13/05/2026
Intensive Mothering Ideology.
Most mothers have never heard the term, but almost every mother I meet is living under it.
It was coined by sociologist Sharon Hayes in 1996 to describe the unspoken rules of modern motherhood. That good mothering must be child-centric, emotionally intensive, labour intensive, financially expensive, and outsourced to a long list of professionals who supposedly know better than we do.
It has grown exponentially over the past 30 years, and I see it everywhere.
I see it in our mothers groups, when a woman admits she hasn’t sat down to eat a hot meal in months, and the room goes still because every other mother in it knows exactly what she means.
I see it in coaching containers, when high-achieving women cry about not being able to pour from an empty cup, then immediately apologise for needing anything at all.
I see it in clinic, when a mother sits across from me, depleted, anaemic, dysregulated, and still asks if there’s anything else she could be doing for her children.
This is the cost of not seeing the ideology for what it is.
It’s the burnout, the resentment, and the disconnection from your own body, your own intuition, your own desires. It’s the slow erosion of the woman underneath the mother, and the grief of not recognising yourself anymore.
We were never meant to mother like this, not alone, not perfectly, and not at the cost of ourselves.
You are allowed to write your own rules for motherhood. You are allowed to keep what feels true and put down what doesn’t. You are allowed to mother in a way that includes you, rather than erases you.
This is the work I do with women every day, and it starts with one question.
Whose rules are you actually living by?
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