Toxic positivy in motherhood: ‘Don’t complain, be glad it was given to you’ | Family

A miscarriage? Well, at least you can get pregnant. Sometimes quite tough, that motherhood? Be glad it was given to you. A separation? At least someone wanted to marry you! They are examples of so-called toxic positivity. Canadian scientists (Sokal, Trudel, & Babb, 2020) describe toxic positivity as ‘rejecting, denying, or repressing any acknowledgment of stress, negativity, and characteristics of trauma’.

The phenomenon crops up frequently in the themes of infertility, motherhood and parenting, says Whitney Goodman, an American popular psychologist who wrote the book TOxic Positivity wrote. “With toxic positivity you stop the conversation with clichés about how beautiful and valuable motherhood is, and you also force the other person not to think further.” Goodmans is pregnant as she writes her book – and no, she doesn’t enjoy every minute of it. “As soon as you announce that you are pregnant, gratitude is demanded by everyone: your family, friends, social media, advertisements, everywhere.” You don’t enjoy every aspect of parenting, Goodman says, some things you just have to endure and tolerate.

“When I complained during my pregnancy, I was told these classics: Enjoy every minute, be grateful that you can have children, every child is a gift, so many people would like to be in your shoes and pregnancy is magical.” She’s grateful, sure, Whitman says, but also wanted to vent her frustrations. “You can be grateful and suffer from pregnancy ailments and the difficult sides of parenthood. Denying that it is heavy, creates shame in the other person.” The American psychologist calls it a ‘soul sucking spiral’.

Toxic: a little exaggerated? Calling this kind of positivity that way may be very American, but denial of your emotions, says De Heer, can really make you depressed, anxious and therefore sick. The GZ psychologist founded The Mental Move, a psychology practice focused on preventive psychological care for employees. It is better to be there already if your thermometer turns dark green to light orange instead of dark red, according to the psychologist.

,,By focusing crampedly and doggedly on positivity, always staring that silver linings you are not very flexible emotionally. After all, it can only go in one direction: that of persevering, looking ahead, putting your shoulders underneath it and addressing yourself sternly: ‘it’s not all that bad’. No one can sustain that.” In the Netherlands, too, we live in a positive culture, says De Heer – if something is negative, we quickly get rid of it. “If you massage away everything that is negative, don’t want to think about what makes you sad or anxious and avoid what is difficult, you can really get sick.”

Motherhood, says psychologist De Heer, is such a vulnerable theme, you want to do it well and it is also such an important task that naming its difficult sides is found to be uncomfortable. “In my practice I see many women who are still struggling with their identity as mothers. They are only a little bit landing after that rough first, second year and looking back at how hard it was, what they lost, at the disappointment that it didn’t go the way they hoped.”

Immediately put away those heavy emotions with: ‘Hey, healthy baby, be happy’: that doesn’t help, says obstetrician Margot van Dijk. †toxic positivity you see a lot during pregnancy and in childbirth. It could really be a little less. We don’t always have to label mothers as super women and the greatest woman on earth. Be reasonable: you are not. No one can reach that bar, and that in turn creates the feeling of failure.”

Especially in the maternity bed is that positivity all over the placethe midwife notes. “Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy, it sounds continuously. Especially the older generation has a hand in it – they themselves have forgotten how hard that first period is. Of course you enjoy your baby, but it can also be very intense.” Not that you have to eat that rusk with mice completely down on that maternity bed, but be a little careful, says Van Dijk. ,,Just ask how it goes today, without increasing the pressure of enjoying yourself. If women continue to emphasize among themselves how beautiful their birth, their golden hour or their maternity period was, there is no room for a less rosy story.”

The Lord: ,,Being positive is admired. ‘What a go-getter mothers are, how does she do it all?’ We maintain the archetypal image of the mother who gives and gives. And then she suddenly stands on the edge of that ravine and knocks on the door of the GGZ. Where, by the way, is not opened, because there is already a very long line. Let’s not wait for that.” Look for balance, emphasizes De Heer. “It’s not wrong to put things into perspective now and then, just like looking for a distraction. But a lot of those silver linings the things we keep seeking come from fear. Dare to face your negative, difficult emotions, even if it makes you anxious. Watch them, reflect, instead of immediately distancing themselves from them.”