I Regret to Report That Women Are at It Again.

Abstract

Recent debates well-nigh maternal regret, prompted by the publication of Israeli sociologist Orna Donath's (2015) research with mothers who admit to regretting their maternity, take manifested differently in different cultural contexts. This chapter situates Tiina Sihto and Armi Mustosmäki's analysis of a discussion of regret among contributors to an online forum for mothers in Finland (run into Chap. ten) within the international context past comparison the Finnish discussion to similar media debates in Spain and the Anglophone countries. Our analysis reveals that while the idea that a adult female might regret her maternity is more than readily accepted in countries where institutional back up for mothers is lacking, there is a general acceptance that the inordinate pressures placed on mothers in neoliberal societies to negotiate the competing demands of family unit and paid employment make it inevitable that some women will experience regret. Moreover, we find prove that the open up conversation nigh regret triggered by Donath's research is perceived equally a further stride towards destabilizing traditional attitudes towards gender roles.

Introduction

The Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden—are consistently held upwards as standard-bearers when it comes to empowering women and promoting gender equality. Generous parental exit, loftier-quality, state-subsidized childcare, and employment protection for parents remove the burden of childcare from women, facilitating their participation in the workforce (Organisation for Economic Co-performance and Development [OECD], 2018). However, policies aimed at closing the gaps betwixt men and women in the workplace and at domicile practise non automatically transform attitudes towards traditional gender roles. As French feminist philosopher Élisabeth Badinter (2011) argues, "Changing an ideal takes far longer to have effect than providing childcare" (p. 135). Tiina Sihto and Armi Mustosmäki's affiliate in this volume (come across Chap. 10) underlines how deep-seated expectations of women'southward roles—including their own expectations of themselves—influence both how they judge their ain behaviours and how others judge them. We argue that the fence about maternal regret that has emerged in a number of countries in recent years exposes cultural attitudes about mothers and mothering that undercut congratulatory narratives of progress in terms of gender equality.

Sihto and Mustosmäki rightly emphasize the primal importance of Israeli sociologist Orna Donath'south inquiry to our evolving agreement of how and why a adult female might regret her decision to become a mother. Donath's (2015) research on maternal regret has provoked significant discussion, both in academic circles and in the public loonshit. Her pioneering study, based on interviews with 23 Israeli women who admit that if they could get dorsum, they would not cull again to become mothers, addresses a topic that many people find disconcerting, if not downright abhorrent. Donath'southward contention that regret is just every bit legitimate an emotional opinion towards maternity equally any other, and her insistence that women who experience regret should be able to talk about this without fear of condemnation, was ground-breaking. Donath has made information technology possible to talk over motherhood in terms of regret; her research has opened the door for further test of an effect that has tended to be ignored or suppressed in the public imaginary.

The chapter by Sihto and Mustosmäki is one of the first studies to explore the implications of Donath's research for other cultural contexts (eastward.g. Evertsson and Grunow 2016; Giesselmann et al. 2018; Llewellyn 2016; Moore and Abetz 2019; O'Reilly 2019; Volsche 2020). In comparison to the overtly pronatalist State of israel at the heart of Donath'southward study, in Republic of finland motherhood is presented as an individual option with numerous measures designed to allow parents to combine piece of work and family life. Here, Sihto and Mustosmäki argue, the reason why regret is taboo is precisely considering women are accounted to have such freedom of choice and considering the socio-political infrastructure makes mothering so like shooting fish in a barrel, relatively speaking. They contend that the taboo surrounding maternal regret suggests that Finnish attitudes towards maternity remain more than traditional than statistics virtually the gender gap and wellbeing of mothers might indicate. In fact, ideals of attachment are evident in various contributions to the discussion "Those of you lot who regret having children: does the feeling ease as the children grow?" on the online forum vauva.fi, which Sihto and Mustosmäki analyzed. This model of parenting too shapes the backfire against confessions of regret, with some commentators emphasizing the damage they may cause affected children. This conventionalities likewise places pressure on women to repress feelings of regret. Other negative responses deny and downplay the beingness of regret, conflating information technology with low, ambivalence, or exhaustion, besides as displaying concern about the social consequences if regret were to receive cultural legitimation as an acceptable maternal emotion. At the other stop of the spectrum, reflecting the ascension of therapeutic civilization, some commentators validate the importance of opening up about negative emotions. In this respect, online confessions of maternal regret belong to a wider trend of "talking back" in cultural representations of motherhood that deconstruct idealistic stereotypes of "good" maternity (Podnieks 2012, p. 12).

