I

MotherhoodFootnote ¹ is so morally intense. Mums usher new rational beings into the universe and often assume primary responsibility for the early care of those fragile, needy beings. Even forgetting about the genuine moral gravity of the situation, mums’ experience of motherhood is often drenched in moral pressure – plenty of guilt, even more shame.Footnote ² Many questions and decisions that mothers face are highly morally significant or at least culturally experienced as such.Footnote ³

Motherhood is also morally complex. By this I mean that there aren't black-and-white, obvious, one-size-fits-every-situation answers to many of these questions. May you terminate a pregnancy? Should you try to breastfeed your infant (for how long, and going to what lengths)? Who should care for your child while they are an infant and in early childhood? Ought you – may you – work outside the home? What should be the most important values or standards for your child's care? (Should there be screen time? How much, and what kind? What should be the balance of education/structure, free play, and social time? How should you share your faith/political values/moral values?) Sure, we might think there are definite, universal answers to some of those questions.Footnote ⁴ But, clearly, it seems to me, many questions are tricky or unclear, pit real values against each other, and depend heavily on the particularities of mums’ situations.

Take breastfeeding. There is evidence that breastfeeding benefits babies along a wide array of dimensions – lower SIDS rates, fewer allergies, lower obesity later in life, higher IQ, etc.Footnote ⁵ This evidence, however, is mixed in its quality, and breastfeeding's real benefits are unclear – probably real, but rather less impressive than some claim. Of course, every mum should ‘want the best’ for her kid. But it's equally obvious that we can't do absolutely everything for which there's evidence it would benefit our kids. (One quite literally can't provide gymnastics and violin lessons and maths camp and at the same time a relaxed, unstructured environment encouraging free play and creativity.) Given that there are many incompatible ways of benefitting children among which mums choose, philosophers Fiona Woollard and Lindsey Porter have argued that we certainly can't have a duty to benefit them via the specific means of breastfeeding.Footnote ⁶

Moreover, breastfeeding is so demanding and so influential in early patterns of bonding and care that it's often in tension with other morally valuable things. Briefly, for the uninitiated: breastfed newborns require nursing up to every two hours, round the clock, for weeks. Mums are exhorted to nurse their infants exclusively at first, definitely to provide breastmilk only for the first six months, and to maintain some breastmilk feeding for up to two years.Footnote ⁷ Because nursing facilitates infant sleep, recovery from illness, and comfort generally, it tends to become an essential, pervasive element of caring for an infant. And it is often difficult. A surprisingly high number of ‘breastfeeding dyads’ require professional consultations from lactation consultants, surgical interventions, and/or the mitigation and management of painful breast conditions such as engorgement and mastitis.Footnote ⁸

Breastfeeding virtually guarantees that mum will be an intensive, hands-on, near-exclusive caregiver for the early weeks and months of a child's life. It can drastically reduce a mum's ability to sustain or get back to other morally valuable projects and relationships in her life. And breastfeeding has such a pervasive role in the care of infants that it makes it much more difficult for mums to share parenting responsibilities equally with a non-breastfeeding partner – perhaps in lasting ways, given the potential difficulty of radically changing patterns of care even after a child is weaned, whether simply because of established routine or the financial necessity of a partner's retaining more demanding ‘work outside the home’. This is a limitation of mums’ ability to realize fair or just family arrangements. So, as I've argued elsewhere,Footnote ⁹ whether a mum has all-things-considered moral reason to try to breastfeed is unclear and seems to depend heavily on her individual situation. The potential impact on her other projects and relationships matters, as does whether there is a viable, desirable option of sharing parenting responsibilities with a non-breastfeeding partner. Infant feeding decisions, far from being morally black-or-white, often force us to prioritize among competing moral values, and it can be very unclear how these should be weighted.

