'A Life's Work' Was an Incendiary Cultural Turning Point for Maternal Ambivalence
How Rachel Cusk took the hit so we could start talking about this normal and expected part of early motherhood
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This article is part of ‘CuskRama’, our May special edition. Read the editor’s letter to see what other fantastic writing has just been published. If you’re annoyed that it’s paywalled, then that means you wanted to read it, which means you value it. These writers get paid for what they do because their work is valuable.
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. Jodi is a writer and mother of four. She is the bestselling author of Practising Simplicity: Small steps and brace choices for a life less distracted, The Complete Australian Guide to Pregnancy and Birth and the forthcoming, The Complete Guide to Postpartum. Find her on Substack at , and on Instagram here.I remember being 23 and awkwardly holding my firstborn, relieved the contractions had eased but overwhelmed by a profound sense of not-knowing. I had become a mother but, as I would come to realise, it’s not a singular act or threshold. It’s a gradual unfurling; a painful, confronting, glorious becoming. Cusk knew what she was doing with that subtitle. What she didn’t know—or couldn’t predict—was the fury that would accompany the publication of A Life’s Work.
The uproar is easily explained. Cusk recorded jarring truths about the work of mothering, challenging the presumption that maternal love is selfless, and in doing so contradicted the prevailing archetype of ‘mother’. It wasn’t a new idea—feminist poet and essayist Adrienne Rich addressed it in 1976 with the publication of her essay collection Of Woman Born, but Cusk was writing an autobiography and that made her an easy target.
Cusk’s ‘failure’ was attributed to her dislike of mothering and, at times, her children. But when one woman shares her truth, she gives permission for others to do the same. Society abhors a woman who speaks outside the ideology of perfect motherhood, and for good reason: a patriarchal society benefits immensely from mothers who strive to be perfect. Motherhood is, as Rich says, an ‘institution’ with unrealistic expectations and strictures. It oppresses mothers because they are destined to fail but it simultaneously bolsters a society that is reliant on unpaid work and relentless service.
Seventeen years ago I didn’t fail because my entry into motherhood was socially and economically cushioned. My partner and I had Rudd’s baby bonus, affordable rent, and the ability to live comfortably on a single income. Like forty percent of mothers, I didn’t experience a juggernaut of love at birth, but I learnt to love my baby, just like I learnt how to mother him. Maternal ambivalence was part of the year after birth as I mentally and emotionally adapted to my new role, but I didn’t know it was normal, nor did I have the language to define it. A Life’s Work was published six years earlier but I hadn’t read it and I wasn’t yet teaching, researching and writing in the perinatal space.
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