Our own work has explored the controversy that ensued in Germany afterward Donath's (2015) research was featured in the daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in April 2015 (Göbel 2015). ^{Footnote 1} The fence in social media and the printing lasted several months and the topic continues to resurface in broader discussions of maternal culture. Our analysis of the so-chosen #regrettingmotherhood debate in Germany shows how Donath's initial (2015) research—a study among Israeli women published in English language and in an American academic journal—was very apace and effectively moulded to fit particularly German language anxieties virtually motherhood. Many of the contributions to the media debate, whether positive or negative, focused on the pressures on German language mothers, especially working mothers, who must try to balance the competing demands of the dwelling house and workplace. The effect of work-life residue and the (lack of) structural supports available to mothers thus emerges much more strongly as a theme in the German context than in the Finnish conversations analyzed by Sihto and Mustosmäki. Moreover, the ideological battles that surfaced in High german media and social media contributions ofttimes reference ideas about the maternal role connected to the glorification of motherhood during the National Socialist era, also as to differences in the cultural construction of motherhood between Due east and West during the period of division. While Due east German mothers were expected to contribute to the state through paid employment, which was facilitated through widespread provision of public childcare, W German tax and welfare regimes were based on a male breadwinner model, which made it difficult, if not outright prohibitive, for mothers to work. Even so, the Due east German language model did not automatically pb to gender equality. On the contrary, some supports for working mothers, such every bit generous motherhood get out and paid time off for housework, but served to reinforce the assumption that childcare and the domicile were a adult female's responsibility (Ferree 1993). In any case, since the unification of Germany in 1990, the West German language model of maternity has become the norm in both parts of the new Frg. The passionate reactions on both sides of the #regrettingmotherhood debate illustrate the incompatibility of Donath's notion of regret with the fashion in which the maternal role tends to be idealized in contemporary Federal republic of germany (Heffernan and Stone 2021).

The distinct cases of State of israel, Finland and Federal republic of germany indicate that maternal regret is a circuitous, individualized phenomenon that is shaped by local policy and cultural narratives most mothering. In this affiliate, we broaden out this discussion to explore how such factors besides influence public soapbox about maternal regret in other contexts. We, therefore, examine how Donath's enquiry and ensuing discussions about maternal regret were reported in the print media. Our rationale for a thematic assay of newspaper articles is threefold. Offset, there is a multidirectional quality to discussions of maternal regret, with social media users oft responding to or retweeting paper articles, on the one hand, and traditional media reacting to trending topics on social media, on the other. 2nd, discussions of maternal regret in print and online newspapers expose a more diverse readership to the topic than online forums, whether private or open up, which tend to be organized according to topics, for instance, via hashtags or subforums. It is no surprise that the proliferation of online forums has helped to desacralize cultural narratives nearly maternity: they provide a relatively sheltered, if not anonymous, outlet for confession. Nonetheless the very reporting of a topic in the traditional media likewise implies a recognition on the role of calendar setters and gatekeepers that sure bug are relevant to wider society. Third, the articles we analyze reproduce confessions of maternal regret, report on the response, and provide commentary on the wider contexts for mothering in ways that illuminate emergent "structures of feeling" relating to the gender gap and how parenting is constructed and experienced in different cultural contexts (Williams 1977, p. 127).

In choosing these contexts, we were guided by the Nexis database of paper articles relating to the search term 'Orna Donath', given the centrality of Donath's work to public discussions of maternal regret. We then used Cyberspace search engines to cast our nets more widely and capture articles about maternal regret where Donath is not an explicit point of reference. The German-, Spanish-, and English language-language media had the most hits in the Nexis database (203, 64, and 38 respectively). ^{Footnote 2} Since we take analyzed the German response elsewhere (Heffernan and Stone 2021), the current give-and-take focuses on how maternal regret has been discussed in Castilian-speaking and English language-speaking countries.

