Regretful mothers: “If I could go back, I wouldn't get pregnant”

Brazilian Karla Tenório, 40, already regretted being a mother during childbirth: “When my daughter's head came out of me.” He defines this moment, in which there were complications, as “a shock” and assures that “it is compatible to love your daughter and regret being a mother” because, she explains, her conflict is with the burdens that motherhood entails and not with her 13-year-old daughter. At first, she felt like “a monster,” then she realized that what she was experiencing was shared by more people. 12% of mothers question the choice of having been, according to the report The Invisiblesprepared by the Yo No Renuncio Association and the Malasmadres Club, after surveying 94,000 women. The idealization of motherhood and social pressure influence the making of this decision, which is not always reconciled with work and social life. Although his daughter is now the most important person in his life, Tenório is clear: “If I could go back, I wouldn't get pregnant.”

His words are echoed by Barcelonans Laura Cava, 36, and Ana, who prefers not to provide her last name, 38. The latter was surprised when she found out about her pregnancy. “I had breast cancer and the doctors told me that it was practically impossible to achieve pregnancy due to the treatments received,” she explains. She decided to move on: “We were the only ones outside the family pattern.” She always heard that motherhood was the best thing that could happen to her in life, although she now disagrees. She confesses that she loves her one-year-old son “madly,” but how she feels about him does not justify her new reality with “constant stress” that she considers unhealthy.

Tenório decided to have her daughter because of “the preconceived idea of ​​idealized motherhood.” She suffered from depression for nine years, since giving birth. “I became obsessed with perfect parenting, I wanted to do everything without delegating, I never rested and I began to lose my memory and track of time,” she describes. She remembers those moments harshly: “It seemed like life was ending, as if a mother was born and a woman died.” Currently, he feels good because he has built “a nice relationship” with his daughter. But if she could go back in time, she wouldn't choose the path of motherhood. She believes that her professional and personal life would be better.

“I don't like this routine of washing bottles or going to daycare,” says Ana. Even so, she always does it with the best attitude. Her self-demand makes it difficult for him to disconnect from her son for a second. “You lose your identity a little, freedom does not exist. It is practically impossible to go to the bathroom alone,” she exemplifies. She also regrets being a mother, but she attaches great importance to the education of her little ones, aged six and eight. “I have to balance my personal frustration at making the wrong decision with the responsibility of wanting to do it right,” she details.

The manager of Psychologists Madrid, Montserrat Cabello, reveals that maternal regret is a reality that has emerged in consultation about ten years ago, but the frequency of patients who come to the clinic for this issue is increasing. She believes that this situation has always been present, although it was not visible before. The social pressure to have children is still in force, she observes. She also thinks that in the past society did not demand so much from mothers. “Not only do they have to raise, they must develop personally and professionally. “The tasks have multiplied,” she clarifies.

Cava has had to put his professional aspirations on hold and that saddens him. Her salary inequality compared to her partner led him to reduce her working hours to care for her children. In her youth, she did not perceive the desire to be a mother, but with a stable life and the hope that he had to be a father, he had two children. She realized that she was sorry when the little ones stopped being babies and she began to want to resume her previous life, without success. She gets frustrated because the social system does not support her: “You fight to go back to being the same as before, but you encounter many walls, with the parallel demand of two children who need you.”

Cabello also observes in her consultation that women now feel more alone in parenting because before there was a social environment that supported mothers more. “There was a tribe, everyone raised their children,” she says. Furthermore, although it is assumed that the couple will collaborate in care, he says that is not always the case. “There are people who are clear that they do not want to have children alone, but then they find that what was going to be a common project is not because the contract has been broken,” she clarifies. For the psychologist, social pressure, idealization and inequality often influence subsequent regret: “Go to the door of a school and compare the mothers and fathers who are going to pick up their children.”

When Tenório discovered that there were more people in her situation, she created the Instagram account “Mãe Arrependida” (repentant mother, in Portuguese) in 2020 to promote her play in which she addresses this issue. Half a year later she told his opinion on motherhood on this social network: “I was stoned until many realized that I loved my daughter and a movement of empathy was generated,” he confesses. She accumulates more than half a million followers on her profile, who also share her experiences. “Freeing a repentant mother is freeing a daughter,” she says. She aims to deconstruct the myth of motherhood that, according to her, was imposed. “Coelho Neto, a Brazilian poet, wrote that to be a mother was to suffer in paradise. Would his wife, with whom he had 14 children, say the same thing? ”He reflects.

Cava confesses that motherhood has not come to complete her life, with which she felt satisfied, but to take away her independence. “Friday comes and, many times, you don't have the strength, before you go to work you have already worked and then you have to continue working until you go to bed,” she says. Although she hates going to the park, she refuses to fill her children's afternoons with extracurricular activities: “So, why do we have children? “I don't like the job of being a mother, but I'm going to try to give them a good life.”

The psychologist explains that at first postpartum depression can be confused with regret because the symptoms are similar: depression, anxiety, mood swings, fatigue, restlessness and social isolation. But “the difference is in a philosophical question, in the why: who I am and how I want to position myself in the world,” she clarifies. In the first case there is no regret for being a mother.

misunderstood women

These women feel misunderstood and persecuted by a taboo. “I don't like groups of WhatsApp of parents from school or going out with my friends to talk about children. When I say that I already want them to leave home, people laugh and take it as a joke, or they don't know what to answer because this is not talked about naturally,” says Cava. On the other hand, Ana appreciates the unconditional support of her partner, but sometimes she is overwhelmed by her guilt because sh
e considers her son to be very good.

Cabello emphasizes the importance of letting go of this feeling because these women “are not selfish,” since they care about their children and love them. Furthermore, he insists that regret will not dominate their lives because they learn to manage, building a tailored motherhood that is not at the service of social impositions.

The paradoxical ambivalence of hating motherhood and loving a child It is possible for these women. They are mothers who now face the present with responsibility, but if they could go back to the past they would make another decision that, based on their experience, they consider more appropriate. Tenório has already addressed this issue with her teenage daughter: “I told her that it was her mother's problem with society, not with her.”

– What did he answer?

— Being a repentant mother is a reality, but you love me and take care of me, so for me it is just a word.

_