Must sacrifice mean martyrdom?
I looked up “martyrdom” in the dictionary last week. English is not my first language, and though it is the language I am most comfortable in, I don’t always trust myself to understand the nuances of every word. I was listening to a podcast on parenting and the conversation led to a discussion on what the host referred to as the “myth of motherhood as martyrdom.” This is a theme that has been coming up in my Instagram feed recently.
“Am I a martyr?” I thought. The word doesn’t quite seem to fit so I looked it up.
Martyrdom: noun - a display of feigned or exaggerated suffering to obtain sympathy or admiration. "you know martyrdom isn't my style"
Here’s an image for you. I googled this via Siri while on my knees scrubbing our master bathroom shower, a shower we pay someone else to clean every other week, but that I found myself cleaning because I wanted to try a new product my mom had recommended. My mom was having surgery that morning and I guess this was a way to feel connected to her and process my fears. Ironically my mom loathes all housework and would much prefer to be reading or writing, as I’m doing now. She didn’t come as far as she has (I mean, this lady is accomplished) by prioritizing housework. Still, I found some comfort in the labor of cleaning my shower that morning.
Meanwhile, I’ve also been ruminating on an email from my 5 year old’s teacher. She’s been thinking about meaningful work, caring for oneself and the community and the role this plays in the children’s development. Specifically, the children are taking on more responsibilities and we’ve been encouraged to establish similar chores or opportunities for caretaking in our homes.
My husband and I, ever the good pupils, have had the kids clearing the table, washing and drying dishes, helping with laundry, watering plants, and helping each other. My eldest, who has stepped into the responsibility with aplomb, is taking it upon herself to do things like changing out empty toilet paper rolls. This weekend she made a pot of chicken broth almost entirely on her own. Not that she doesn’t often respond, “I’m busy,” to our requests that she put her shoes somewhere other than the middle of the living room floor. We’ve always involved our kids in the life and tasks of our home because we enjoy it, but it feels different to do it with the purpose of collectively caring for our space.
Still, I have ambivalence around bringing my daughters (my children both self-identify as girls) into the world of housework and caretaking. Especially as women. Especially as Latinas. Especially as the great granddaughters of someone who, having spent most of her life doing care work, shielded her youngest daughter out of twelve children, my mother, from that world and insisted that school was her only job. My parents did the same for me. I did not have chores. My work was school and play. Maybe in part because it wasn’t required of me, I was always attracted to organizing and cleaning. Mine were the dolls with perfectly styled hair, even as I dragged them through the woods for picnics and spying on the neighbors.
And then there’s the conversation that has dominated Mike and my attempts to navigate this phase of our partnership: how to move towards an equitable division of labor at home. The hardest part of this has less to do with delegating tasks and everything to do with our minds and hearts. So while I understand the importance of caring for our home and community, as my eldest enters an age of industry I question, too, how she will carry these lessons into her future. Is this where the mental load gets established? Where martyrdom begins?
But again, I don’t feel like a martyr. I don’t suffer through caring for my home or kids for the sake of admiration or approval from others or even from myself. I don’t see it as noble, or righteous, though I do see it as essential. I do it because I find pleasure in it. I do it because I am able to do it. I do it out of a sense of responsibility. Sometimes, I do it because I have to.
What a tremendous gift to be cared for so that I can offer care in return.
Mothering is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but any suffering is usually out of a lack of support. It is all so much harder when you are alone and unseen in the labor. Parenting and caring for a home is a lot of work and, honestly, I’d like compensation. I deeply feel the loss of the Economic Impact Payments for families and I’ll probably be pissed about it forever. At the very least it felt like an acknowledgement, and for many of us they meant much more than that.
I keep mulling over why I don’t relate to motherhood as martyrdom when so many others, including my husband, do. In some of the harder moments, like when I’ve cooked a meal that has been soundly rejected by small people with fickle loyalties to flavors and textures, my resentment points towards it. But my model of mothering, of parenting, was one where my parents cared for us without any strings attached. Their generosity was not provisory. Even now my parents resist my attempts to thank them, although what they give us in terms of care is invaluable. “Mija!” they say, “Somos tus padres.” (We are your parents.) As if that explains it all.