The English-language corpus presents united states of america with the and so-called "Anglosphere trouble" (Riley 2005, para. viii), i.e. the difficulty of dividing English-language online content forth rigid national lines. Despite some regional restrictions on access to content, there are fewer borders in the consumption of online material. Some pieces included here announced with outlets that are published in several Anglosphere countries and refer to other English language-speaking contexts. This cantankerous-referencing reflects the fact that, beyond historical links, "the Anglosphere broadly shares ideological and economic structures, and that the media systems inside those countries share plenty commonalities to be compared meaningfully" (Duffy and Knight 2019, p. 938). As Michaels and Kokanović (2018) explain, "the dominant cultures in Great britain, Canada, the USA, and Australia share common parenting ideologies that take shape within like economic structures" (p. 8). Drawn in broad strokes, Anglosphere countries are in fact "noninterventionist liberal". with relatively low social spending. Private insurance schemes play an important role in welfare provision and state spending prioritizes those in most need. Though Spanish-language news stories are also often shared between media outlets in Spain and Latin America, all articles in our corpus except three items (two from United mexican states and one from Chile) were published in Spain. We detect little prove that Donath's research has generated significant interest to date in Latin America. For this reason, we focus our analysis of public debate most maternal regret on the Spanish context.

The newspaper manufactures we analyze provide a snapshot of wider conversations well-nigh maternal regret and function as a barometer of shifting attitudes towards motherhood. Variations in the arbitration and reception of Donath's research reveal cultural differences in the social and ideological construction of motherhood. Finally, nosotros examine the role that questions to do with gender inequality play in international conversations nearly maternal regret. Information technology is noteworthy that our case studies manifest different approaches to family unit policy, falling into different clusters in Esping-Andersen's (1990, 1999) model of capitalist welfare regimes, which groups countries depending on how universal, or alternatively condition-dependent, social welfare is and the role that state or market place plays in de-familialising caring responsibilities (run across Chap. 3 for an in-depth exploration of this construct). This chapter thus outlines our hypothesis that maternal regret is not contingent on social circumstances or perceived gender inequity, as some commentators speculate. Instead, the existence of regret across various contexts debunks the essentialist myth—still prevalent fifty-fifty in these progressive western contexts—that all women will ultimately detect satisfaction in motherhood.

#Madresarrepentidas in Spain

The major role that the family plays in providing social welfare distinguishes Spain and other southern European nations fifty-fifty from welfare bourgeois countries such as Frg. Consequently, Pérez-Caramés (2014) argues,

Mediterranean welfare regimes involve the most gender inequality, as they consider women primarily as in the role they have in their families—reproducing and caring, leaving them unprotected towards the market in the case of economic demand, as they exercise not promote reconciliation between family roles and piece of work roles (p. 177).

As Baizan (2016) further notes, as women's participation in the labour market place has increased,

the caring chapters of families has been seriously weakened, undermining the foundations of familism. At the same time, men's roles accept changed only marginally, and accommodation of the welfare country to these new gender roles has been tedious and fractional (p. 197).

Indeed, Spain invests none of its Gross domestic product in childcare and offers merely sixteen weeks of paid motherhood exit, below both the OECD (xviii.1 weeks) and EU average (22.1 weeks) (OECD, 2020a PF3.1; OECD, 2020a PF2.one).

In Spain, moreover, fascism'southward focus on pronatalism meant that, afterwards the end of the dictatorship, many women began to turn away from motherhood. Confronting this backdrop, Spain's nativity rate has fallen sharply since the 1970s; its Total Fertility Rate (TFR) is among the everyman in the European Union (Eurostat 2020). Of class, Spain is not unique in experiencing a significant drop in fertility since the 1970s, as Eurostat figures document. However, in tracing the emergence of what they chosen "lowest-low" fertility in the 1990s, i.e. a TFR at or below 1.three births per woman, Kohler et al. (2002, p. 641) pay special attention to Southern-European countries similar Italia and Espana, where nascence rates dropped particularly speedily. Analyzing the trend towards childlessness in contemporary Europe, Kreyenfeld and Konietzka (2017) note that though this phenomenon affects both men and women, bourgeois commentators frequently lay the blame at women's feet, impugning them every bit selfish and individualistic for focussing on their careers instead of their families.

There is evidence to suggest that feet virtually increasing numbers of childless women in Spain and the greying of the population has also permeated the public loonshit. For Barbara Zecchi (2005), public business about the socioeconomic bear upon of the low birth rate led to a resurgence of pronatalist discourse and imagery in the media in the early 2000s. Commenting on this glorification of pregnancy and motherhood, Zecchi remarks that, "The new efforts to foster the birth rate have paradoxically granted motherhood near the same identify of honour information technology had during Franco's government" (p. 148). Her description of the media landscape in Kingdom of spain accentuates women's implication in what is perceived as a deeply problematic trend towards childlessness; it indicates a pointed attempt to encourage a render to the "natural" roles of wife and mother.

