Chappel Roan & The Motherhood Wars

Let's talk about what we should actually be fighting about

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I’m sure you’ve heard but Chappel Roan went on the Call Her Daddy podcast and broke the internet this week. She said…

"All of my friends who have kids are in hell. I actually don't know anyone who's, like, happy and has children at this age. I literally have not met anyone who's happy, anyone who has light in their eyes, anyone who has slept."

And everyone lost their minds.

Idk if it’s just me but… this is the least shocking thing I've heard all week. (Maybe that is to be expected given… gestures broadly to America).

Of COURSE it seems like mothers are miserable... how is this revelatory to anyone?!

What I found way more interesting than Roan's comments was everyone's reactions to them. The internet immediately divided into two camps:

• outraged parents posting videos of themselves joyfully twirling their babies with captions like "can't imagine what heaven's like if this is hell"

• child-free crowd saying "finally someone said what we're all thinking!" and even I heard takes saying “moms it’s your fault, you make it look miserable and complain too much!”

I don’t understand why it is always parents (especially mothers) versus child free folks.. but here we are.

Breaking the False Dichotomy

I don't care what Chappel Roan said. What I care about is that we're focusing on the wrong thing. Instead of mothers and non-mothers attacking each other, we should be unified in demanding the structural supports that would make parenthood more manageable for those who choose it and create more space for those who don't to live without constant pressure to procreate.

As songwriter Mariel Loveland pointed out in a TikTok video that's gained nearly a million views, mothers are in a lose-lose situation:

"Mothers are not allowed to be complete people, and you get misogyny from both political sides."

If mothers complain about the difficulties of parenting, they're labeled ungrateful or bad parents. If they share only the highlight reel, they're accused of being fake or contributing to unrealistic expectations.

What I find most frustrating about this whole controversy isn't Chappel Roan's comments, but how quickly they've been weaponized to further pit women against each other — the mothers versus the child-free, the "happy moms" versus the ones who admit to struggling. It's exhausting! And completely misses the point!

What Do We Mean By "Misery" Anyway?

When I was 27 (and honestly, up until 30), I would have said exactly what Roan said. I looked at my friends with young children and thought they seemed exhausted, stressed, and lost. I often lamented to my husband, "I literally do not understand why people have kids? Everyone seems miserable!"

I spent COUNTLESS hours on Reddit and other forums scrolling through posts by parents trying to get honest feedback about how many parents regret having children. From the likes of the internet, it seemed like many people DID regret having kids. Or at the very least they were LESS happy than before they had children. I became a bit obsessed with parental happiness research, which in retrospect was probably not the healthiest approach to making this decision! But I digress...

I asked parents I knew if they were happy they had kids. Their answers were unhelpfully vague. Some would say, "it's really hard but I love my children more than life itself. I would die for them." Ummm, I couldn't imagine dying for anyone. Another common answer: "I never really thought about it, I just always knew I wanted to be a mom!" You didn't THINK about it!? I could not relate at all. (Clearly I overthink everything, so this was mind-blowing to me.)

But measuring "happiness" or "misery" in parenthood is incredibly complex. And as it turns out, it's also deeply tied to both societal support and the stage of parenthood.

The Parenthood Happiness Curve: It Gets Better!

One of the fascinating things that researchers have discovered is that parental happiness follows a pattern over time. Studies show that mothers particularly experience a dramatic drop in marital satisfaction during the first year after having a child, with almost 80% of first-time mothers suffering a moderate decrease in happiness, compared to about 51% of fathers.

But what's particularly interesting is what happens next. Research has found that after the initial decline, parental life satisfaction typically returns to pre-baby levels. Some studies show that parents of school-aged children actually report higher life satisfaction than they had before having children.

This makes intuitive sense when you think about it. The early years of parenting are overwhelming—the sleepless nights, the physical demands, the complete disruption of your previous life. But as children grow and develop independence, much of that acute stress subsides. The relationship becomes more reciprocal and, in many ways, more rewarding.

So when Chappel Roan says she doesn't see happiness in her friends with young kids, she's probably right! But maybe she's observing is likely a temporary stage, not a permanent condition. The problem isn't parenthood itself, but the specific challenges of early parenthood without adequate support.

