"When Ellen Pompeo’s Call Her Daddy podcast episode dropped, her motherhood quote made its rounds on the Internet. And, one week later, the CHD podcast made headlines again after an interview with Chappell Roan was released. In the former, a celebrity mom reflected on the magic of motherhood. And in the latter? A woman who does not have children made an observation about the parents she knows being, in her words, “in hell.” The takes are very, very different… but neither one is entirely wrong.
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Ellen Pompeo’s Motherhood Perspective
“I’m not 100 percent at work when I have kids at home,” says Pompeo in the episode. “I’m absolutely not. You cannot be a mother and have children and give 100 percent to your job. You can’t. Because there’s a part of you that’s somewhere else. You split into different pieces. You’re no longer just you.”
Pompeo goes on to say that this split makes you more soulful, richer, funnier, more empathetic. “You will be yourself times a thousand. You will just be a better version of yourself,” she adds. “And it doesn’t matter that you can’t give 100 percent [at work], because by the way, as women, we evolve anyway.”
For many mothers (myself included), Pompeo’s words felt like a gift
As a millennial mom, I was sold the lie that I could have it all. That I could (and should) continue to girlboss my way to the top without skipping a beat. At the same time, I was also fed narratives about how motherhood would make my world and my mind smaller.
But Pompeo’s comments gave mothers a different set of ideas. We can’t expect motherhood not to change us. We can’t expect to show up 100 percent in other parts of our lives once our children, tiny pieces of our bodies and hearts and souls living outside of us, are in the world.
But rather than suggest that motherhood steals our identities (as so many popular narratives suggest), Pompeo’s comments put a new idea in place: motherhood actually allows our personal identity to multiply. Motherhood doesn’t force us to shrivel up; it makes us more expansive.
But a week later, on the very same podcast, Chappell Roan offered a very different take on parenting.
Chappell Roan’s Motherhood Perspective
“I actually don’t know anyone who is, like, happy and has children at this age,” says Roan. “I have literally not met anyone who is happy, anyone who has light in their eyes, anyone who has slept.”
The reaction to Roan’s comments has been even bigger than the response to Pompeo’s. Some parents find it offensive and harsh, while others say Roan’s take is accurate. It’s not a pretty sentiment, but neither is modern-day American parenting, especially in the early parenting years that 27-year-old Roan’s friends are currently in.
The reality is, without paid leave, affordable childcare, access to parenting villages, support from partners, flexible work arrangements, proper postpartum care, adequate sleep, and grace from the outside world, parenting feels next to impossible.
Add in the societal standards to which we hold parents, especially mothers, and Roan’s comments start to feel like they’re hitting the mark.
Parenting isn’t hell. But the conditions under which we are parenting? They’re kind of hellish.
My first instinct when I heard Roan’s comments wasn’t to be offended or upset, but to feel like they lacked nuance and context. Pompeo’s comments, to me, felt so much more layered—which isn’t surprising, because Pompeo has experienced parenthood and understands its intricacies.
And ultimately, I think that’s why they’re both a little bit right. Because parenting and motherhood are incredibly nuanced, complex experiences.
Pompeo’s Take Describes the Possibilities of Motherhood
Under the right circumstances, mothers can realize their worlds have become brighter and richer, like the experience has made them more expansive and deeper. But that’s the missing piece: most mothers aren’t operating under the right conditions. Instead, they’re navigating a world that consistently invalidates their potential and places roadblocks in their way.
As Pompeo explains, she worked for an extraordinarily understanding and supportive employer (that would be Shonda Rhimes) when she stepped into motherhood. She had the privilege of working in a setting that both valued and supported parents with adequate time off, schedule restructuring, and a celebration of the metamorphoses of motherhood.
Under those conditions (plus the general privileges that come with being a wildly successful celebrity), Pompeo is able to view motherhood as the thing that ignites and inspires her, rather than the thing that weighs her down.
Roan’s Take Highlights the Problems Mothers Face
Unfortunately, that’s a rarified experience in the United States, where most parents exist in a system that sets them up to fail in a million different ways. For many of us, finding the sparkle and magic of motherhood is lost in the shuffle of coordinating backup childcare, struggling to afford basic necessities, navigating a workplace that does almost nothing to support parents, living in a country that offers very few truly family-friendly spaces (see: the kids on airplanes/at restaurants/in breweries discourse), dealing with undetected postpartum mental and physical health challenges, and so much more.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t big time love, or moments of overwhelming joy. Though the viral Chappell Roan motherhood clip doesn’t include this sound bite, on the podcast Roan went on to say “[The parents I know] are in hell because they love their kids”. That’s the nuance that’s missing from the clip that’s making the rounds online: the acknowledgment that how you feel about your children and how you feel about parenting against this particular backdrop can be two very different things.
It’s not just systemic failures that affect the experience of parenting
Societal ideas play a big role as well. In her interview with Pompeo, Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper mentions the ways she’s been warned about how her world will change should she become a mother.
“People have even said to me ‘Oh, just wait a few more years because you know what happens when you have kids. It’s going to all change for you’… I’m going to become the mom and the damaged goods… You feel the tone in the way people speak.”
“People who judge that and make those very ignorant comments… they lack wisdom. And they lack intuition and they lack magic,” replies Pompeo.
And you know what? I think she’s right. The people who view mothers as damaged goods, who view motherhood as a sort of death of self, the end of a woman’s vibrancy and potential and sparkle… they do lack intuition and wisdom and magic.
Unfortunately, our world is full of people who view womanhood and motherhood that way. Who see mothers as a drain on society who should either retreat into their homes or hide their motherhood entirely as they navigate the outside world. A class of women who should be rendered invisible, who have left the prime of their own lives. A group of people who don’t deserve systemic support or societal grace.
And until that changes—until we begin to change the conditions under which mothers are mothering and start to view raising the next generation as meaningful work that should be supported—far too many parents will remain, as Roan says, in hell.
Zara Hanawalt, Contributing Writer
Zara is a twin mom and freelance journalist with over a decade of experience covering parenting, women’s health, and culture. In addition to The Everymom, she’s written for outlets like Vogue, Marie Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Parents, Shape, Motherly, The New York Times for Kids, What to Expect, and many others. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, cooking, travel, watching TV, and trying new restaurants.
Feature image sources credited to: Ellen Pompeo: Pick Me, Choose Me, Pay Me More Episode, Chappell Roan: Are People Scared of Me Episode | Call Her Daddy on YouTube