Motherns represents the modern, young, urban, well-informed mother. The name, mothern, is an amusing pun that curiously works better in Portuguese than in English, as the pronunciation of these words (mother and modern) with the Brazilian accent is very similar. But what is, after all, a mothern? Here is what Fernanda Takai, vocalist of the Pato Fu group, used in the flap of our book: "The same person as before, but with a little more sleepiness, a little less available time and a degree in children."
With Motherns we were able to capture some of the "zeitgeist", of the spirit of this time where mothers are no longer the same as in past decades. There seems to be a certain delay, a certain anachronism in the way mothers are portrayed in magazines, advertisements and soaps. We started to write the blog because we didn't identify with the stereotype of the single-woman-seeks that is apparent in the media directed at twenty-somethings and even less with the traditional standards of most feminine magazines aimed at mothers.
We, together with several of our readers, in a community that has gone beyond the limits of the blog, question the role of the contemporary mother. We ask ourselves if we want to follow the same model as in former times, in which we were the sole person responsible for the child's upbringing, receiving and suffering society's demands to be a perfect woman in all senses. Our proposal was always to bring more lightness, less guilt and new thoughts about the issues linked to maternity. We tried to show that this perfect mother, serene and baby pink, is a social construction, and that we do not need to fit into it always.
Maternity came to add to our lives, not to obstruct them. This is a time to balance and divide responsabilities, tasks and even the guilt. We reflect on the masculine and feminine roles in society, mainly in what concerns raising children. There is a phrase in the book that illustrates this: "If your husband does not change diapers, change your husband". We question gender stereotypes, by writing phrases like "Boys do cry". In both blog and book, with humor, we call on our readers also to think about these issues. Why do we want to transform schools into companies, where the client is always right, and therefore, the whims of students and/or parents is worth more that the coherence of a pedagogic project? Why are clothes for pregnant women so ugly? Why don't they advertise toy cooking pans for boys? Motherns also have many whys to ask.
Mothern started as an unpretentious blog and became a community, a way of being and a way of thinking. It opened minds and raised new issues in a matter that has always been sanctified: the experience of motherhood. In the world that Mothern wants to create, to be a mother is very different from being a saint, from being serious, from always being guilty (or feeling that way).
Our desires are not very different from those of all the generations of mothers that have preceded us: to leave a fairer and better world to our children and grandchildren.
See the blog: http://mothern.blogspot.com