Why do Instagram’s moms make this look so easy?

What I didn’t consider? It takes almost a year before you can safely take your baby on a bike. My apartment doesn't have a bath. And babies aren't supposed to have added sugar — or screen time! Reality came with hurdles I never saw coming. Because all of those images came from my own childhood. My parents bought a house in Amsterdam — with a bath — on an entry-level salary. My mom attached my car seat to the back of her bike in an inventive hack that’s now deemed wildly unsafe. I got a whipped cream cake for my first birthday – all babies did. I watched Teletubbies, obviously.

Are all women born as natural mothers?

A few weeks ago, we attended a webinar by Voices for Women about the pressure of early motherhood. That pressure has increased considerably in recent years, says psychologist Floor Duns. In her practice, which focuses on motherhood, she sees more and more women who feel overwhelmed and burnt out. And alongside that: a deep sense of shame. You're supposed to be enjoying every moment of this, right?

Everything in our lives feels engineerable, optimisable — and suddenly I had no idea how this worked - Floor Duns

Meanwhile, your Instagram feed is full of mothers for whom motherhood looks completely natural and effortless — a homemade sourdough loaf in one arm, their fourth baby in the other. Floor recognises that image too, even among her own friends. "Like, we're over the moon and it feels like I've never done anything else." Her own experience was different. "You're not inherently born a natural mother." When she came home from the hospital after the birth of her first child, she looked at her partner with an expression that said: "Okay, we've somehow acquired a sort of Pokémon. Do we have a manual? Everything in our lives feels so engineerable, optimisable — and suddenly I had no idea how this worked."

The bar is impossibly high

Sound familiar? It does to me. That sense of everything being within your control is, according to Floor, a characteristic of our generation. "I was raised with the idea that if you work hard enough, you can do anything," she says. "But your child doesn't have an off switch. They don't go to sleep just because you say so. What I see in so many women is this constant battle to do everything better. Other women on social media have a clean house, work 40 hours a week, go out, and somehow still manage gentle parenting without ever raising their voice. The bar is impossibly high."

Mothers are working 19 more paid hours per week than they were twenty years ago. Fathers spend 0.4 more hours caring.

And it's not just down to the rise of momfluencers or AI. "Things have also changed on a practical level," Floor agrees. According to research by Statistics Netherlands, half of parents in heterosexual relationships now want to share work and childcare equally. In practice, only 9% manage it. Over the past twenty years, mothers have taken on around 19 more paid working hours per week. Fathers are doing 0.4 hours more caregiving. Every family is different, of course. But if you're feeling overwhelmed — at home, at work, or both — you are definitely not alone. And it is not your fault.

Postpartum depression and the baby blues

"Honestly, the society we're mothering in just doesn't make sense. We're being exhausted," says Manon, who developed postpartum depression after her second child. Instead of the stereotypical, romanticised first weeks with a baby, she felt anxious, exhausted, and restless. She slept badly, had headaches, her body trembled, and her mind was constantly filled with intrusive thoughts. "When I was making a smoothie, I was terrified my child would end up in the blender," she says. "It felt like I was constantly trying to recover from a huge shock." Her depression also came with that familiar shame. Why don't I enjoy this all the time? And why can't I just fix this myself?

Postpartum depression like Manon's, is serious and affects an estimated 10% of all mothers. In these cases, professional help is essential—and Manon found it at a specialist postpartum clinic. But that feeling of being overwhelmed? That's far more common than you'd think. "It feels like you don't fit the system. So it becomes an individual problem," says Manon. "The normalisation of postpartum depression helped me enormously. And so did the normalisation of doubt — do I have to enjoy every single moment of this? When we could talk about everything openly, we ended up with this kind of tapestry of normal stories."

When you have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, you feel so grateful for that. And that makes it hard to be honest.  - Manon

Of course, it's also wonderful

Because we're all mothers ourselves, we wanted to take a moment in the webinar to acknowledge how much we love our children and how grateful we are for them. "When you have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, you feel so grateful for that," says Manon. "But that makes it hard to be honest. Yes, I love my daughter. But she woke up five times last night and bit my nipple." Floor laughs and adds, "You're allowed to not enjoy it sometimes."

Things need to change structurally. But in the meantime — how do you take care of yourself during the hard years? Talking helps. In her practice, Floor also teaches mothers to soften. You don't have to respond to every little sound your baby makes in a state of adrenaline. Count to ten. Regulate yourself first. "Learn to soften around guilt, around shame, around asking for help. Ease your mental load too." Manon adds: "The same love you feel when holding your baby — that's the love you need when holding yourself."

The same love you feel when holding your baby — that's the love you need when holding yourself.  - Manon