Stop. Touching. Me.
When your skin is crawling and your body is screaming to have some independence and agency again.
TOUCHED.
OUT.
What exactly are you allowed to say as a mother if you're feeling overwhelmed, over-touched, totally without a moment to yourself, totally at the whim and beck and call of all other people, and completely inundated with demands?
"This is hard," you might begin to say, trying to explain just how many times your body is touched, prodded, poked, pulled, and used. "I just need a minute," I’ll say to my kids in the morning as I'm trying to connect the coffee in the cup with my outstretched mouth.
But the truth is that if I talk openly about how hard motherhood is, or how much I need a break, the general cultural vibe is to reject the notion that mothers should have support or help, or even talk about the hard parts at all. People don't actually want to hear how it is. They just want to confirm that motherhood is what society says it is.
Too many times, I've broached the subject just to be forcefully met with the reproach of anyone within ear shot.
😠 "If you didn't want to have kids, you shouldn't have had them."
😤"Your body is meant for this. It's totally natural."
😡 "Even though it's hard, it's all totally worth it."
🤬 “Stop whining, stop complaining. No one likes a whiny woman."
“We don’t really want to hear about how hard motherhood is,” society says to moms.
Whenever someone tells you not to look at something, or tells you to stop talking, we should be on alert. My theory is that people don’t want to hear about how hard motherhood is mostly because they actually looked at what motherhood in America involves, they would be horrified.
"You should have thought about this earlier," is basically what society says to moms. And if it's hard, somehow, we're going to convince you that it's your fault. It's not anything in the design, the system, or the structural lack of support anything parenting related. “Mmm, maybe you’re just not doing it right,” people tsk-tsk at moms. The consumer sales cycle tells you that it must be because you don’t have the right stuff. Or the right skills. “It’s probably your fault,” is the undertone of nearly all cultural replies to conversations about motherhood.
It's "your fault" for not...
... working hard enough.
... trying enough.
... having the right systems.
... changing your mindset.
... writing daily in your gratitude journal.
... meditating perfectly.
Or just paste in some other bullsh*t reason that's actually about blaming moms, making them feel worse about how hard it is, and then slyly selling them a "solution" to their problems (A pill organizer! That's the solution. A perfect pill organizer and new potted plants will make everything go away! I HAVE TOTALLY BOUGHT BOTH OF THESE THINGS. I AM DROWNING IN THE THINGS I HAVE BOUGHT.)
Okay.
This needs to STOP.
We need to move towards a world where it is okay to talk about our feelings and to examine the hard things in life. Not talking about them doesn’t make them go away.
Feeling overwhelmed is a valid feeling.
Talking about the hard parts is an acceptable thing to do. Wanting to take a brief break to do something—anything—for yourself is both reasonable and appropriate. If we’re not able to talk about the hard parts, how will we ever be able to manage grief, loss, love, or pleasure? We can’t selectively ignore things that are hard and then expect to be able to feel everything else. We need to move towards a world where it is okay to talk about our feelings and to examine the hard things in life.
Yesterday I got to interview Amanda Montei of
about her forthcoming book, TOUCHED OUT: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent and Control. I just finished reading a preview of the book (it comes out in September 2023), and it is going on my recommended reading list instantly.In the book, Amanda Montei—a lecturer, writer, author, feminist researcher, parent, workshop leader, and so much more—unpacks the connection between how we feel in our bodies and the rules society places on our bodies.
Too often, moms are made to feel guilty to keep them cornered, tired, and controlled.
It's a wild read.
If you've ever wondered why it's hard to slow down, feel pleasure, or enjoy sex, this book connects the dots.
If you’re ever wondered why for so many women it is
… hard to orgasm.
... hard to feel pleasure.
... hard to stop working until you're exhausted.
... hard to stop going-doing-being-of-service .
... yet also you know that it's not really that satisfying to do laundry in an open loop forever...
A mom that feels touched out has a body that is telling her that she needs a break, and that she needs space. It should be totally normal to want to take a break from your kids. Just like we need breaks from work, from spouses, from friends, from being awake—we need breaks from our kids.
But so much of modern parenting culture tells us that we should give ourselves over completely to our kids—to be there at night to soothe them at all times, to allow them to crawl and climb and pull—and it reinforces the decades-long conversation that your body really isn’t your own, and it isn’t for you.
Overriding the needs of your body and your own self in service of others is so second-nature to many women that it’s hard to see it at first. Amanda draws a connection between the way that girls and women are socialized to always put others first, to be quiet and demure, to be domestic goddesses, to be beautiful—to the completely overwhelming and dehumanizing landscape of motherhood and parenthood today.
The common through-line between a culture that blames women for being assaulted and a culture that breaks mothers down emotionally and physically is a culture that wants to control women's bodies. When girls and women are socialized to be quiet and demure, to be of service, and to put others first, they are sold a message that their bodies are for other people first.
It's one of the reasons why motherhood can be so violently confronting. Why it can be devastating to re-learn all of these things about your body that have been suppressed for years.
It's an important read.
Highly recommend.
Buy her book here. Buy it for a local library or coffee shop, buy it for a friend. Let's help make her book a bestseller.
And subscribe to the Startup Parent Podcast so you can listen to our interview.
— Sarah Peck
CEO & Founder
Startup Parent