The Motherhood Penalty Isn’t Getting Better
Article originally posted on Medium.com
Let it be known that I had zero intention of writing about this, but a friend who knew I had worked on a book about music, motherhood and celebrity reached out and asked my opinion.
So here goes.
In case you missed it, during an interview last week, Lily Allen said in a podcast that her kids ruined her career.
People were up in arms, obviously. But having studied motherhood and the music industry several years ago, and having asked various female artists about their personal experiences in the music industry as it relates to having children (while also taking into consideration my own experience), I have to say I agree with her.
However, and this is a big however — the only reason this can be true is because our society penalizes motherhood.
I think two things, specifically, got people’s socks in a bunch. The first, being her kids could read her statement in the future and end up harboring guilt for their mother’s inability to reach her imagined potential. That is a possibility, of course. I wouldn’t want my kids to feel responsible for my outcomes in life.
The second is that most people seem to think because she’s already famous, she must be rich enough to hire a nanny and not have to worry about her kids at all. It’s significantly more nuanced and complicated than that — and I say that as someone who has experienced this on a much smaller scale, and as someone who worked for a family of celebrities in the past. But that’s another conversation. (If you want to know more, leave a comment…I may end up writing about it.)
I think most people don’t understand that when you’re an artist of Lily’s size, you have a machine behind you: managers, agents, probably a publicist, a record label or two, etcetera. Machines of that size don’t like slowing down once they throw their weight behind you. They don’t get paid unless you go on tour, show up at this signing, do this show, promote this project, the list goes on. They want their return on investment in you as an artist, so if they build you up, you better show up when and where they want you to. That’s just one of the costs of fame. And the machine isn’t supporting you because they think your songwriting is so genius they just want the world to hear you, either. That’s too altruistic. It comes down to money. And if they have to share your attention with someone or something else, the chances of them losing theirs starts to rise.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard managers say things like “The label doesn’t really want to work with — insert name here — anymore. She had a kid. She’s clearly got other priorities.” Or “Why would I invest in her show? What if her kid gets sick that night. She’d choose her kid over the show, for sure’.”
Where’s the in-between? Why do we automatically assume that when a woman becomes a mother (biologically or not, doesn’t matter) she is suddenly ready to abandon every part of herself except the mothering part? For many women, including myself, successful mothering is fed by our other aspects. Quite bluntly — I’m a crappy mom if I can’t work on my artistic projects — and vice versa, now — I’m a crappy artist if I can’t caretake and mother.
Let’s get hypothetical.
Let’s imagine, for those who suggest she can focus on her career after her kids leave the house, that Lily decided to focus solely on raising her kids until they reach the age of 18. And say, for this argument, that her kids happen to be so independent they move out on their birthdays. Lily then gets to put most of her attention back to the machine she had before kids (I say most because you never stop worrying and wondering about your kids, no matter how old they are).
Surely she should be able to relaunch her career, right?
Right. With the pressures of agism in this social media-driven world? Are you kidding? When did you last see a 40 or 50-something enter the top 40 charts after disappearing for 18 years?
And to the opposite end, imagine she decided to focus on her career and woke up one day, when she would be considered a geriatric mother, and decided it was time to have her own?
This is a very real problem for another segment of women in the music industry. I have friends struggling with fertility, and others who ended up not being able to have children at all because the pressure of their machine was too much — they felt too guilty to stop touring, for example, believing that the people who rely on them for work wouldn’t be able to support their own families if they took time off to have kids (because for those who might not know — managers and agents take a portion of their artists’ incomes…hopefully they have more than one artist).
For the record, it is not the artist’s job to worry about how their team makes a living. It’s their job to create their product and show up where they need to in order to promote it.
But these women artists worry anyway, to the point they end up not having the children they wanted and, in some cases, feeling regret for not having figured out a way to put their foot down.
Grow up, machine.
I experienced the Motherhood Penalty myself and chose to hide both my pregnancies. I nearly lost my livelihood and ended up having a mental breakdown in 2016. I eventually quit because I was angry at my machine. Now, almost a decade later, all I can do is laugh at the reality of the situation and hope one day someone can do something about it because all I can do is point out flaws and tell stories.
The saddest thing about this entire situation? The fact that this happens in every industry. It is not limited to the music industry. How many mothers do you know who hid their pregnancies for fear of losing out on a promotion at work? If you don’t know anyone — ask. Ask your mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, and friends.
According to the CDC, between 2018–2021, roughly 29% of women experienced workplace discrimination while receiving maternal care. If you’re public facing, the number is likely to be significantly higher.
So. Back to Lily Allen’s comments. I think she’s right. Having kids ruins mother’s careers in many cases. After all, we can’t have it all at the same time.
But that’s not any kid’s fault.
That’s our fault (as a collective society), and it’s gonna take a motherevolution to make changes for the better.