I’m reminded of a post by Sahaj Kaur Kohli of @browngirltherapy highlighting some of the cultural conflicts children of immigrants or bicultural folx can experience.
“In one culture we may be encouraged to consider the family or community even, at times, at the expense of the individual. In another culture we may be encouraged to consider ourselves even, at times, at the expense of our family or community. Neither may feel justttttt right.” A comment about navigating collectivist vs. individualist values hints at what may be a keystone in this puzzle. “It's not as simple as pure generosity; it comes from a hope that the people in my life will participate in this system of mutual caring with me. But inevitably, the ones not raised in the same culture just...don't do it,” writes @anupamapillalamarri
A different word keeps coming up as I talk this all through with my mother (she’s well and recovering) and Mike: sacrifice. And it is true, my parents made sacrifices for us. Mike and I make sacrifices for our children and family, too. Sacrifice seems to me an essential component of being in relationship. Sometimes we must give of ourselves for the greater good. That, for me at least, was one of the bigger lessons of the pandemic. Why does Mike, like so many others, experience some–though admittedly not all–of the sacrifices that he makes to parent in the way he desires (present, available, affectionate, generous) as a sort of martyrdom? Why do I experience my sacrifices–and they do feel like sacrifices, offerings–as necessities or choices that do not require compensation, be that praise or a clean plate? Why do I not feel them as sacrifices of the self? Of my self?
Maybe I don’t truly suffer in mothering because I feel held. I experience mutual caring daily. I may not have the support of our government, much of society, or the many neighbors who pass me on the subway and pretend to not see me struggling to schlep a stroller, two kids, and all our stuff up two flights of stairs. But my support system includes a spouse I feel safe with, parents and parents-in-law who trust and value our perspectives, friends who show up when we need them, siblings who show up as well, and a host of privileges that my husband and I make regular use of consciously and not. When I need or want to share the load and can do so in a way that aligns with my ethics–paying someone fairly, leaning on willing family or friends–I do it without reservation. (Full disclosure: this part has taken real work on my end, in particular when it comes to sharing my children. A story for another time.)
I don’t have to fight to put myself first sometimes, because I have others around me who will. What a tremendous gift to be cared for so that I can offer care in return.
One of the proposed solutions to the resentment and shame that martyrdom causes is to develop the ability to know what we need and the fortitude to ask for it. This assumes that parents (mothers) do not know what we need. Accurate for some but not for many others. Many of us were screaming for it in public parks and over hotlines not so long ago. It also assumes that we all have someone to receive help from. If only that were the case. Another suggestion is to seek and develop moments of personal joy.
These are parts of any solution to the problem of unrequited sacrifice. Parenting is often a catalyst for personal growth, and each of us has different things to work on. However, without meaningful community reform we’re left with another myth: self-sufficiency. We were never meant to parent alone. So support, whether that’s coming from schools and childcare centers, extended family, or in the form of monetary payments from the government, is essential to our well-being. Knowing what we need and how to ask for it can only take us so far if we have no one to ask. Finding joy can give us relief from the rage, but alone does not move us forward.
As voting day approaches*, I’m teaching my daughters about the ways in which our individual destinies are tied up with the collective. My husband and I are raising multicultural children and the tension between the collective and the individual is always in the foreground. It’s part of my own experience as a 3rd culture kid, but it’s also a dialectic that is reshaping our society right now. The critique of the myth of the mother as martyr focuses on the individual. Oddly, however, historical ideas of martyrdom stress sacrifice for the advancement of a community or cause, i.e. the collective. As I contemplate my own sacrifices, I wonder how the self can be reaffirmed through the work of caring. If I don’t feel like a martyr it is in part because the work does not feel self-less. Can my husband access this as someone raised in a culture that values the individual above the collective? What possibilities exist for my daughters in the tension between caring for their community and caring for themselves? And can they hold onto both and still pick up their darned shoes?
*If you’re reading this in the US, voting day is Tuesday, November 8th. Make a voting plan today, and vote with the most vulnerable in mind. If you’re in NY like me, early voting has started. I’m going tomorrow. Need a cheat sheet? Go here.