The word ‘Mom’ implies taking on one of life’s toughest responsibilities, that is, being in charge of the needs and well-being of a defenseless being who comes into the world; it is a task that requires a lot of time, dedication, patience, and one special ingredient: love.
For young people, mothers become uptight, boring, and seem completely controlling. They no longer have their own personality, beyond being mothers. They face questions like ‘Has the child eaten yet?’, ‘How many hours has he/she slept?’, ‘I still need diapers’, ‘He/she needs to burp’, ‘There’s homework to do’, ‘Don’t eat that…’. How could a life like that even remotely seem attractive?
However, in the 1970s in Mexico, women didn’t ask themselves if they wanted to be mothers, the question was, how many children did they want to have?
It is also important to understand that decisions involving greater personal commitment are being postponed; the age at which people get married or have their first child has increased significantly worldwide.
However, everyday decisions have not changed in the same way over the past 50 years. Examples such as the first romantic relationship and even the first sexual experience still occur at early ages. What has changed is the meaning of motherhood within personal, family, and work contexts, where happiness is no longer conceptually linked to the idea of becoming a mother.
It is clear that there are various factors behind this decision, most notably the difficulty of finding a stable job—and when one is found, wages tend to be low, with long working hours. According to recent OECD data, Mexico ranks as one of the countries where young people work the longest hours and earn the lowest wages.
The high cost of housing and rent does not allow them to become independent. A large percentage of women choose to share living spaces with other women (roommates), while others prefer to keep living with their parents. In other words, this issue is largely out of young women’s hands today, which means it may be one of the biggest challenges they face in becoming mothers: having a safe space for themselves and for their children.
Who will take care of the babies?
If they work long hours each day, young women don’t have time to take care of their children, they would have to pay someone to do it or leave them with the grandparents. It is clear that many have not found support from their partners in sharing responsibilities and childcare. Co-responsibility has brought more frustration than liberation in many couples, as they realize that beyond being a great linguistic advancement, it has not translated into a solid reality.
Many consider us the ‘conscious generation’—we are aware of the imbalance in roles, we understand that a household should not be a burden carried by only one person. Yet, in practice, data shows that women still bear a disproportionate share of the couple’s total responsibilities.
Having a pet is more appealing than having a child
More and more people are seeing their dogs and cats as their children. In 2023, for the first time in history, sales of pet strollers surpassed those of baby strollers in South Korea. Fearing economic and time-related challenges, many young South Koreans are choosing to have pets instead. This follows a global trend: there are currently more dogs and cats than children in Japan. This once seemed like a distant scenario, but now, in Mexico, the number of pets for far exceeds the number of children.
The cost of having children
It is also important to consider that having children in past decades was less expensive than it is today. Children used to actively help with household chores, family businesses, errands, and paperwork—these activities were part of their home education and even considered their responsibilities. Nowadays, minors no longer work and require a significant financial investment.
In the past, a good mother made sure her children were fed, clothed, and disciplined. Today, being a good mother requires a full-time project where every minute counts, because her child must:
- Master at least 3 languages
- Have the emotional balance of a spiritual advisor
- Being a high-performing athlete or artist
- And demonstrate their intelligence at science events
If they don’t achieve this, the mother is seen as a bad mom—but if they do, she is also criticized for overburdening the child. This race to meet expectations demands full-time dedication. Thanks to smartphones, mothers are expected to be available 24/7, both for work and for anything their children’s schools may require: attending festivals, artistic performances, and handling personal emergencies, all while social media amplifies the pressure.
Obsession with protecting children (hyper protection) has become the new epidemic since 2020, harming both mothers and children. WhatsApp groups, Instagram, and Facebook must display: happy families, perfect vacations, and envy-worthy moments. It’s forbidden to post tantrums at the supermarket, housework, or sleepless nights. Even parents are terrified by the idea that their children might suffer from depression or anxiety, words that were not even part of our grandmothers’ vocabulary: ‘They are not sad, they just haven’t eaten enough…’
According to professionals and psychologists, children need unsupervised outdoor activities; however, the opposite is happening: isolation at home, entertained by mobile devices, under constant surveillance. In other words, the nature of childhood and adolescence has changed, but not for the better. This concern has reached such a level that even Disney cartoons and content now carry warnings for minors. Today’s generation were daughters of tyrants, and now they are mothers of tyrants.
Women must be skilled at providing quality time to their children, showing less anxiety or exhaustion, in other words, being present both mentally and physically. The competition to be a ‘good mother’ now plays out on their children’s social media, gaming platforms, or streaming services, as this generation is intolerant of boredom and frustration.
How can we educate children in a reality designed to distract them every second?
The generation that doesn’t know how to be bored has turned the word into a taboo. However, we must understand that this very emotion or state was used to motivate past generations toward creativity, imagination, frustration, and eventually, growth. A key question today is: What kind of adults are being raised when they have been taught to avoid even the slightest emptiness? This generation hasn’t had the opportunity to share, negotiate, or experience and overcome frustration. Mothers now struggle with little masters of manipulation, doing everything they can to prevent emotional outbursts. On top of that, they are also in a constant battle against algorithms and artificial intelligence, tools designed to entertain, educate, shape opinions and ideas, and with the added challenge of being highly addictive.
Today’s children are growing up without siblings, in a world where they are the center of attention and benefit from greater access to all kinds of resources. They often develop premature maturity from being constantly surrounded by adults. However, lacking siblings means they don’t learn how to share a room, toys, food… and other everyday situations. As a result, they have lower tolerance for frustration, they haven’t had to compete for a place within the family. This new hyper-individualistic society may be contributing to a generation with a strong sense of entitlement, believing the world owes them something simply for existing. It is merely a side effect of growing up in an environment where their wishes were rarely challenged, and the last slice of pizza was always theirs.
Is it necessary to revalue the concept of being a Mom?
Mothers made it possible to have siblings, who are life’s first lesson in social interaction. They teach you that you will not always come first, that sometimes you will lose, that perfect fairness doesn’t exist. They force you to develop empathy, patience, and emotional resilience. However, in the absence of this practical ‘school,’ we risk raising a society that hasn’t been trained to give in, to share, or to negotiate.
The question this new reality poses is: Are we living in a Mexico that values the experience of motherhood? Or in a society where children are seen as an almost impossible responsibility to sustain?
This helps explain why more and more women are choosing not to become mothers. A more subtle insight from this data leads us to question whether the real conflict women face is between individual well-being and social well-being. Perhaps we are losing something we didn’t know we needed as a society.
Recognizing the experience of caring for another human being as a path to discovering ourselves—and reinventing motherhood not as an obligation or sacrifice, but as a possibility that can transform us on a societal level—could help us reconnect with a purpose greater than ourselves. It is an adventure worth rediscovering. It is not that motherhood isn’t worthwhile; it is that we have forgotten why it once meant so much for a woman to choose to be a Mom. At Secretos de México, we offer targeted solutions to understand and decode the secrets of the Mexican people, with the goal of sharing actionable insights and recommendations with our clients and partners, for sustainable growth in their businesses, industries, audiences, and key market segments.
