You’re Not Failing, You’re Being Failed.

When a mother says she’s not coping, the world tends to look at her.

Not at the circumstances she’s in.

Not at the expectations placed on her.

Not at the absence of meaningful support.

But at her, as though the struggle must mean there is something wrong with her.

This is the system we live in.

A system where women are expected to become mothers with grace and gratitude, to raise children with patience and presence, to manage households, relationships, work, and emotional labour, and to do it all without needing too much. Or showing too much. Or falling apart.

So when the cracks inevitably appear - when exhaustion, resentment, grief, fear, or anxiety rise to the surface - the assumption is often that the mother is broken.

Rarely do we stop to ask: What is it about this system that is breaking her?

Diagnosing the Mother Instead of the Culture

In Australia, around 1 in 5 mothers will be diagnosed with postnatal depression or anxiety. These numbers are often framed as individual mental health problems. But what if we widened the lens?

What if, instead of asking what’s wrong with her?, we asked what’s happening around her?

Too often, the dominant cultural narrative reduces maternal distress to personal weakness, chemical imbalance, or failure to “adjust.” The diagnosis can be useful - it can validate pain, open access to treatment, create language for the experience. But it can also obscure something deeper.

Because sometimes, the distress is not the disorder. Sometimes, anxiety or depression are deeply human, adaptive responses to inhumane conditions:

• A woman who hasn’t slept for more than two hours at a time in weeks.

• A new mother trying to care for her baby without any help, because community support structures have crumbled.

• A mother grieving her loss of identity while being told she should be nothing but grateful.

• A woman who is constantly told to “enjoy every moment” while she is drowning in responsibility, isolation, or trauma.

When we see these responses as symptoms of personal failure rather than signs of systemic dysfunction, we not only misunderstand the problem, we reinforce it.

The Mothering Trap

We live in a culture that idealises motherhood, but neglects mothers.

That praises maternal sacrifice, but rarely shares the load.

That says “you’re doing a great job,” but quietly judges every decision a mother makes.

The social expectations around motherhood are impossibly high and often invisible. Mothers are expected to be ever-present, emotionally attuned, selfless but composed, productive but always available. And when they inevitably fall short (because no one can meet those expectations), the shame is internalised.

This is the trap:

Mothers are blamed for their struggles, and then told to fix them through more effort, more resilience, more self-care, as if the answer is always within her, rather than around her.

It’s Not the Mother That’s Broken

When we recognise that motherhood is not just a personal experience, but something deeply shaped by social, cultural, and political systems, the picture changes.

It becomes clear that:

• Mothers are not failing, they are being failed.

• Mental health struggles are often signs of mismatch between what mothers need and what the world is offering.

• The solution isn’t just more therapy or medication (though these can help), but more compassion, more connection, and more structural support.

And more importantly, it invites us to see mothers not as problems to be fixed, but as people trying to mother inside a system that was never designed to support them.

A New Lens

What would it look like to honour the experiences of new mothers not just with individual care, but with collective responsibility?

What if we stopped asking “Why is she anxious?”

And started asking “What is she navigating?”

What if instead of saying “You need to take better care of yourself,”

We said, “We need to take better care of mothers.”

This shift isn’t just theoretical. It’s practical. It means:

• Investing in support systems that value caregiving.

• Creating workplaces that respect the realities of parenting.

• Building community networks that reduce isolation.

• Letting go of the fantasy that perfect mothers exist, and embracing the real, messy, powerful humanity of the ones we already have.

What I Hope You Remember

If you are a mother who has struggled with depression, anxiety, resentment, rage, grief - you are not broken.

You are responding to a culture that too often makes mothering unsustainable and then gaslights you when you struggle.

Your pain is valid. Your story is important. And your wellbeing is not a personal project, it is a collective responsibility.

Let’s stop pointing the finger at mothers.

Let’s start pointing it at the systems they are expected to survive in.