by a Happily Married Newlywed

I’ve come to realize that modern womanhood does not prepare women for pregnancy.

By “modern womanhood” I mean just about every group of people out there that gives us pictures of what womanhood is like. I mean people within both Christian and secular realms and people of most any age. Family, friends, acquaintances, strangers. I mean media and movies and books and all the other areas. The only exceptions I can really think of are some older people who have not fallen to the lies of this age (although often they aren’t very vocal about what they think) and those in really conservative homeschool Christian circles, but I was only really part of one of those for a few years of my life. Most of the time I’ve been in more “moderate” Christian circles, some homeschool circles and some not, and several secular circles through some of my college and work experiences. So I’ve been exposed to a lot of lies.

And by “does not prepare women for pregnancy” I mean that modern womanhood gives an image of what womanhood is like that pretty much teaches and reinforces values and ideals that have very little to do with childbirth and motherhood and, in fact, are often contrary to what womanhood actually entails.
Most women marry, and most become mothers at some point. That is a fact, yet that is where the disconnect is–between what actually happens and what modern womanhood depicts.

Modern womanhood does not accept the idea that one of the purposes of marriage is bearing children. In fact, in extreme modern womanhood (such as with celebrities) they try to divorce it from marriage altogether. Want a child? Go to a sperm bank! But that extreme aside, modern womanhood sees children as, perhaps, a fringe benefit of marriage and something a couple can choose to do it some point if they wish. Instead, they say marriage is all about companionship and romance and love as if all those areas could not possibly include the idea of a family. And if family is to be included in that, they tout the idea that only a few children are necessary to round out the picture. Why would anyone want more than 2 or 3?

Modern womanhood does not accept that a pregnancy could be anything but unplanned or planned. By “unplanned” I am referring to a teenage mother whose boyfriend’s condom breaks or something else “tragic” happens of that nature. By “planned” I mean a married couple (or “committed couple”) who waits until a convenient/ideal time, tries to get pregnant, and succeeds. I’m not saying people who do that are doing something wrong, but my point is that modern womanhood does not understand the idea of a pregnancy that does not fall into either category. They would see such a pregnancy “achieved” without planning to be foolish, out of ignorance (“do you know what causes that?”), or just unheard of. The only situation where they’d allow it is if a couple were on the older side, and then they’d think they weren’t trying to prevent pregnancy because, well, age is creeping up, so they might as well get pregnant before they’re too old, right? They don’t understand anything else.

Modern womanhood does not prepare women for gaining weight and increasing in size (nor decreasing in size after giving birth and being left with “less” of a figure). Modern womanhood is all about dieting, getting fit, and being able to wear that bikini come summer. It is about being healthy and getting that figure you’ve always wanted. It is not about a woman intentionally gaining weight, rejoicing as she sees her belly growing, or enjoying the changes in her body that pregnancy brings. For the first time in a long time in my adulthood, I am not on a diet. For years I’ve skirted around certain food groups and tried not to eat too much too often, never in a crazy or unwise attempt to drop pounds, but in a way to gradually lose what I didn’t want to have. But now I not only am not dieting (pregnant women should never diet), but I am also eating a lot and often. Pregnancy forums online and in books are riddled with questions of “How much should I gain?” and “Am I gaining too much?” which are legitimate questions (after all, you can certainly overdo your weight gain), but that kind of persistent paranoia and focus is fed off the modern womanhood patterns of not eating much, not eating certain foods, not gaining weight, and so forth. Weight should not be so much our focus but health. What should I eat to help my baby? How should I prepare my body to help the baby grow, to help me during labor, to help the milk supply? But a person can only come to a pro-eating mentality after loosening the tight modern womanhood shackles of the anti-eating, anti-food mentality.

Modern womanhood does not understand the fulfillment of motherhood. Many people have already covered this one far better than I can, especially as I am not a practicing mother yet. But to be brief, work, hobbies, “me time,” friends, husbands, being involved in the PTA, etc. are all very important and fulfilling, yet motherhood couldn’t possibly be. Or, if motherhood does have some fulfillment, it is only fulfilling if one “influences the world” outside of one’s family. As if raising a child couldn’t be a very effective way to influence the world!

Modern womanhood does not help a woman anticipate and embrace changes in her body during pregnancy. Instead, modern womanhood tells a woman that SHE must be in control. Even in areas such as her menstrual cycle, the world says that she can be in charge of that and have a period four times a year. Or not at all. While a woman should, as much as she can, take charge of what she puts into her body and what she does to her body, pregnancy is certainly an area where her body will go through a God-prescribed series of events regardless of what she wants or does herself. Of course, there is the whole pro-choice strain of thought that says keeping the child or aborting it is her choice, but regardless–if the pregnancy continues, she cannot choose for the baby’s heart to be formed a different week than it will or that her morning sickness should be postponed until after a meeting at work. No, the body will do what it will do, and like it or not, the woman will have a baby somewhere within 40 or so weeks, and her body will go through all the necessary changes before then, all in the right sequence. Modern womanhood does not prepare women for this “lack of control.” And this problem continues through labor, when many women have traumatic or unbearably painful labors for many reasons, among them the fear of “letting go” and allowing labor to take its course.

And these are just some of the areas where modern womanhood gives women a far different picture of their lives than will be the actuality for most of them. The result? PANIC. FEAR. ANXIETY. (All fueled by a lot of the pregnancy information out there that focuses so much on everything that can go terribly wrong.) I admit that I felt a taste of each of these anti-virtues in finding out I was pregnant myself–not that I didn’t want to be pregnant, but I found that as much as I knew that one of the purposes of marriage was to bear and raise children, actually doing it myself was something different. And even if I knew it was good and natural for my body to change shape, gain weight, and grow, I was a bit panicky at the thought of everything I had worked so hard to do for my body would be completely undone (which is untrue–a lie, thanks to modern womanhood). And so on.

Since then I have spent some time having to unwind the lies and redo the images of what womanhood really is about, not just for women in general but for me. And getting to the stripped-down truth and realizing how this is all meant to be has been very rewarding and calming. To know truth and to experience truth are two different things, but when they come together, the result can be beautiful and fulfilling.

Unfortunately, many women never get away from the lies, and instead they have awful pregnancies, labors they wish to forget about completely, children they get along with best when they aren’t spending time together with them, a decision to stop at having X number of children (since the kids turned out like that, who’d want more?), husbands they wish they could change, burnout as they are stretched thin between family and work, and a strong desire just to get to the point of self-actualization, fulfillment, contentment, peace, and happiness. They do not realize they have missed all their best chances at the satisfaction they desire. In trying to find the best in modern womanhood, they have missed out entirely on what womanhood truly is.

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