Do you ever wonder how motherhood has looked since the beginning of time?  Emily Kearney and Melissa Wetzel chat about how Motherhood has changed and taken may different forms throughout centuries and how the concept of “stay at home mom” is a recent/modern/privileged phenomenon, in order to help reduce mom guilt for mothers who feel like they do not do enough for their kids or spend enough time with them, etc. They take a look at ancient history of motherhood, how it evolved in modern times, and mom shame.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iCN6EnaAL0&t=61s

Research mentioned in episode:

• New York Times Opinion piece, “Early Motherhood has always been Miserable” by Jessica Grose: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/opinion/sunday/babies-mothers-anxiety.html
• Washington Post Opinion piece “A brief history of how we think about motherhood: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-brief-history-of-how-we-think-about-motherhood/2016/05/06/a8a1af86-12df-11e6-81b4-581a5c4c42df_story.html
• Britannica Encyclopedia entry on “Women in the Workforce” https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-work-organization-648000/Women-in-the-workforce
• “Hunter-Gatherer Women” entry in the Anthropology Oxford Research Encyclopedia: https://oxfordre.com/anthropology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.001.0001/acrefore-9780190854584-e-105)
• “Women’s Work in Ancient Egypt” Encyclopedia: https://www.ancient.eu/article/1058/womens-work-in-ancient-egypt/
• Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World, entitled “11 things about women in Ancient Israel you probably didn’t know” https://blog.oup.com/2016/10/women-ancient-israel/
• Women in the Middle Ages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_Middle_Ages