What does it mean to be a modern mother? This is a question that has preoccupied many authors in recent years: three of the six shortlisted novels for the 2020 Booker prize focused on mother-child relationships, and fiction writers, especially female ones, are finding imaginative ways to express the notion of maternity.
In Rachel Yoder’s 2021 novel Nightbitch, “the mother”, as she is known, lives a life of drudgery and boredom, devoid of the art that once gave her life purpose. The other “mommies” she meets appear to be in a trance, indoctrinated into an institution whose language and mores feel trivial, as conversations about leggings and essential oils jar with the mother’s inner rage and confusion. “I am now a person I never imagined I would be … I am stuck inside a prison of my own creation,” she wants to say to a woman in the supermarket who asks how she is enjoying being a stay-at-home mother. “I feel as though societal norms, gendered expectations, and the infuriating bluntness of biology have forced me to become this person.” Instead, she opens her mouth and says: “I love being a mom.”