Acknowledging the complexity of breastfeeding decisions – and in general, many of the moral decisions of motherhood – is a good thing. First, it's just accurate. At least some of these decisions really are tricky, subtle, and highly dependent on individuals’ situations. Second, it can reduce judginess, and the corresponding guilt and shame that plague mums. After I published a short article on the complexity of feeding decisions,Footnote ¹⁰ I did get some criticism from broadly pro-breastfeeding readers. But more mums reached out expressing gratitude, and even relief. It feels good to hear someone acknowledge the real difficulty of decisions you're making or have had to make. Acknowledging the complexity of the morally complex decisions of motherhood is not only good, it's good for mums.

However, my primary interest here is a complication of that claim. Acknowledging the complexity of these situations – recognizing questions like breastfeeding as the moral grey areas they are – also burdens mums in a particular way. For when a question is morally complex – when there's no general moral pronouncement but instead what's morally [best/valuable/required/permitted/etc.] is unclear and depends on subtle particularities of a mum's situation – it becomes incumbent on a mum to responsibly decide what's morally best (or required, permitted, etc.) to do, in her own case. Freeing mums from the burden of a false, black-and-white pronouncement on what should and shouldn't be done actually saddles them with a hefty share of what I'll call the ‘moral load’ (taking inspiration from feminist comic artist Emma's concept, the ‘mental load’Footnote ¹¹). In the next section I want to think through what exactly the moral load is and why we should think it arises out of acknowledged moral complexity in motherhood. And in the third, final section I'll turn briefly to the prescriptive question: if the moral load burdens mums, what could we (should we) do about that?

II

I claim that when one is responsible for a morally significant, morally complex decision, one is also thereby responsible for making that decision responsibly, for reasoning well or wisely about what to do. I say ‘reasoning’ well; this makes the task sound very intellectual. But I mean to construe reasoning broadly, and I am open to the possibility that responsible decision-making can also be intuitive and emotion-driven, especially for virtuous agents. Although the boundary between morally complex and morally simple cases is admittedly vague, I do think this responsibility attaches particularly to complex cases.Footnote ¹² Simple moral decisions – like whether to pick up a dropped wallet and hand it back – do not call for good, thoughtful reasoning (though of course they still call for right action).

In contrast, with respect to many of the morally significant questions of motherhood, feminist philosophers have often recognized responsible decision-making as a primary moral obligation. Catriona Mackenzie (Reference Mackenzie1992) writes about the ‘decision responsibility’ that pregnant women incur, to appreciate the gravity of and ultimately to make decisions whether to terminate a pregnancy. If one thinks, as Mackenzie does, that there can be a reasonable question about the permissibility of abortion in some circumstances, then this very acknowledgement of complexity and freedom ushers in decision responsibility – and also a possible distinction among responsible decision processes and irresponsible ones.Footnote ¹³ Here, a responsible decision process or deciding responsibly isn't (just) a matter of ultimately making the right choice. It's a matter of appreciating the gravity of the situation and thinking through the morally relevant considerations honestly and carefully. ‘Morally relevant considerations’ too should be construed widely, since the moral decisions of motherhood often involve more than just immediate benefits/harms to mother and baby. Mackenzie thinks that even women who are portrayed as irresponsible in the abortion debate often display at least this kind of responsibility, thinking carefully and holistically about the decision at hand:

We needn't agree with Mackenzie's openness to complexity in abortion decisions in order to think that when the moral questions of motherhood are complex and significant, they issue a weighty kind of decision responsibility. I've argued that breastfeeding decisions are morally complex. There are no one-size-fits-all moral recommendations, and one must consider the impact not only on the baby but also ‘on the self, on relations with significant others, on a person's other commitments and projects’. Thinking through all this – taking care to weigh the probable impact on other people and projects in your life, while also trying to appreciate the real moral value of trying to support and bond with this tiny new life you've helped bring about – takes real work. And mums are doing it.

I'm thinking about sleep-deprived mums on their phones and laptops, poring over stats on car seats or screen time or breastfeeding's benefits to babies (while pumping breastmilk!). Mums reading whole books about infant/child sleep, trying to understand whether cry-it-out or co-sleeping are morally permissible. Mums in babycenter.com forums, in mummy support groups, and in countless informal and individual relationships, talking it through and sharing their stories, trying to help one another understand whether to push through the latest bloody nipple/snag at work/week without sleep and fight with a partner. I mean the term ‘moral load’ to capture, in part, this real work. Mums are shouldering a hefty share of the burden of deciding responsibly how to care for little ones, including whether and how long to try to breastfeed them.

