There's something about those hidden mother portraits that really tugs at my heart. Maybe it's because I'm still struggling to find my identity as a newer mother (almost 17 months postpartum) and I sometimes feel like them, a dark void in the background. Being a mother is my favorite thing in the world and has been the single most transformative experience in my entire life. However, amidst the joys and challenges, I find myself unsure of where I truly fit in the world right now.
Speaking as a mother who made it out the other side, please know that your feelings are completely normal. When I look back, I know that all those tough days (as well as the joyful ones), transformed me into a woman I never would have become without those years of experience. You may feel a bit lost sometimes now, but in the end, you will find yourself again.
Yes totally normal to feel this way Britt! It is a massive upheaval and there is very little acknowledgement of this, either, which can make you feel like you are going bonkers, basically! There's a myth, too, that you will 'get your body back' i.e everything will go back to just as it was before. I don't think that's true or helpful! xx
My goodness. You took the words right out of my mouth (and several of my posts 😂). I'm 9 months postpartum and this shift has felt SO dramatic. Such deep, overwhelming love and joy and also somehow such a disorientation in the world.
Thank you for this! I especially liked learning about the Hidden Mothers!! As feminists who champion women how can we not champion mothers?? This is a bone I’ve had to pick since the 1970s!!!
This is great Milli. As a second waver, our early feminist critiques did not fully value the parts of women's lives and choices that seemed to reflect the traditional roles we were challenging. I guess when those roles were the only ones open to us, they had to be challenged. But how different things are now when the particularity of being female in this world is being denied us, so strongly. Thank you for your clear thinking and the way the reality of our lives and feelings are your touchstone.
Thanks Lynn! I think you're right, women needed to push back against the whole idea of motherhood and home because it was part of the oppression...or so it seemed? Maybe that was a misfire. I really appreciate your comment, so lovely xx
I was wondering if, given the high mortality rate of women in childbirth during the Victorian era (and general lack of effective contraception which made this more likely to cut short a woman’s life) if those dreadful shrouded mothers were actually a rather gruesome acknowledgment of a mother who was dead rather than a negation of one that was alive.
It is easy to forget that many families of a hundred years ago or more had either no mothers or the older children had a stepmother. Perhaps those ghostly figures are representations of dead mothers in an era somewhat obsessed with death?
Working as a midwife I was able to see exactly how families worked with new babies in the house and small children. I encountered women who owes to stay at home after birth, women, who went straight back to work and had various childcare options, and in all that time I only once came across, a family where the man truly took on the role of the mother. In invariably when there was shared care with a working mother or supposedly, the father was the main carer what I witnessed was when the mother was present, the children still gravitated towards her in all things. but I once cared for a woman who was a city banker, and her husband had taken leave from work five years previously to care for their first child and was continuing when this second baby was born. I also cared for her three years later when she had her third baby, and this father was still the main carer. what I saw was when mummy was at home, the children still remained close to the father. For example, she be sat with the new baby and me the father would come in with a shopping list, the two small children at his feet, and when he walked out to go to the shop, they ran happily after him. This is only a small observation, but I never saw its equal in any other. Home and I saw this family over many years and in many situations, and it was like he was the mother in the sense that the children were in orbit around him at all times when they finally left my Care, I gifted them a book, written all about a father, as the main carer or mothering role written by a man from New Zealand. It wasn’t lost on me that this father in my clients family was also from New Zealand. That’s a long winded way of saying that after seeing hundreds of families I think I’m a good judge on who really cares for babies and children, regardless of the circumstances at home. It’s a bit like the surveys on housework. We all know that, despite women working full-time, they often still do the lions share of the housework.
A wonderful piece, thank you Milli. In my book mothers are flipping awesome! Becoming a mother is such a monumental experience we are never the same again!
I just had a thought. Were these not the children's mother's but nannies or governesses who didn't 'belong' in a family photo. Or a relative substitute for a dead mother?
I've read quite a lot of articles about them and none of them say that, but I am not sure how they know for sure! They are even called 'hidden mother' photos. I have seen one reference that says they were sometimes women who worked for the photographer to hold the child still, but every other reference says they were the mother! xxx
Wow. There is so much here (as always, in your work) and I know I'll be returning to much of this in conversations with friends. This in particular stands out to me right now and makes me feel so seen!:
"In spite of my presence, I was at the same time invisible - in fact no, I wasn’t invisible, but motherhood somehow seemed to act as a signifier to treat me as if I were invisible, to pretend that I was; to truly objectify me, not in the old fashioned, fuckable way I was used to, but by instead treating me as a comfortable and reliable part of the furniture. All of this was voluntary of course: I had willingly placed the cloth over my own head. And as the women in the Hidden Mother portraits must have done, I felt in the dark, lost, and at times, stifled."
I've felt inspired to use the word "mother" more and more since running into you. There's a sort of urgency about it now, a real deep desire to hold onto that one word that I feel defines much of my soul, and without which I would be lost. Thank you, Milli.
There's something about those hidden mother portraits that really tugs at my heart. Maybe it's because I'm still struggling to find my identity as a newer mother (almost 17 months postpartum) and I sometimes feel like them, a dark void in the background. Being a mother is my favorite thing in the world and has been the single most transformative experience in my entire life. However, amidst the joys and challenges, I find myself unsure of where I truly fit in the world right now.
