Mothers: You’re not broken - it’s the system

Since qualifying and working as a therapist, one powerful idea has struck me repeatedly – especially when working with modern mothers navigating parenting’s relentless demands: the personal really is political. Coined in 1969 by feminist writer Carol Hanisch, this phrase points to how heavily systemic inequalities, cultural expectations, and power imbalances are often misinterpreted as personal failure. And if there’s one area where this rings truest, it’s motherhood.

For most of human history, raising children was a shared responsibility – grandparents, aunts, uncles, extended family and community members collaboratively offered what anthropologist Sarah Hrdy calls alloparenting. Some researchers even argue that women’s longer post-fertile lifespans evolved precisely because of their critical supportive role as caregivers beyond their own immediate offspring.

But industrialisation, urbanisation and capitalism have dramatically changed that. Families are now smaller and more spread out, and interdependence has given way to the expectation that mothers should manage physical, emotional and logistical burdens – often alone behind closed doors.

When the system isolates mothers, it comes at a cost. Modern-day motherhood isn't isolating because mothers are lazy, disengaged or ungrateful for their precious children. It’s isolating because one person shouldering so much work is inherently unsustainable. Add in paid work on top of all the invisible, unpaid work that running a home and administering the lives of small people requires and the internal narrative that you “just need to be more organised” or complain less leads to damaging internalisation of the problem. The truth is, the problem is a societal failure to support mothers to mother.

Statistically, these pressures are not individual anomalies – they’re systemic. Just consider these shocking statistics:

• Up to 1 in 4 women experience mental health challenges during pregnancy or after birth.
• Postnatal depression alone affects 10-15% of mothers, equating to up to 85,000 new mums in England last year.
• Maternal suicide remains a leading cause of death within the first year after birth.

Despite a record high number of 63,858 women receiving specialist perinatal mental health treatment, the risk of reduced funding looms, with 27 of 42 Integrated Care Boards in England planning to cut their maternal mental health budgets in 2024–2025, and NHS guidance has dropped perinatal service targets for 2025–2026.

And consider the economic pressures experienced by parents: the UK is among the top five most expensive countries for childcare, with childcare fees claiming around 19% of average household income; and holiday care may cost up to £1,800 for just six weeks of summer childcare.

How can therapy help with all of this? 

It can’t change the system – well, not immediately anyway. But in reframing these challenges through a therapeutic lens mothers can experience validation and healing first and foremost, examine the shame they feel about what they see as their personal failings and separate out what is true or important from what they can let go of, such as the critical inner voice that tells them they should be enjoying every moment with their children.

Counselling can then support mothers to start building self-confidence, setting their own boundaries and creating support for themselves. All the small changes and shifts in perspective, approach and beliefs can add up to something powerful and transformative, much more than the sum of its parts.

By shifting mindsets and setting firmer boundaries, mothers can flip the personal to become political. When mothers seek out employers who actively value them through family leave policies or maternity pay, when they courageously ask a friend to have the children while they go for a walk alone and when they refuse to accept the narrative that they need to “stop complaining,” they are slowly but surely breaking the system.