Given that the Spanish context reveals similar social and political anxieties about motherhood to those in contemporary Frg, it is perchance not surprising that Donath's research as well resonated with the Castilian public—admitting to a somewhat bottom extent than in Germany. In September 2016, when Donath'due south book was published, a new subtitle offered a hint of its provocative content: 'Una mirada radical a la maternidad y sus falacias sociales' [A radical look at motherhood and its social fallacies].

Even before Donath's book appeared on bookshelves, the press began to report on its incendiary content. Reviewing the volume for the liberal online newspaper El Confidencial, Daniel Arjona (2016) referred to the furore the study had provoked in Deutschland and confidently declared, "The last taboo has simply fallen" (para. 4). Remarkably, this review was titled with an incomplete quotation from a participant in Donath'due south (2017) study: "To lose my children would bring a certain relief" (Arjona 2016). The participant in question, Sophia, the mother of two children anile between one and 4, had in fact continued, "but there would be more pain than relief" (Donath 2017, p. 122). Even more remarkably, the Twitter link for the article automatically pulled this partial quotation as the headline and added the hashtag #madresarrependitas. Although these paratextual circumstances propose an endeavour on the part of the editorial team to capitalize on the inflammatory content of Donath's research, the retweets offer little testify that readers were scandalized. On the contrary, most express involvement in a topic that they perceive as illuminating and important.

In full general, the Spanish response to Donath'south book was quite positive, recognizing the provocative potential of her inquiry while cartoon attention to its importance. In the weeks following its publication, the chief Spanish daily newspaper El País published ii interviews with Donath, assuasive her to explain her findings in her own words. Speaking to Lucía Lijtmaer (2016), Donath emphasizes that not all women's experiences of motherhood are positive; while for some it provides a route to social integration, for others, it has been a heavy brunt that has led to regret. Donath thus argues that information technology is of import to listen to women from all walks of life and to speak of "motherhoods, non motherhood" (para. xv). The second interview, which appeared under the championship 'Maternal instinct does not exist' (Carbajosa, 2016) offers a succinct and very perceptive summary of Donath's research: "Although it is assumed that we make up one's mind freely to be mothers, the social force per unit area to have children is enormous and . . . the result is that some end up regretting it" (para. 1). Carbajosa discusses the international reception, remarking "Donath seems to have awoken a fauna" (para. 2). In the interview, Donath offers an caption for some of the backlash: "There is a perception that this debate is dangerous for the country and for the social order" (para. vi). Both interviewers stress the importance of Donath'south piece of work, which Ana Palicio (2016), writing for the online parenting magazine Ser Padres, goes so far as to dub "a new feminist manifesto" (para. 5).

The fact that Donath was invited to participated in a roundtable entitled 'The Family Is Dead. Long Live the Family unit' at the Kosmopolis literary festival evinces the extent to which her work was read in the light of Castilian anxieties well-nigh the erosion of traditional family models. She appeared alongside Catalan writer and feminist activist María Llopis, whose 2015 book Maternidades Subversivas [Subversive motherhoods] spotlights new forms of motherhood across traditional and heteronormative models; author and anti-racist activist Brigitte Vasallo, whose novel PornoBurka (2013) foregrounds gender, sexuality, and Islamophobia; and Catalan author and translator Bel Olid, whose 2017 book Feminisme de Butzaca. Kit de supervivència [Pocket Feminism. Survival kit] argues that feminism is more relevant than ever today, given the persistence of subtle forms of discrimination. The console was reported in several Catalan newspapers and widely shared on social media.

Moreover, several Spanish press manufactures relate Donath's questioning of assumptions almost motherhood to new feminist and subversive voices that challenge prevalent myths virtually mothers. Some commentators draw comparisons to the 'Social club de Malas Madres' (Bad Mothers' Club), founded by mommy blogger Laura Baena to support mothers, particularly working mothers, and encourage them to reject the myth of maternal perfection (Carasco 2017; Roca 2018; Pereda 2018). Growing out of a Twitter account @malasmadres associated with Baena'south web log, this club now has over 750,000 followers (Lodge de Malas Madres 2020), and Baena has become one of Kingdom of spain'southward foremost influencers, too on a political level. Under the banner #YoNoRenuncio [I'm non quitting], she has lobbied for equality and more flexibility in the workplace. Baena's political affect demonstrates how feminists can harness the popularity of digital platforms to draw attention to the personal only no less of import struggles mothers face (Ross and Fellers 2017).

