Joiner Flourishing Pathway Blog Fourteen - Motherhood Impediments - Psychological

In this blog we explore JFP Blog 14 – Impediments to Motherhood – Psychological. In JFP Blog 13, we acknowledged the profound shift that occurs when a woman moves from a workplace rich in collegiality, status, and respect to full-time maternal work—often experienced in isolation. It’s no wonder that this transition brings psychological challenges. In this blog, we explore Principle 14: families—and mothers in particular—not only need financial and educational support, but also recognition of the immense value of nurturing, alongside psychological scaffolding such as companionship, care, and social support.

Loss of Status

In our society, income is often tied to status. When women take time away from paid work for maternal responsibilities, they are typically stripped of that status—even referred to as “unemployed” by banks (Joiner, 2022). This language and perception ignore the reality that full-time parenting is both productive and demanding work.

Media representations often portray stay-at-home parents as unusual or outdated (Allgood Berry et al., 2014), reinforcing the notion that maternal work lacks value. Economic systems reflect this view: maternal labour is excluded from GDP calculations. As PwC (2017) notes, a mother looking after her own child contributes nothing to GDP, but paying someone else to do it is considered “productive.” Their report estimates unpaid childcare in Australia was worth $345 billion in 2011—more than triple the value of the financial services industry.

This economic erasure has real psychological effects. When maternal labour isn’t recognized or compensated, it leads to feelings of invisibility and devaluation, undermining the confidence and wellbeing of women transitioning into motherhood.

Undervalued Work and Emotional Toll

Even as more women experience professional environments where they are respected and valued, society still treats full-time parenting as “treading water” until a return to paid work. The perception is that anyone can care for children, and that time at home benefits only the child, not the mother.

Yet, Held (1993) reminds us: “It is mothers and mothering persons who create children and construct with and for the child the human social reality of the child.” The unique role of a responsive, loving mother in the early stages of life is irreplaceable. Albrecht (2004) argues that equality for women requires a political economy that recognises caregiving as a universal human norm—not a deviation.

The failure to properly value maternal work is not only insulting, it can also drive many women toward mental health struggles, especially in a society that fails to provide emotional and structural support.

Postnatal Depression and Isolation

Postnatal depression affects many mothers—and while a range of treatments have been trialled, rates have remained stable over two decades (Small et al., 2014). Why? Likely because many treatments only address issues such as isolation, nurturing and the need for support, without discussing loss of status, respect, financial dependence, and the societal push to ignore maternal need.

Most modern families, especially in the West, are nuclear and small, leaving new mothers without traditional family supports. Without the acknowledgement of the profound change to the circumstances that women in today’s society face when having babies, many women blame themselves for their lack of ‘coping mechanisms’. Whereas neuroscientist Narvaez et al. (2013) says that extended families offered a natural “built-in social safety net,” reducing stress and improving child outcomes. When this network disappears, the psychological burden on mothers increases, often contributing to depression.

Britian’s Daily Mail reported that the Tories had warned that “A generation of new mothers is in crisis… more than half show signs of postnatal depression as they are increasingly left to fend for themselves” (Chapman 2009). It was further stated that the government had failed to keep up with dramatic changes to motherhood over the past 20 years. It is true that parenting has changed with little acknowledgement.

Even though some may see childcare as a way to relieve maternal stress, this can be a short-sighted solution. Many mothers are left grieving for their infants, while societal pressure encourages them to suppress their emotional needs. Instead of displacing the problem onto the infant, we need to address the lack of companionship and shared caregiving that leads to maternal burnout in the first place.

State Responsibility and Societal Change

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1998) states that the family is the “natural environment” for the well-being of all its members, and should receive necessary protection and support. Yet, more than two decades later, we still lack universal support systems for parents in countries like Australia. Parenting support is fragmented, and too often left to private initiative.

As women re-entered the workforce in large numbers, government and community services shrank, resulting in reduced engagement and support (Albrecht, 2004). Neoliberal economic policies pushed more women into low-wage jobs while retreating from collective responsibility for family wellbeing.

This shift wasn’t inevitable—it reflects deeper historical patterns, including liberalist and some feminist ideologies that prioritized workforce participation over caregiving. We’ve accepted a social structure where families, particularly mothers, are expected to carry out the most important work of nurturing future citizens with minimal help.

Conclusion

The psychological impediments to motherhood cannot be separated from societal structures that devalue, isolate, and under-support mothers. When maternal work is framed as invisible, when families are left without scaffolding, and when social policies ignore emotional needs, the result is a growing crisis in maternal mental health.

We need to fundamentally revalue caregiving, reimagine family support systems, and recognise that raising children is not a private issue, but a societal investment. In the next blog, we’ll explore moral and ethical frameworks that may help us reorient toward a society that truly supports motherhood.

Bibliography

Albrecht, G 2004, Hitting Home: Feminist Ethics, Women's Work, and the Betrayal of "Family Values", Continuum New York.

Allgood Berry, A, Sano, Y, Katras, MJ & Lee, J 2014, 'Staying At Home: Low-Income Mothers in Rural America', in E Reid Boyd & G Letherby (eds), Stay-at-Home Mothers: Dialogues and Debates, Demeter Press, Canada, pp. 73-84.

Chapman, J 2009, 'Half of new mothers suffer post-natal depression because of a lack of families', Daily Mail, viewed 08/02/2016, <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1120285/Half-new-mothers-suffer-post-natal-depression-lack-families.html#ixzz3zXcJd9HX >.

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Joiner, G 2022, The Foundations of Flourishing and Our Responsibility to Infants: An ethical and evidence-based case to challenge the societal acceptance of childcare., Ethics International Press Ltd, UK.

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PwC 2017, Understanding the upaid economy, PricewaterhouseCoopers, <http://www.pwc.com.au/australia-in-transition/publications/understanding-the-unpaid-economy-mar17.pdf>.

Small, R, Watson, L, Gunn, J, Mitchell, C & Brown, S 2014, 'Improving population-level maternal health: a hard nut to crack? Long term findings and reflections on a 16-community randomised trial in Australia to improve maternal emotional and physical health after birth [ISRCTN03464021]', PLoS ONE, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. e88457-e88457.

United-Nations 1998, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Unicef, London, <https://www.unicef.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/UNCRC_united_nations_convention_on_the_rights_of_the_child.pdf>.

Wertheim, M 2017, 'The science question and feminism', The Monthly, <https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2017/february/1485867600/margaret-wertheim/science-question-and-feminism>.