The Research Is Clear: It's Not Parenthood, It's The System

What do we know from research about parental happiness? A groundbreaking study by sociologist Jennifer Glass and colleagues examined the "parenthood gap" in happiness across 22 countries. They found that the United States has the largest disadvantage of parenthood in terms of happiness among all countries studied. More importantly, they discovered that "more generous family policies, particularly paid time off and child-care subsidies, are associated with smaller disparities in happiness between parents and nonparents."

In fact, the researchers were "astonished" to find that "the negative effects of parenthood on happiness were entirely explained by the presence or absence of social policies allowing parents to better combine paid work with family obligations. And this was true for both mothers and fathers."

When examining why American parents are less happy, researchers found it could be largely attributed to two national attributes: "the average cost of childcare for a 2-year-old and the number of paid vacation and sick days people can take a year. In the U.S., the former is way too high and the latter way too low."

In some countries, like Norway and Hungary, parents are actually happier than non-parents. What's different? They have robust social support systems for families.

The System Is Broken, Not The Parents

We need to have an honest conversation about the things parents face that would make anyone — with or without children — miserable. There's no greater example of our inability to understand equity than the lack of institutional support we provide.

The very well-known "motherhood penalty v. fatherhood bonus" states a woman loses six percent of her salary the moment she becomes a mother, while a man's salary increases by four percent per every baby. Go ahead and reread that: men make four percent MORE for every baby they have.

We're the only industrialized nation that does not provide paid leave. Just under 50% of mothers return to work by the time their child is three months old. We're the wealthiest nation that spends the least amount of money providing childcare — a 2024 report found 35% of parents had to use their savings to afford childcare.

Importantly, research has found that "parenthood by itself has substantial and enduring positive effects on life satisfaction," but these positive effects are "offset by financial and time costs of parenthood." The impact of these costs varies considerably with factors like the number and age of children, marital status, and parents' employment arrangements.

When people say they regret having kids or that parenthood is "hell," they're often not talking about their relationship with their children at all. They're talking about the crushing weight of trying to parent without adequate support systems. They're talking about the impossible expectations placed on parents—particularly mothers—to do it all without complaint, without resources, and without showing any sign of struggle.

The Labor vs. The Love

One insight that changed my perspective was understanding that when parents complain, it's rarely about their children themselves. It's about the labor involved in raising them. I didn’t understand this until I had a child.

There's a difference between saying "my child makes me miserable" and "the relentless tasks of parenthood in a society that provides no support is making me miserable."

When parents talk about the difficulties of parenthood, they're often referring to the laundry, the sleepless nights, the financial strain, the career sacrifices—not the actual relationship with their child.

I'm ashamed to admit but before I had my daughter, when people complained about their kids, there was always a part of me that thought, "Umm why did you have kids then?" Or, "You signed up for this!" It's interesting we tolerate complaining about most things... nobody gets upset if we complain about our jobs... but with kids it hits a button. Why?! Because we've bought into this idea that parenthood should be all sunshine and rainbows, and if it's not, you're doing it wrong or made the wrong choice.

The Conversation We Should Be Having

The backlash to Roan's comments has been predictable. Some parents are posting videos with their children to "prove" how happy they are while others are defending Roan's perspective. But the entire framework of this debate misses the point.

I hate the rhetoric that having children should just be a choice "made out of love" and not logic, when there are REAL logistical constraints and considerations, especially in America. Read more about my thoughts on how to decide here. The reality is that our society has created conditions where parenting is unnecessarily difficult, and then we blame individual parents when they struggle under that weight.

The real conversation we should be having isn't about whether motherhood makes you miserable. It's about why we've created a society where it's so difficult to be a parent at all. It's about why we continue to frame parenting as an individual choice while ignoring the collective responsibility we have to support families.

Having children or remaining child-free isn't about which choice is "better"—they're simply different paths that should both be respected and supported. What we should be fighting against isn't each other, but the systems that rob women of meaningful choices and fail to support those who become parents.

And that's something that should concern all of us, whether we have children or not.

I would love to hear from you, what do you think of Chappel Roan’s comments? Do you think all parents are miserable?

Let me know and truly, thank you so much for reading!

ICYMI

Should You Face Your Fear of Having Kids?

Having a Child Changed My Beliefs About Regret

What if I regret having a child?

Parents who sound like they hate being parents