Overall, the Spanish newspaper articles examined here show that Donath'due south inquiry has been perceived equally a contribution to a wider feminist revision of women'due south roles in society—one seen every bit urgently necessary. Backlash against her participants' confessions was minimal, especially compared to the furore in the German press and on social media. Instead, we notice ample testify that maternal regret is perceived as conceivable, even understandable, especially given the low level of state support for mothers, persistent gender inequality in the dwelling house, and the framing of childbearing as an individual choice (Alvarez 2018). Within a context that tends to relate the problems mothers face in negotiating the demands of family and the workplace to personal decisions, it is non difficult to empathize Spanish readers' willingness to accept that a adult female might come up to regret her decision to become a mother—and why a piece of research that illuminates this is viewed as an important contribution to contemporary discussions about gender equality.

Regretting Motherhood in Anglosphere Media

In the English-speaking world, Donath's inquiry and the #regrettingmotherhood debate were not viewed as catalysts for a new conversation about mothering but often understood as part of a "larger groundswell of maternal reckoning" reaching back to the mid-1970s, when advice columnist Ann Landers conducted a survey on parental regret with her N American readers (Kingston 2018, para. thirteen). Of 10,000 respondents, seventy per cent indicated regret (Landers 1976). ^{Footnote 3} Xl years later, Corinne Maier'southward (2007) confession of occasional regret in No Kid: 40 raisons de ne pas avoir d'enfant [No Child: 40 reasons not to accept children], a bestseller in French republic and Canada, acquired a furore in France that caught the attention of English language-language newspapers. In 2011, British tabloid The Daily Mail published a confession by 50-year-old Jill Scott (pseudonym) (Scott 2011), who admitted that she regretted condign a female parent. 2 years later, Isabella Dutton (2013) confessed her maternal regret in the same newspaper, prompting 1838 comments. Every bit Vice's Jennifer Swann (2016) points out,

the article too resonated with parents who identified with Dutton's regret—and admired her honesty. A Google search of her name today reveals pages of blog posts, essays, and online forums from parents jubilant, defending, and pledging gratitude to Dutton for saying the previously unspeakable (para. 12).

Thus, Donath'southward written report provided scholarly framing and legitimacy for voices that had started to emerge in previous decades. As Kingston (2018) writes in high-profile Canadian news magazine Macleans, "Dutton and Maier are no longer freakish outliers; parental regret, or 'the last parenting taboo' as it's dubbed in the media has been covered by everyone" (para. 4), including high-contour platforms spanning parenting and women's magazines and mainstream news outlets like the BBC and The Guardian (Compton 2018; Otte 2016).

This existing discursive platform might explain why at that place was relatively little backlash against Donath'due south research in the English-linguistic communication printing, though there were some exceptions. In The Toronto Star, King (2016) suggests that simply those regretful mothers who suffer psychological bug or experienced hard babyhood deserve any empathy. Ultimately, she sees the conversation most maternal regret equally a sign that "the human potential for selfishness is vast, ugly and limitless" (para. ix), especially because she deems selflessness a defining characteristic of maternity. Writing for the New Zealand site MercatorNet, every bit well as the U.S. Intellectual Takeout, Moynihan (2016) disputes claims that "women are still burdened by cultural expectations that their fulfilment lies in motherhood" (para. 8), referring to the growing number who opt not to have children, a trend she describes as anti-natalist. In the Washington Examiner, Final (2016) likewise dismisses Donath'due south written report. He sees her qualitative interviews not as information but as "life-mode justification anecdata" (para. 10) that practise nothing to revise the general trend that "people who take children still seem happy with their conclusion" (para. 11). This claim has, of class, been refuted by numerous studies (Glass et al. 2016).

Elsewhere, journalistic commentators practice not downplay the significance of Donath'south findings, nor do they attenuate the radical stance of regret by conflating it with ambivalence, as was common in the German and Finnish discussions. Overall, discussion is measured, even when considering the potential touch of confessions of maternal regret on children. In the forum give-and-take analyzed by Sihto and Mustosmäki in Chap. 10, women repeatedly cited this concern as a reason for not publicly speaking near their feelings of regret, suggesting the potency of cultural narratives about deterministic mothering. Rather than catastrophise, Anglosphere commentators frequently highlight the benefits of open conversation, fifty-fifty between parents and children. The Guardian's Marsh (2017) speaks to Morgane, the daughter of Victoria Elder (2016), whose highly viewed reply to the Quora question 'What is it like to regret having children?' was syndicated on the American parenting site Fatherly. Morgane criticizes the reaction to her mother: "There were a bunch of people calling her a liar and a horrible mum, which really made me upset, because I know what she's really like" (para. xviii).

