The Myth of Maternity in Television
What makes a story a myth is how a society or an individual uses it to understand the world. This does not necessarily make the myth factually or historically true, nor does it always make the myth inherently morally good. There are lots of elements throughout the history of societies which are not morally sound but still heavily present in their world understanding – issues such as racism, for example, are often perpetuated through narratives and words spun by society.
The Myth of Maternity is a narrative frequently found throughout society whose morality is a little fuzzy. This story paints women as bearers of inherent maternal instincts and wishes – women are all mothers, whether they already are, are wanting to be, or are simply confused on the matter. The problematic nature of this social story is tied to troublesome views of women, as well as troublesome definitions of womanhood. Women who have fertility issues, for example, are suddenly less of women, and women who actively choose to not have children are considered troubled and confused, rather than actual women who have made an active choice. Transwomen are considered not women simply due to their ability to procreate, and not who they are as people. Regardless, the myth of maternity is spread throughout our society and culture – and is prevalent in our popular culture.
Like most stories, where this myth is held as morally true tells us just as much as when the myth is held as problematic. This is because the story of the inherently maternal mother is massively sociologically important. Allowing for women to be not maternal, or to not have reactions in the positive when they hold a child, has a social impact on the potential growth of society. This directly contradicts basic tenants and understandings of capitalism, for example. It also presents women an active choice in the growth and development of family, home, and therefore society – a power which also undermines basic tenants of misogyny. Where the myth fits into the larger narratives of popular culture tells us a lot about how the creators feel. Most commonly, where chosen childfree women are presented, they are demonstrated as cold and unfeeling.
Sometimes, women who do not want kids are presented as being simply misguided. When being presented with a child, their minds change, and they suddenly become the socially acceptable maternal figure. In mythic terms, the character always returns to where they are supposed to be. Penny from Big Bang Theory falls into this category.
Throughout the whole show, Penny stands firm in her disinterest in having children. She makes this point several times in many seasons. However at the end of the show, she becomes pregnant. What’s strange is that the conversation about her change of heart is never shown. It’s never a conversation about whether or not she’d keep the child, or what they’d do. It’s never shown that she goes through a conversion of thought. She simply is pregnant.
This means there is no decision for Penny to make, and this is done because there is no decision necessary – she is a woman who is pregnant. Therefore, she must be happy about it. She must want the child. She must now feel the maternal instinct that everyone assumes cis-women have. Of course she feels differently – she’s a woman. Anyone else would feel the same. In the words of Dr. Kelso from Scrubs, as soon as Penny became pregnant, she went “ooo, look at the baby”.
In this episode of Scrubs, the assumption that female doctors will automatically become OBGYNs is openly discussed as misogynistic. Kelso, the character who often voices old ways of thinking and is the embodiment of the population with the most privilege. Kelso spends this episode telling Elliott she’s wrong about her stance on not being an OBGYN with his reasoning being the myth of maternity. In his mind, society, and the medical community, benefits from women being in roles surrounded by children and the association of child-rearing. In fact, he directly contradicts any woman’s firm no-children stance by affirming the myth of maternity – any woman’s mind will instantly change when they finally hold a baby. Because in the maternal myth, every woman is keen to be mothers of children, and the minute they are around a child or a baby, they will instantly change their mind.
Even though Elliott never becomes an OBGYN, this episode affirms the maternal myth and denies Elliott her anti-child stance by having her cave to the misogynistic Kelso’s view. At the end, she does coo over a baby. While she may prove Kelso wrong by never changing her professional speciality, she does by breaking down and suddenly becoming maternal the minute she holds a baby. In fact, she becomes desperate for wanting a child of her own later in the series despite these early statements very against having children. The underlying assumption is the myth of maternity is right – her mind was completely changed through the simple act of holding a child.
The result is that Kelso’s misogyny is deemed right. Elliott is a heterosexual cis woman, and the myth of maternity is that all cis heterosexual women will feel compelled toward children and by maternal instincts regardless of their personal wishes.
I stress heterosexual here because homosexual couples are sometimes pushed to a different role by this social myth. Homosexual couples are often forced outside the myth of maternity. Laws which restrict homosexual couples from adopting, for instance, demonstrates how the myth of maternity is tied to heteronormality. Homosexual couples, primarily those of two people identifying as male, cannot be parents because they lack the cis woman who is the maternal figure. The stress on heterosexual couples fitting into the myth of maternity while homosexual couples are forced outside it is made more direct through the treatment of the maternal myth in Brooklyn 99.
In Brooklyn 99, the conversation on whether or not Amy and Jake will have children was a very sudden event which hadn’t occurred on the show until after they were married. This misstep of conversation not only seems very not-like-Amy (because let’s be honest, she would have detailed this step of her life in a full binder with parenting tips indexed and colour-coded) but also demonstrated how little the genuine concerns of Jake were taken seriously. Jake’s concerns are all very honest, and also very personal from his own experience growing up with parents who did not always take the best care of him. These concerns are never given a solution, but rather are shrugged past with the hope that parenting will simply find a way. Amy’s interest in children is also not really shown throughout the series, and because of this her determination to have children seems to only really be reasoned as something people should do, and therefore she will. Her own wishes on the matter aren’t as well articulated as Jake’s concerns.
