The 21st Century has Mommy Issues

The 21st Century has Mommy Issues

While it might be an odd thing to say, the 21st century embodies "the mom era". This is a pattern I have been seeing everywhere as of late. The “mommification” of everything.

But before I get into how everything is mommified, perhaps I'll contrast it with the times that were not. The 21st century seems to be the exact opposite of the 17th century. The 17th century very much had a “dad theme”. From the 17th century worship of monarchs, especially kings, to artwork about grown men smoking and drinking coffee and hanging out while wearing black and hats with buckles on top. It was a time of ambition, conflict, experimentation, and risk-taking. A century full of testosterone and volatility with its Scientific Revolution, endless wars (30 Years War, civil wars, colonial wars), new ideas breaking out violently, lots of energy but mature rigid political systems by the end of it. Like a dad, the people of the 17th century based their mindset on authority, rigidity, tradition, and wisdom mixed with stubbornness. The worldview was conservative and hierarchical, but also youthful and flexible.

Even the 17th century Puritanism felt like rules a father would set up for his kids so they can behave and become more responsible. Puritanism is one of the strongest cultural expressions of paternal authority in all of Western history.

The infamous Puritan prohibitions (no makeup, no dancing, no theater, no drinking, no swearing, no premarital sex, no frivolity, no worldly distractions) all read like the rulebook of a stern father trying to keep kids on the “right path.” These are exactly the kinds of boundaries a father sets from a place of discipline, order, structure, responsibility, fear of children going down “the wrong path”. The 17th century didn't just value rules, it valued “dad” rules. Pleasure was suspicious and duty was sacred. This is peak dad energy. Puritan writings consistently describe dancing, idle gossip, flirting, theater, drinking as childish, reckless, and irresponsible. So they banned them, exactly what a stern father does to prevent “immaturity.”

If the 17th century was the father, the 18th century was the son. A teenage boy to be specific. The culture and society had this edginess with satire, snark, political agitation, big dreams. Lots of manifestos, arguments, and bold theories. It really does have “teen rebel energy.”

By the 19th century, the child era was in full effect. National identities formed (like a child learning who they are), romanticism began (childlike wonder), industrialization took place (learning how to do things), lots of optimism and fun storytelling, but also naivete and clumsy mistakes. The 19th century was earnest, imaginative, and often self delighted, very childlike. In fact the 19th century was the first century where people viewed children as their own age groups and not just “mini adults” with the first public schools, children's literature, and other early content to cater to children. You can even look at the style and aesthetics of the 19th century like the logos and headlines on newspapers and how they had a very “childhood innocence” to it.

The 19th century was an inherently childish era, for better and for worse. And I think it's why there was so much childhood nostalgia associated with this century. The 17th century was very different. If you look at children in the 17th century, the kids were drinking and smoking and expected to work on the farm early. They cannot be bothered to act childlike, even though they are literally children. The people of the 17th and 18th centuries were infamously forced into independence early on and were acting adult-like even as kids and essentially grew up to be perpetual teenagers. Whereas in the 20th century, adults act nostalgic about their youth in the 19th century, the adults from that century feel free to play games and buy consumer goods from the catalog. So when I say the 19th century was the child era, I mean this for all generations simultaneously. In the 17th century, kids were trying to be like dad by smoking and swearing and working the same village job as him. And in the 19th century, adults were trying to live out the childhoods they may have missed out on when they were actually kids.

The following century, the 20th century, was then the daughter. The era of the teenage girl, the next shift in culture. The teenage angst from the 18th century was back, but in a more feminine fashion. It fits this century is like a teenage girl, as the century has radical cultural swings (flappers to Depression to hippies to punk to cyber age), constant reinvention of fashion, identity, politics, high drama, a century of self consciousness and image, explosions of pop culture and expressive subcultures. No century has ever had mood swings like the 20th.

Which brings us to the 21st century, the mother era. Losing some of the edgy bitterness of the daughter era, the femininity has matured a bit, creating something new. Unlike the daughter, the mother can't just focus on self-reliance and doing things herself as she is more outward focused since she has to look after others. She must look outside of herself out of necessity. The once stable culture of the 17th century dad era that was our foundation in many respects has over time completely crumbled down and broken apart. And now mom is cleaning up the mess. Much like how everyone was like dad in the 17th century, and everyone was a kid in the 19th century, in the 21st century, everyone wants to be mom. Whether they want to be or not, whether they are prepared for it or not, we are all Karens here.

In addition to this "mamaification", there is also babyfication as well. So, to really keep an eye on this mother theme, I'm going to list a few movies and shows I've seen advertisements for recently and tell me if you spot a pattern here. Fantastic 4: First Steps, Jurassic Park: Rebirth, Playdate, The Family Plan, Kinda Pregnant, Plan B, Unplanned, Unpregnant. And keep in mind, these are just the ones that happen to present themselves to me on ads or scrolling on streaming services, and also ones that are apparent in their theme from the title alone. I'm sure there are plenty more, but no doubt there is a lot of mom and baby themed media at the moment, even with franchises that have nothing to do with this theme, such as Jurassic Park.

So, there's definitely something weird going on here. In fact, there's a controversy about a Disney short film called Versa, which is about pregnancy. It's been accused of being heteronormative propaganda and things like that. And while it may be instinctual for many people to roll their eyes and scoff at something like that as just being some sort of “woke nonsense”, when everything from superhero films to Jurassic Park has a baby theme to it, I think it could be argued in earnest our entertainment is in fact being used towards some sort of pro-natalist end at this time.