Journalists demonstrate the wider relevance of Donath'south research by interviewing others who regret becoming mothers (Kingston 2018; Swann 2016; Treleaven 2016; Yasa 2017), as well every bit quoting from online forums in which parents admit their regret (Reddit 2017; Mumsnet 2009). The Facebook community 'I regret having children' has garnered more than 17,000 followers since it was started in July 2012 (run into Blott 2016; Wilson 2017). The reasons for regret echo those identified by Sihto and Mustosmäki in the Finnish context: self-abnegation; deterioration of relationships; exhaustion; frustration and colorlessness with the monotony of parenting; feelings of being overwhelmed past the cerebral burden of mothering; and missed opportunities, particularly professional.

Of these detailed engagements with maternal regret, Yasa'south (2017) article, published in numerous Australian newspapers, generated the most discussion. Gray (2017) wrote a follow-upwards, syndicated slice describing the "mixed" reaction to Yasa'due south piece, axiomatic also in published reader messages. Grey asks why "reaction to women who regret becoming mothers immediately shifts into concern for their children" (p. 18), which she interprets as "a telling sign we won't focus on the structural forces that brand women resent the job" (p. xviii). In line with this conviction, journalists also emphasize the links betwixt maternal regret and women'southward decisions not to accept children (see Kingston 2018; Treleaven 2016).

Many English-language commentaries are indeed meta-discursive in character (see Marsh 2017). Some consider why the result particularly resonated in Germany (Moran 2016; Strauss 2016). The Guardian's Otte (2016) links the backlash to #regrettingmotherhood in that location to social narratives constructing motherhood as culturally vital. Marie Claire's Treleaven (2016) describes the bug in Germany as symptomatic of broader phenomena: "For many countries, raising a family nevertheless constitutes a vast landscape of unpaid work that falls nearly wholly on women's shoulders" (para. 22). Many commentators interrogate the 'mommy myths' that underpin pronatalist societies (meet Kingston 2018; Treleaven 2016), one that idealizes maternity every bit the key to female happiness and propagates intensive parenting, a highly privileged practice that places unrealistic pressures on mothers (Marsh 2017; Moran 2016; Swann 2016; Treleaven 2016). These articles comprise a critical stance on ideologies of intensive and attachment parenting that permeate the confessions analyzed by Sihto and Mustosmäki and that contribute to mothers' feelings of guilt and desire to hide their stance of regret.

The gender gap is a recurring frame for English-language discussions. According to Sullivan (2013), "a modified breadwinner model, in which most women are employed simply are nonetheless expected to fulfil the major domestic caring role, is dominant" (p. 78) across countries in the Anglosphere; "parents generally take to rely on market‐based child‐intendance solutions to work‐family conflicts, either through employers or through kid‐care services" (p. 78). Compared to the other nations discussed in this chapter, the toll of childcare as a proportion of the average wage is relatively high in Anglosphere countries (OECD 2020a, PF3.4A). The United States is the well-nigh explicitly antistatist, with no universal healthcare or national approach to paid parental go out, and generally "does very piddling to provide for the needs of women and children" (Bolzendahl and Olafsdottir 2008, p. 286). Guo and Gilbert (2007) observe that the gap between social democratic and other countries has lessened since 1990; the latter now invest an increasing proportion of Gdp in family benefits. Nonetheless, gender equality remains "strikingly absent as an explicit design characteristic and goal of the Anglophone parental exit policies" (Baird and O'Brien 2015, p. 200). ^{Footnote four}

Writing near maternal regret for Vice, Swann (2016) refers to a written report on the 7 per cent per kid "wage penalty for motherhood" (Budig and England 2001, p. 220) in the Us. Other studies ascertain no similar fatherhood penalty (Loh 1996); Lundberg and Rose (2000) even annotation a small wage increment subsequently the birth of a homo's first child. Treleaven (2016) cites Bianchi et al. (2012) who show that in the 20-first century U.South. women take spent nearly fourteen hours per calendar week on childcare, significantly higher than the amount recorded by fourth dimension-diary information for previous decades, which registered a low of 7.iii hours in 1975. For fathers, the figure was approximately 7.2 hours per week in 2009–2010, compared to 2.half-dozen in 1965. Synthesizing a range of research in this area, Bianchi and Milkie (2010) note that