But there’s a negative side effect to the intense focus given to the questions regarding children. Because Amy’s side wins in the end, the side of children because that’s simply what’s done or expected is the side that also wins. Children are expected of Jake and Amy because they are the heterosexual couple of the show. After Jake and Amy’s child, all of the heterosexual couples in the show have children, leaving the LGBT couples or characters without children. It inadvertently reflects poorly on the show, feeding into the misogyny and homophobia whose views restrict LGBT couples from having or raising children. The myth of maternity, like many myths society holds dear, always has a ripple – it affects many different types of people.
But shows don’t necessarily need to go with our social myths. People can, in general, challenge myths and mythology that societies carry with them, or they can change aspects of it to make completely different points. We sometimes think that alternations of versions of more historical myths are because of some fault in storytellers’ memories. Anthropologist Seth Kunin has a different idea. He uses the term jonglerie to talk about the way storytellers balance their various identities through the control they have over narratives. Storytellers can actively choose to emphasise or de-emphasise aspects of narratives, or alter small elements in order to reflect the way society or identities shift over time or locations. This agency continues through to the way we tell stories now. Certain shows can take elements of the myth of maternity, or other social myths, and alter things to reflect new understandings.
One show that has taken the myth of maternity and attempted to spin new alternatives to it is the Bold Type. Unlike Penny, Sutton’s character in the Bold Type is never massively definitive one way or the other when it comes to her stance on kids.
This initial position of being possibly swayed one way or the other puts Sutton in a unique role of living out the myth of maternity in a way that Kat, who staunchly refuses children, is less so. Sutton is primed for the romantic notion of the power that maternal instinct has on its ability to alter a woman’s perspective. For Kat’s alteration to make sense, there would have to be more work behind the scenes, which a show aiming to alter character development in 45 minutes is less able to do. Sutton is the primary candidate for the myth of maternity to work its magic.
And, at first, we begin to see that exact thing happen. After she marries Richard, Sutton accidently finds herself pregnant, but doesn’t seem upset about it. In fact, she happily shares the news, and is seen excitedly talking about future kids plans with both Richard and with her friends.
But then she suffers a miscarriage. While struggling with her feelings around her loss, she chooses to spend time with a young child. It is here we expect to see the myth of maternity fully hit her. The loss of her own child mixed with the mythic life-changing child-experience is meant to convey to us that her mind has been fully changed – the once indifferent to children woman has been transformed to a maternal being ready to give life to the next social being. But our expectations are shifted when she finally reveals to her friends how she really feels.
She’s relieved. We are given an honest discussion of how some miscarriages are actually blessings to the women who are not ready or are unwilling to carry a child, or to become a parent. Her time with the young kid did not magically endow her with sudden maternal energy. In fact, her experience has shifted her attitude in the other direction – she now is sure she does not want children.
The Bold Type upended the myth of maternity. It gave us a different perspective and a different experience women can undergo. By using elements of the common maternal myth – pregnancy followed by experience with a child – it ties itself to the familiarity of the social myth but with the ending reversed. By cementing their own story in the familiarity of the maternal myth, the Bold Type transforms what would have been a completely different narrative into an alteration of the familiar narration – essentially, the writers of the Bold Type practiced their own jongerlie on the show. They have had to balance their multiple identities as woman, as childfree, and as modern while still connecting to their original social worlds and identities.
This means that the myth is being transformed rather than erased. From an anthropological perspective on mythology, this transformation can actually be more powerful than complete erasure because it adds to the variants possible, much in the way that other older myths now have multiple variations possible with them. This means there is no longer one ending to the myth of maternity – what the Bold Type has done is presented us with another choice, one in which the woman is magically transformed by the experience with a child, but this transformation is the choice to not want children. It’s primary power is in its ability to change, and to reflect new social attitudes.
Television narratives let us in to the importance of social narratives we hold dear – we see our own views reflected in it. This is why watching older shows can leave us cringing at racist, sexist or homophobic perspectives which were not even considered as an issue. The important thing to remember is that some shows altered this narrative and gave us new perspectives on the old. It isn’t only about portraying characters that fit the perspective we want. Its not enough to give us Black characters to change racism, we must upend the systems which perpetuate racism in order to make a difference. While some aspects of the myth of maternity can be considered factually true for some women, we have to also understand its absolutely not true for many others. Retaining the myth of maternity as it currently stands continues views of misogyny, transphobia and homophobia. But we can change the narrative, alter the perspectives to something new and different, and therefore change the way we view our own society, and our place within it.