Speaking as a mother who made it out the other side, please know that your feelings are completely normal. When I look back, I know that all those tough days (as well as the joyful ones), transformed me into a woman I never would have become without those years of experience. You may feel a bit lost sometimes now, but in the end, you will find yourself again.
Thank you. ❤️
Yes totally normal to feel this way Britt! It is a massive upheaval and there is very little acknowledgement of this, either, which can make you feel like you are going bonkers, basically! There's a myth, too, that you will 'get your body back' i.e everything will go back to just as it was before. I don't think that's true or helpful! xx
If you haven’t come across it yet, look up the concept of matrescence ❤️
My goodness. You took the words right out of my mouth (and several of my posts 😂). I'm 9 months postpartum and this shift has felt SO dramatic. Such deep, overwhelming love and joy and also somehow such a disorientation in the world.
Thank you for this! I especially liked learning about the Hidden Mothers!! As feminists who champion women how can we not champion mothers?? This is a bone I’ve had to pick since the 1970s!!!
This is great Milli. As a second waver, our early feminist critiques did not fully value the parts of women's lives and choices that seemed to reflect the traditional roles we were challenging. I guess when those roles were the only ones open to us, they had to be challenged. But how different things are now when the particularity of being female in this world is being denied us, so strongly. Thank you for your clear thinking and the way the reality of our lives and feelings are your touchstone.
Thanks Lynn! I think you're right, women needed to push back against the whole idea of motherhood and home because it was part of the oppression...or so it seemed? Maybe that was a misfire. I really appreciate your comment, so lovely xx
I was wondering if, given the high mortality rate of women in childbirth during the Victorian era (and general lack of effective contraception which made this more likely to cut short a woman’s life) if those dreadful shrouded mothers were actually a rather gruesome acknowledgment of a mother who was dead rather than a negation of one that was alive.
It is easy to forget that many families of a hundred years ago or more had either no mothers or the older children had a stepmother. Perhaps those ghostly figures are representations of dead mothers in an era somewhat obsessed with death?
I don't think that's the case but it's a good theory. Everything I have read says that it was simply to hold the baby still. If you google 'victorian hidden mothers' there are quite a lot of articles about it. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/dec/02/hidden-mothers-victorian-photography xx
Working as a midwife I was able to see exactly how families worked with new babies in the house and small children. I encountered women who owes to stay at home after birth, women, who went straight back to work and had various childcare options, and in all that time I only once came across, a family where the man truly took on the role of the mother. In invariably when there was shared care with a working mother or supposedly, the father was the main carer what I witnessed was when the mother was present, the children still gravitated towards her in all things. but I once cared for a woman who was a city banker, and her husband had taken leave from work five years previously to care for their first child and was continuing when this second baby was born. I also cared for her three years later when she had her third baby, and this father was still the main carer. what I saw was when mummy was at home, the children still remained close to the father. For example, she be sat with the new baby and me the father would come in with a shopping list, the two small children at his feet, and when he walked out to go to the shop, they ran happily after him. This is only a small observation, but I never saw its equal in any other. Home and I saw this family over many years and in many situations, and it was like he was the mother in the sense that the children were in orbit around him at all times when they finally left my Care, I gifted them a book, written all about a father, as the main carer or mothering role written by a man from New Zealand. It wasn’t lost on me that this father in my clients family was also from New Zealand. That’s a long winded way of saying that after seeing hundreds of families I think I’m a good judge on who really cares for babies and children, regardless of the circumstances at home. It’s a bit like the surveys on housework. We all know that, despite women working full-time, they often still do the lions share of the housework.
That's really interesting Lynn. xx
A wonderful piece, thank you Milli. In my book mothers are flipping awesome! Becoming a mother is such a monumental experience we are never the same again!
I just had a thought. Were these not the children's mother's but nannies or governesses who didn't 'belong' in a family photo. Or a relative substitute for a dead mother?
I've read quite a lot of articles about them and none of them say that, but I am not sure how they know for sure! They are even called 'hidden mother' photos. I have seen one reference that says they were sometimes women who worked for the photographer to hold the child still, but every other reference says they were the mother! xxx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_mother_photography
Wow. There is so much here (as always, in your work) and I know I'll be returning to much of this in conversations with friends. This in particular stands out to me right now and makes me feel so seen!:
"In spite of my presence, I was at the same time invisible - in fact no, I wasn’t invisible, but motherhood somehow seemed to act as a signifier to treat me as if I were invisible, to pretend that I was; to truly objectify me, not in the old fashioned, fuckable way I was used to, but by instead treating me as a comfortable and reliable part of the furniture. All of this was voluntary of course: I had willingly placed the cloth over my own head. And as the women in the Hidden Mother portraits must have done, I felt in the dark, lost, and at times, stifled."
I just shared some reflections on this very theme: https://miriamcruz.substack.com/p/mothering-from-the-void
I've felt inspired to use the word "mother" more and more since running into you. There's a sort of urgency about it now, a real deep desire to hold onto that one word that I feel defines much of my soul, and without which I would be lost. Thank you, Milli.