Let’s talk about the movie Nightbitch and its wonderful depiction of the societal expectations of motherhood.
I’m so glad we’re watching this, one of my friends exclaims as we sit down to watch the movie, Nightbitch, starring Amy Adams. She’d just gotten off the phone explaining something to her husband that he should have been able to figure out on his own. Somehow, with 4 moms getting together, we were also responsible for figuring out what to do with 7 kids. We were interrupted 3 times during the movie as kids kept showing up to hang out with my kids. My husband was looking forward to a quiet night watching a movie with our kids and ended up watching 5 kids play instead!
Have you seen the movie? If you are a mother, I highly recommend you make time to watch it. Find some girlfriends or see if your partner is brave enough to watch it with you. I think dads could get a lot out of this too and it might make for some interesting conversations!
Yes, I am going to talk about a few scenes here, but I don’t think I’m spoiling too much of it! So feel free to keep reading even if you haven’t seen the movie.
Nightbitch is a very real and honest look at motherhood. There were so many scenes I loved. So many moments where I felt seen and understood.
Let’s start with the opening scene.
Side note: The main characters are named Mother, Father, and Baby. I love this!
Mother is at the grocery store with Baby. She runs into the person who took over her job when she left to be a full-time stay-at-home mom.
The woman asked Mother how much she just loves being home with him all the time, how wonderful it must be. And Mother goes into this monologue in her head:
“It’s complicated. I would love to feel content, but instead, I feel like I am stuck inside a prison of my own creation, where I torment myself until I am left binge-eating Fig Newtons at midnight to keep from crying. I feel like societal norms, gendered expectations, and plain old biology have forced me to become this person I don’t recognize. And I am angry all the time. I would one day like to direct my own artwork toward a critique of these modern-day systems that articulate all this, but my brain doesn’t function as it did before the baby, and I am dumb now. I am deeply afraid I will never be smart or happy or thin ever again.”
Mother, Nightbitch
In reality, she says how much she loves it, with a smile on her face.
Why do we feel like we can’t talk about how hard motherhood is? We have to pretend it’s not hard, monotonous, and nothing like we thought it would be. And there’s nothing we can do about it? We’re stuck.
Like this is just the way it is!
Our partners can’t figure out how to load the dishwasher properly. Or learn how to change a diaper or get the kids out the door for school. Or remember to sign kids up for summer camp.
We’ll never sleep again. Or feel like we can have a normal conversation about something besides our kids.
None of this is true, by the way. Society has set us and our partners up to fail. It’s designed to keep moms overwhelmed and resentful AND too exhausted to do anything about it.
It doesn’t mean that we don’t love being moms. Or that there aren’t moments that we love.
Motherhood can be both challenging and amazing at the same time.
And, we can change it when it’s not working for us. We can work with our partner to share the mental load. So it’s not mom doing all the behind-the-scenes work and dad taking credit for taking out the trash (after being reminded 4 times).
Our partners can register the kids for soccer or summer camp (yes, it’s possible!). Or any of the other millions of big and little things we need to happen to keep a household functioning,
Ok, let’s talk about another favorite scene. Mother takes Baby to the hot foods section of a grocery store for lunch. (A big premise of this movie is Mother turning in a dog. She’s becoming more in touch with her primal urges that come from being a mother).
She and Baby start eating like dogs, full faces in the food containers. And the people around them look at them like they’re being inappropriate. Until the librarian, who we’ve met before, shows up and normalizes their behavior. They have this wonderful conversation about how when her kids were little, they would act like dogs. And you can see the look of relief on Mother’s face.
Can we do more of this, please? Stop judging others for parenting differently. Normalizing being silly with our kids in public. They weren’t hurting anyone.
I’ll admit, I’ve been plenty judgmental in my life, especially as a parent. I’m human. I am working on noticing when I judge others for doing something differently. We don’t know everyone’s story. And we don’t know why they’re behaving that way. We only see a little snippet of their lives.
Society would be a much better place if we stopped judging others so harshly! Especially moms. We’re doing the best we can in an almost impossible situation – let’s have each other’s backs!
The final scene I’ll talk about today is an argument between Mother and Father.
Father is upset about something Mother hadn’t shared with him. And she responds with ’Well, I guess I’ve gotten pretty good at doing things by myself.”
She shares how unhappy she is. That’s she’s not ok. She’s angry about a lot of things. One is how he’s getting a sweet deal out of her being home all the time because he has someone to take care of him and Baby and the house. With no pay and no vacation days. No appreciation and all the dirty underwear.
She feels trapped. She’s found herself in a 1950’s marriage. And she’s miserable. She didn’t know what she was getting herself into and now she wants something to change.
And he had no idea she felt this way. Because he couldn’t read her mind and took what she was saying at face value.
I won’t go into more detail about this scene, but it’s my favorite in this whole movie. Because it’s so raw and honest. They’re not communicating well at all. She didn’t know she would be so unhappy and is finally realizing how miserable she is. He took her at her word that she was fine and felt confused about where all this anger was coming from.
It’s a wonderful depiction of how we get to a place on the brink of separation or divorce before we fix things. Before we finally have an honest conversation about everything.
This is why I do the work I do. I want to help you and your partner communicate before you’re on the brink of divorce.
Because we all deserve better. Mothers and Fathers. And our kids.
It’s better for both parents to find a way to create an equitable way to parent and manage the house.
I’m here to help you learn how to communicate with your partner in a way that is honest and feels good for both of you. It is possible. And I’m here to support you. Schedule a call today!