Almost all studies of housework provided evidence on a limited number of causal explanations for men's relatively low contribution—the fourth dimension availability caption, the relative resource account, or some variant of the gender perspective that emphasized either the role of gender ideology or the idea of housework as "doing gender." Despite the big number of studies, there emerged no ascendant consensus on the most persuasive caption for the persistence of the gender partition of labour in the dwelling (p. 708).

Kane (2018) additionally adds that "Parenting labour is gender-differentiated not just in minutes and hours, simply in type and accompanying stress levels" (p. 397). Macleans' announcer Kingston (2018) references a similar study to connect gender asymmetries, maternal regret, and the increasing authority of the credo of attachment parenting that is axiomatic in the discussions of maternal regret evaluated by Sihto and Mustosmäki in Chap. ten.

Conclusion

This chapter situates the Finnish experiences analyzed by Sihto and Mustosmäki in the previous chapter in an international framework. Across the contexts we have analyzed, several threads emerge. First, there are perceived links betwixt maternal regret and class-based ideologies of zipper and intensive parenting, which dictate that the best mothers personally manage all aspects of their children'due south upbringing, which inevitably leads to maternal stress and exhaustion, especially if infrastructural and institutional supports are deficient. 2nd, sympathetic strands of the word contend that speaking upward nearly maternal regret is not only of import for women'southward wellbeing, and perhaps even for the relationship with their children, but that information technology is besides a necessary part of the project to expand cultural discourses nearly mothering and its office in women'southward lives. Third, backlash discourses frequently pathologized feelings of regret as symptomatic of low or trivialized perceived feelings of regret. According to this line of statement, regret is a useless emotion at odds with the neoliberal imperatives of western culture. The almost moralistic contributions to the international discussion depict regretful mothers as the ultimate bad mothers, mistaking the object of regret by confusing a stance of regret towards motherhood with a lack of dearest for the children.

In spite of these similarities, peculiarly in the reasons that mothers give for their opinion of regret, differences accept emerged in the public discourses around the topic in Israel, Finland, Spain, Federal republic of germany, and the Anglosphere, peculiarly regarding the audibility and tone of discussions. In the Spanish media, the issue dovetailed with broader calls to desacralize the country's maternal ideology. Donath's enquiry was framed as a feminist antidote to pronatalist imperatives that take long constructed motherhood as an inevitable pace in a adult female's biography. In the Anglosphere, give-and-take centred on the reasons why Donath'south research generated such controversy in Deutschland but also viewed the backlash as characteristic of phenomena in 'more developed' countries, where mothers are increasingly called on to combine careers with caring duties. In this respect, commentators interpret maternal regret as a radical expression of a persistent and universal sense that gender equity has not nevertheless been achieved, especially as it relates to unpaid care and domestic work and cultural narratives about parenting. It is noteworthy that the discussion in the media has lacked a consistently intersectional dimension, one that will be fundamental for providing a deeper understanding of parental regret in the future.

It is also remarkable that the articles focus almost entirely on mothers. In her commentary for Ozy.com, Moran (2016) draws on a recent German language survey that found that, out of 1,228 parents in total, 19 per cent of mothers and 20 per cent of fathers would choose not to become parents if they could go dorsum in fourth dimension (YouGov 2016). While the survey finds that regret is as likely for mothers and fathers, the reasons diverge. Twice as many mothers as fathers perceive parenthood every bit having had a negative impact on their careers. Less clear are the reasons why more fathers than mothers regret their parenthood. Consequently, Christoph Geissler, head of the YouGov research constitute, is planning a follow-upwardly with the male person respondents. In an interview with the Israeli ATMag, Donath clarifies that she had originally spoken with ten men who regretted becoming fathers. Still, she continues, "in the terminate, I decided at that place was no place for them. Men who do not want to be fathers are not completely exempt from society's judgment. Only they also don't have the same level of expectations every bit women, every bit part of their identity" (Bashan, 2017, para. 25; come across also Gray 2017). Elsewhere, Donath notes that women in her report were oft "threatened past divorce" if they did not change their minds about not wanting to get parents, whereas this threat did not seem to hover over reluctant fathers (Kingston 2018, para. 20). As well speaking to Kingston (2018), maternal scholar Andrea O'Reilly suggests two reasons for the relative silence of men in the conversation nearly paternal regret. On the one hand, it is still culturally and legally easier for men to "walk away" (para. xx). On the other,

Men's identity is never collapsed into their parental one; if you're a bad mother, you're a bad woman. If a begetter is belatedly at mean solar day-care, information technology's 'Poor affair, he's busy.' A mother who's tardily is viewed every bit selfish and irresponsible (Kingston, 2018, para. xx; see also Richler, 2017).

