A raw exploration of motherhood’s dual nature

Motherhood is often portrayed as something that should be joyful and fulfilling. Mothers are supposed to be caring, happy and loving all day, every day. But that’s simply not the case. It’s a concept that Margo Lowy challenges in her powerful new book, Maternal Ambivalence, inviting readers into the complex emotional terrain that many mothers navigate but few openly discuss.

“I really want to lift the taboo, to lift the stigma that’s attached to ‘mothering has got to be perfect’. No it doesn’t,” Lowy told The AJN. “We are actually human. We’re actually not machines.”

The concept of maternal ambivalence – something that Lowy focused on for her PhD – looks at, as the book title suggests, “the loving moments and bitter truths of motherhood”. That is, the contradictions inherent in modern motherhood.

As Lowy writes on her website, “We love our kids and yet sometimes they drive us to distraction and, for a minute of two, we can experience confronting feelings which are extremely difficult to admit to.”

But admit to it, we must.