As I've said, the moral load is closely related to feminist comic artist Emma's (Reference Emma and Dimitrijevic2017) ‘mental load’. The mental load includes, among other things, the thought work of remembering and managing (i.e. doing or delegating) all the things that need to be done or monitored in a family or household. So the mental load is not exactly the doing of, say, inviting friends over, shopping for dinner, and making dinner while also feeding the kids and putting them to bed (although women may often also shoulder those tasks) – it's planning, organizing, and being ultimately responsible for all those activities. As Emma puts it, ‘The mental load means always having to remember’ (8).

The moral load may even be a species of the mental load. It's a mental responsibility, after all – the responsibility to be aware of and responsibly evaluate morally important considerations in making decisions about the care of one's children. It similarly involves a lot of actual work. Mums must not only be aware of the morally significant choices they need to make, nor are they merely ultimately responsible for many of the decisions that are made – they also (typically) are the ones putting in the ‘legwork’ described above, of researching, discussing, and thinking through various options. But whereas typical examples of the mental load are things like being on the hook to put in grocery orders or pay the babysitter, I'm specifically interested in the responsibilities mums shoulder to make morally significant decisions about the care of their children.

These moral responsibilities are particularly interesting because, first, criticism for doing poorly with respect to the moral load is moral criticism – a weightier affair than mere practical criticism. Second, because the moral load specifically concerns responsibility for decisions (as opposed to general management and delegation), the moral load distinctively highlights the costs that come with having the freedom to make decisions of one's own. Freedom is clearly a strong theme in feminist thought. Women should have the freedom to choose or decide among various options, with respect to major life decisions. A woman's putative ‘right to choose’ in the context of abortion probably comes to mind most quickly. But abilities to choose and decide are in the background of much talk about empowerment generally. (The World Bank just defines empowerment as ‘the capacity to make effective choices’.Footnote ¹⁴) One needn't identify as a feminist, either, in order to think it is important and valuable for women and mums to have some freedom in living life (i.e. more freedom than has sometimes been granted in patriarchal societies), and specifically in finding their own ways to be ‘good’ mums.

This is why I find the moral load particularly vexing and confusing. On the one hand, I don't want anyone else telling me how to raise my child or exactly what I need to do to be a good mum. I certainly don't want anyone telling me I have to (not) breastfeed. On the other hand, I also don't want to be the person solely or primarily responsible for making all morally significant, child-related decisions – at least not in a context where other parenting responsibilities are shared with a partner.

III

So where are we? I've highlighted the burden of the moral load, which is often heavy on mums. Am I saying that we should ignore genuine moral complexity or accept a black-and-white, moralizing culture that exacerbates shame and guilt?

I hope the answer to that one is clear: no. Accurately recognizing moral complexity in the decisions of motherhood is just more important than painting a picture of ‘what good mums do’ that simplifies moral decision-making. And it still seems to me that trying to create some space for genuine freedom – for mums to be able to pursue multiple different kinds of motherhood – helps mums more than it burdens them, even taking into account the increase in the moral load.

Instead, the main prescriptive claim I want to make is that we should recognize and appreciate the moral thought-work and decision-making mums are doing. Of course mums should also be recognized for doing a lot of the more obvious work of bearing and raising children, as well as the ‘mental load’ work of managing the logistics of their environments and care. But I think we often miss out on appreciating the rational, mental responsibility that mums shoulder of discerning what's good for their children and families. And, as I've argued, this moral load does not necessarily decrease when mums delegate other caring responsibilities. In fact, the moral load becomes heavier as we (accurately) recognize greater freedom in ways to be a good mum, including possibilities for delegating other aspects of care.