Cartoon meaningful conclusions nearly the relationship between maternal regret and gender inequality would require a greater number of example studies and more detailed empirical enquiry. A springboard for such inquiries might be offered by recent discussions of the gender gap in relation to shifting fertility rates and attitudes to family unit life. Afterward all, some of the conversations nosotros analyze posit links betwixt maternal regret and wider fertility trends, including voluntary childlessness. Yet developments in the TFR do not map neatly on to standard benchmarks for assessing gender equality. By way of illustration, Esping-Andersen and Billari (2015) summarize a trunk of scholarship linking gender equality, and especially gender equity, that is "perceptions of fairness and opportunities" (p. 6), with higher fertility levels.

There is no clear correlation between fertility trends and macro-level analyses such as those contained in the Global Gender Gap Study (Globe Economic Forum, 2019), which considers economic participation, educational attainment, and political involvement (Mills 2010). While Finland, Germany, Kingdom of spain, and New Zealand score in the pinnacle ten countries, the UK and Canada rank at 19 and 21 respectively, with Australia 44th and the US 53rd, reflecting the fact that both place in the bottom fifty in terms of political empowerment. It seems particularly paradoxical that Republic of finland, third overall in the Global Gender Gap Study published by the World Economical Forum (2019), has a TFR that has dropped below the European average of 1.59 births per woman and the OECD average of 1.7 births per woman. Women in these 'more than adult' countries are having fewer children for a broad range of reasons, some of which may relate to gender equality in the domestic sphere and perceived inequity in terms of back up offered to parents in combining work and family, increasingly relevant as more and more women join the work force. We should also not underestimate the bear on of more nebulous forms of inequity relating to cultural expectations of mothers. In previous research, we note that such issues also feed into discussions of maternal regret in Germany (Heffernan and Stone 2021). Donath would, however, propose caution in the confront of temptations to posit a simplistic correlation between maternal regret and gender inequality. Instead of seeing regret as inherently tied to the social infrastructure that eases or constrains parenting, Donath (2017) believes that the being of maternal regret besides exposes the "a binary that leaves no room for women to consider themselves and be considered by others to be human beings with the ability to determine what is meaningful in their lives on their own" (p. 206).

Notes

1. 1.

   The Süddeutsche Zeitung is one of Germany's about prominent daily broadsheets, with an average readership of 1.28 one thousand thousand per issue (SZ Media, 2020).

2. 2.

   Our analysis is limited past the linguistic restrictions of the Nexis database, which prevents closer engagement with other contexts where Donath'due south study has been published in translation, notably Poland and Korea.

3. iii.

   Donath (2009) has stated that this study reinforced her conclusion to research the topic of maternal regret.

4. 4.

   According to OECD information (2021, PF2.one), since 2000, Republic of finland has increased its get out offering for fathers from iii to 9 weeks; 6 of those weeks allow for parental and homecare that goes beyond paternity leave. Germany has also introduced leave for fathers, which is currently 8.vii weeks. While Spain has offered limited leave for fathers since 1970 south, today just 4.iii weeks are paid. Commonwealth of australia and the UK both allow 2 weeks of paternity leave, whereas Canada, New Zealand, and the U.s. provide no paid leave of any kind.

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Acknowledgments

The preliminary research for this affiliate was supported by the Irish Enquiry Council (RPG2013-1/Starter RPG). This project has also received funding through the Eu'southward Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 952366.

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1. Maynooth University, Maynooth, Republic of ireland

   Valerie Heffernan

2. University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

   Katherine Stone

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Correspondence to Valerie Heffernan .

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Heffernan, V., Rock, K. (2021). International Responses to Regretting Motherhood. In: Fitzgerald, A. (eds) Women'southward Lived Experiences of the Gender Gap. Sustainable Evolution Goals Series. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-xvi-1174-2_11

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