As weird as that may sound to some, this century is a lot different than it was a century ago. Back in, say, 1975, people had been accustomed to post-apocalypse stories and dystopian media, a vision of the world that was very unwelcoming to future generations, and a general zeitgeist that seemed to discourage having children. And even those that did have children had this very “cold” neglectful treatment towards them, almost like they feel they shouldn’t need or want to have children or make a better world for them like past generations did and that it doesn’t matter what happens in the future as it’s “their problem”. They’re expected to have kids, “raise” them, and then kick them out at 18 to fend for themselves. I mean, who feels good about bringing life into this world when seeing the worst of humanity during World War II or witnessing possible nuclear war and the end of life as we know it? The zeitgeist of the 20th century was a bleak one. It was an insightful and valuable perspective, but it was nevertheless just one perspective. One much like the teenage girl I associate with the century. The girl who has left the innocent naivete of childhood behind and sees the world for how it really is. But also a girl who lacks the wisdom and life experience to cope with this new harsh reality. And again, there is great value in the perspective of this era. I don't use the term “teenage girl” in a derogatory way here. There is great introspection from this daughter era. There are profound life lessons in this self-reflection. But it can be a bit myopic and nihilistic to live in this perspective forever. Despite being dismissive of the century before, I have grown to truly appreciate the 20th century for what it was.

That said, the time has come for a new perspective, one that's less strictly negative, one with much more nuance. This new view is that yes, life is horrible, but it's also wonderful. It's fun, but also boring, painful, but also pleasurable, depressing, but also uplifting. “Everything everywhere, all at once”. A multiverse of possibilities. This is a worldview more welcoming to the idea of wanting a potential future for upcoming generations. An era more open to the idea of wanting to have children. The birth of a new foundation like the father era before it. But my waxing poetic about all of this aside, let's list some more examples of this mom era that we all live in:

* Wanda Vision, a show about both motherhood and the multiverse.

* Uptown Girls, a film about the daughter of a deceased rockstar that becomes a nanny to a 9 year old, becoming more of a mom than her actual mom.

* The Last Man On Earth, a sitcom literally about (briefly) the last two living people on Earth who have to repopulate the Earth.

* The Kill Bill movies, a woman gets revenge on a man who massacred her wedding and took her pregnant child.

* Juno, a movie about a surrogate (teen) mom.

* Baby Mama, another movie about a surrogate mom

* No Hard Feelings, a romantic comedy about a woman in her 30s dating a much younger guy. This is a good place to mention the so-called “hagmaxing” phenomenon where men are increasingly opting to date older women, something that has become more and more common over the last decade.

* Speaking of mommies, we also have Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil Village that everyone was simping over.

* There’s the “Other Mother” from Coraline, who people say has given them nightmares.

* Then there's also Rinala from Elden Ring cradling her weird egg.

* Then there's a horror movie called Barbarian, which I kid you not, is about a feral mother living underground who kidnaps people so she can bottlefeed them.

* And of course, wrapping up with Star Wars, we have Baby Yoda as well as the witch mothers from the Acolyte.

I'd also like to contrast our current moment with the vulgarity of the child era of the 19th century. Early 19th century children's stories didn't shy away from things like violence and dark themes and didn’t always have happy endings. It was a time where people could do and say almost whatever they wanted. And it was often pretty vulgar. Something like Han Christian Anderson’s fairy tales comes to mind. But today, the culture, especially the Internet, is much more sanitized. You may have stumbled across some strange censorship recently. You’ve seen memes where they censor words like man or dead. Words that have no business being censored. You may have also seen the soft censorship in Zoomer/Gen Alpha slang. The word ass becomes ah. The word bitch becomes bih. The world dick becomes dih. Not only does this also sound like baby talk, but this lingo comes off like we must now speak in self-censored ways almost out of necessity. I'm not the biggest fan of this self-censorship trend myself, but countering it with excessive swearing feels a bit cringe and outdated. Funny enough, even Han Christian Anderson’s fairytales have been whitewashed, with the violence and adult themes removed. So even he, of all people, has somewhat succumbed to this trend despite his whole shtick being dark and gritty but realistic.

It feels like society has become a helicopter mom ensuring that we are all on our best behavior. It's a far cry from the carefree playground that was the child era of the 19th century. Nobody really seems to be having fun anymore. If I had to sum up the 21st century in one image, it would be that smiling/crying woman meme from the movie Pearl. The 21st century is a really trying time that seems to be testing us. This is the lowest point. This may seem at odds with what I said earlier about the 21st century being more uplifting than the 20th century was, but keep in mind that a big portion of enjoyment in life is having something to look forward to. The 20th century was looking forward to a bleak future. We are now in that bleak future. From rock bottom, the only way is up. It is all uphill from here, we finally have something to look forward to. Dopamine comes from anticipation.

When we have something to be excited about, we can be happy even if our current circumstances are quite abysmal. And the uphill before us may be a struggle like Sisyphus pushing the boulder higher and higher. But one must imagine Sisyphus happy. The myth of Sisyphus has also been immortalized in song in the common nursery rhyme sung by many mothers. “The itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. And the itsy-bitsy spider climbed up the spout again.”