Let me be clear: the suggestion is not that we should occasionally remember to thank mums for this aspect of their service to families. Recognition isn't just expressions of gratitude; it involves subtle but important changes in conceptions of women and mums. Recognizing the moral work that women do is part of recognizing women's full moral and rational agency. This would show up, for example, in better social norms around conversations. Currently, there's a social norm in many discussions of infant feeding of frequently acknowledging the superiority of breastfeeding. (Yes, even among formula feeding mums.) We could instead institute a norm of acknowledging that having made a thoughtful decision about this difficult question counts as a meaningful contribution towards the flourishing life of the child.

Perhaps a recommendation for recognition will still seem too accepting of the moral load that mums bear. I see two additional, compatible possibilities for trying to lessen that load. First, we might try to reduce the weight of the moral load, no matter who bears it. At the start of this essay I noted two basic ways in which motherhood is morally intense. First, many of the decisions mums make are in fact highly morally significant. And, second, there's a ton of experienced moral pressure on the decisions of motherhood – perhaps even those that aren't that morally important. Mummy blogs and forums often seamlessly blend outright moralizing (such as, comparing formula feeding to heavy smoking or drinking while pregnant) with practical tips and advice on a wide range of ‘mummy’ issues. Don't wear a tight bra – it might hurt your milk supply. Don't gain too much weight while pregnant, do gain enough weight, eat plenty of fish – but only the right kinds, do practice yoga, don't do the wrong kinds of yoga . . . the list is endless (and it doesn't end with pregnancy and nursing, either). The outright moral character of some mummy issues tends to bleed over into even the more mundane, practical pieces of advice.

If we could reduce the pseudo-moral messaging mums are bombarded with, if we could reduce the experienced moral intensity of motherhood without denying the actual moral significance of the role, we should.Footnote ¹⁵ Perhaps we could get to a cultural place where being responsible for decisions about what kind of fish to eat or car seat to buy wasn't a part of the moral load at all – because these decisions weren't seen as that morally significant. If so, we'd be reducing the overall burden of the moral load. This kind of cultural change seems crucial, and it would seem to start with individuals who are willing to not care about decisions that have hitherto been seen as highly significant.

A second way we might try to reduce the weight of the moral load on mums, in particular, would be to encourage mums to share the moral load with other caregivers where possible. In order to be most effective in lessening the moral load on mums, sharing would take place both at the level of ultimate responsibility for moral decision-making and at the ‘legwork’ level of researching, talking through, and reasoning about those decisions. This is an interesting possibility, but it's worth noting some challenges and reasons to be wary of here. For one thing, we should be clear that sharing the moral load would require broad societal change. If every babysitter and school still calls me (rather than my partner) when there's a decision to be made about my kid, and if society in general will still hold me distinctively accountable for how my children are raised, then any private agreements that my partner and I make will leave much of my distinctive responsibility intact. This constitutes a challenge to sharing the moral load, which is not in itself a reason we shouldn't try. But there are also reasons to be careful. Some questions about care for infants and children really are particular to mums – such as breastfeeding. Should we want any other caregivers to have even partial responsibility for making infant feeding decisions? There's at least a strong case to be made that (i) responsibility would come with authority, and (ii) mums are the only legitimate breastfeeding authorities. More generally, sharing responsibility for decisions about child-rearing would require mums to give up some freedom and control. Here again we run up against the tension we've been exploring: freedom and responsibility are tightly linked.

While I think creating societal conditions under which sharing the moral load is possible, there are limits to the extent most mums should want to share. Delegating some aspects of the moral load, while retaining ultimate responsibility, seems a more promising strategy. Mums could ask co-parents, for example, to research issues such as breastfeeding, or to be responsible for particular decisions, for example, about childcare arrangements. And again, compatibly, we can all be working together to reduce the intensely moralizing culture around child-related decisions.

Most importantly, it still seems to me, we can consistently, actively recognize Mum as currently shouldering the brunt of the moral load. Mums themselves should see moral and rational capacities as crucial in their roles, and we collectively should respect and value to a greater degree the many mums who are making difficult, complex moral decisions responsibly, often in challenging and over-judgy circumstances.