The Mommy Wars Are Bad, Actually
When it comes to the culture wars over parenting, the process is the punishment
The motherhood debate hit rock bottom last week when a right-wing social media personality, emilysavesamerica, who flogs Trump merchandise, shared a video with a surprising opinion. The tradwife movement is "cringe," she declared from her car (where, seemingly, conservative influencers are contractually obligated to set their videos). She claimed women dreaming of becoming sourdough-baking stay-at-home moms have a "slim chance" of realizing this fantasy and suggested women need careers or interests outside child-rearing to remain intellectually engaging to their husbands.
I've watched these maternal culture wars unfold with increasing dismay. Both sides quickly resort to caricaturing the other: stay-at-home mothers become "freeloaders bopping around town in yoga pants having lunch with girlfriends," while working mothers are painted as cold careerists outsourcing their children's upbringing. The rhetoric has become so toxic that young women contemplating motherhood see only two equally miserable options: sacrifice your identity to full-time childcare or abandon your children to pursue selfish ambitions.
These battles have become tediously predictable fixtures of our cultural landscape. One week it's the stay-at-home mother lamenting society's failure to recognize her labor, the next it's the working mother defending herself against accusations of neglect, followed by the part-time working mother explaining why she has achieved the "perfect balance." The participants change, but the fundamental dynamic remains: women viciously judging other women's choices while refusing to acknowledge their own role in perpetuating a larger narrative that motherhood, in any form, is a losing proposition.
Why are we so invested in these fights? Because our mothering choices have become proxies for our entire political worldview. The progressive mother sees her decision to maintain her career as a feminist statement about women's economic independence. The conservative mother views her dedication to home and children as preserving traditional family values, or even making the more radically independent choice in a world where gender equality has become normal but still thinks it is new and revolutionary. Both feel compelled to defend these choices not just as personal preferences but as moral imperatives—and both actively participate in tearing down mothers who choose differently.
But who actually benefits from these endless debates? Certainly not women themselves, who increasingly delay or opt out of motherhood altogether after witnessing these digital battlegrounds where motherhood—in all its forms—is portrayed as an exercise in misery.
The irony is that mothers are actively creating this toxic environment for themselves. With each doom-scrolling session and performative social media post, they reinforce the very narratives they claim to resist. Today's mother doesn't just raise children; she curates an online persona around her parenting philosophy—whether it's tradwife domesticity, gentle parenting evangelism, or corporate-mom efficiency. These digital identities demand constant defense and validation, transforming personal parenting decisions into public political statements.
The self-inflicted cycle persists because it's easier to engage in hashtag wars or to seek validation through likes than to simply parent without an audience. It's more emotionally satisfying to join a digital tribe of like-minded mothers than to acknowledge that much of motherhood exists in gray areas that don't translate to shareable content. I am also guilty of this! The most exhausting part of modern motherhood isn't the parenting itself—it's the performance of it.
Breaking this cycle requires mothers to acknowledge their active participation in this digital spectacle. It means recognizing that when a mother posts about being "the go-to appointment-maker and mess-cleaner" who must "beg, borrow, and steal to make time for herself," she's not just describing her experience—she's inviting validation, comparison, and ultimately, division.
The real mom war isn't between different types of mothers but between mothers and their screens. While they're busy crafting the perfect response to the latest parenting controversy, they miss the profound simplicity of just being present. If mothers stepped away from the digital arena where they've voluntarily entered these gladiatorial contests of judgment, both they and their children would discover something revolutionary: parenting doesn't need an audience, and motherhood is more fulfilling when it's lived rather than performed.
The next mom who side-eyes your parenting decisions isn't some villain sent by society; she's just another mother caught in the same toxic cycle of measuring and criticizing that we all feed into. Mothers standing together would be an unstoppable force—but first, we need to stop undermining each other and accidentally promoting anti-motherhood sentiments. Because when we consistently portray both stay-at-home and working motherhood as equally unbearable options, we shouldn't be shocked when younger women increasingly opt out altogether.
The internet microphone, hashtags, and comment sections are most often left to the loudest, most neurotic, extreme, or otherwise proudly cloying types. It’s all angle to sell a course or merch or whatever the shill du jour is. We’d do well to remember that most of the content is presenting the outliers and exceptions as the rule when wasting away scrolling and consuming supposed motherhood content.
No kids, but I am a stay at home wife. It works for us for now. I would love to work and have a career, it's just not in the cards right now. I think every woman gets to choose the right path for their family and create the best balance that you can with what you have. You deal with what works best for you and your family and that is all you can do as a woman, wife or mother. No situation is perfect, but you can accept each other and support your friends that want or need to work the same way you support woman who have to or want to stay home.