood forever, whether you want it or not. This, for me, is the terrifying part: it removes the ability to choose.

I learned this lesson early. After all, I was a child myself. I have seen that motherhood is a battlefield – not just a battle with the requirements of the child, but it is a more fierce struggle within the mother: between the woman who wants to love and raise, and the woman who yearns for autonomy. I do not trust myself to reconcile this conflict. I saw him directly. And I don’t buy the legend that you can be both. Certainly, life continues – but it does not move forward the way we imagine.

Technically, when my grandmother was pregnant with my mother, she was already carrying me – the cells, the egg that would become mine. This means that I was not only inside my mothers’ body, but also inside my grandmother – a body threatened by the same pregnancy and unannounced sadness.

I remember the endless interrogation of my grandmother: Why was motherhood very difficult? She wanted children, right? Why did you feel every day as a tired test, full of the type of repetition that stripped the life of its meaning? Open the door. Close it. The top of the stairs. under. Cook, clean, go to work, return home, and wash. Total, take care of children. Smile when your husband returns. Do not let sadness appear. He continues to progress. Always keep. Her special needs? forgotten. Where was her appetite for life? When was the last time you brought anything?

I do not trust myself to be different. After all, I am her granddaughter. I can’t surrender to the naive belief that I can fix past mistakes in one way or another. My mother’s mother, the mother of my mother’s father, and so on. If we just can track the roots of everything, to see how the talisman was thrown in the first place.

Even if I am bold enough to think of motherhood myself, I certainly do not trust my generation. I do not want to become a stressful mother, mired – and I do not want to be a “supermome”, which prompted myself to the brink of exhaustion only to prove that it is somehow possible. Couples working with children are still out of any kind of equal or fair division of work. You can change the laws and amend the parents ’vacation policies, but the family model, regardless of the East or the West, remains stubbornly demanding everything of women and the men excuse for no reason.

It’s ridiculous, right? When I see a man with a stroller, I don’t want to cross the street – instead, my first idea is: “How cute, he is really involved.” But for how long? This reaction shows how deep our double standards.

I still focus on mothers and grandmothers to find answers, but where are the men? Parents and grandparents? Their side of the battlefield is still silent and empty. They seem to be accountable for anything. We gave them a free pass.

Expectations placed on women are high sky. Men’s expectations, when it comes to parenting? I am not sure of what they are – or if they are really present. What I know is that it took years to see the talisman for what it is. A handful of flowers on Mother’s Day, which is determined by Germany and many other European countries on Sunday, will definitely change anything. The greatest gesture is to stay away from the inherited novels that shorten us. Leave the clock a clock.