There are bigger concerns too, of course: a potentially apocalyptic future, climate collapse, the cost of living – pick your fighter. But having inadvertently consumed a fair amount of the negative parenting content out there, an equally pressing concern for me now is this: I’m not sure I could hack it. It looks scary and depressing and lonely and messy. To be honest, the whole idea of it makes my nipples sore.

Uncertainty is increasingly common. In 2022, the number of babies born in England and Wales in a year dropped to the lowest level in two decades, while the average age of first-time mothers is only going up – today it stands at 30.9 compared to 27.1 in 1991. Even those who are already pregnant feel the fear. “During my pregnancy, I was petrified of motherhood because of all the honest content,” says 35-year-old Hayley, who was exposed to a lot of content like the sleepless night video I watched.

“The things that scared me most were the ideas that I would never sleep ever again, that my identity would go away and that I would be isolated and sad.” The reality, she’s pleased to report, has been quite different. “I’ve found it all nowhere near as grim as the stuff I saw on social media. I’ve had better sleep than I had when I was pregnant and I’ve even managed a couple of nights out.”

Sophie, 31, whose daughter is almost two, has mixed feelings about the negative content she sees online. In the first year of her daughter’s life, she struggled with feelings of loneliness (she was the first in her friend group to have a child) and utter exhaustion. “It was an isolating time and following motherhood bloggers who shared super-real stuff sometimes helped me – I could relate to them – and sometimes made me feel worse. The more of the videos I consumed, the more I was served this type of content and I worried motherhood would always feel this way: lonely and tiring,” she says. “Now that things are a bit easier, I love sharing the happy moments. It’s about actually seeing the mixed bag that motherhood is.”

While nobody expects motherhood, especially the early years, to be easy, it’s interesting to trace where the surge in extremely honest content has come from. According to Holly Zoccolan, a parenting expert and founder of The Carol App, it’s part of the wider shift towards transparency around personal experiences. “The rise of social media and ‘mum bloggers’, who first emerged in the early to mid-2000s, created space for more honest, unfiltered experiences of motherhood,” she says. “While this has been invaluable in breaking down unrealistic expectations and reducing stigma, it may also have inadvertently skewed public perception towards the more difficult aspects. Sharing the hardships can be seen as more genuine, and there might be a fear that discussing the positive aspects could be perceived as bragging or being out of touch with the realities that many parents face.”

What’s more, Zoccolan adds, content that highlights the messy parts of parenting is likely to perform better on social media. “They often receive more engagement and conversation because they’re relatable for many,” she says. And, as we all know, views and likes are addictively validating. As writer and mother Kelly Hoover Greenway wrote in a recent article about turning away from the ‘online echo chamber’ of parenting misery: “There’s just nothing clickbait about loving motherhood. Online, any mother who wants to express the fulfilment they get from their children runs the risk of being dismissed as being an anti-feminist tradwife, or as just plain lying.”

Separately, it’s also worth noting that with high engagement also comes monetisation. In the multi-billion dollar industry of influencing, which mothers are said to make up about 30% of, content which hones in on problems waiting to be solved is big business. Sure enough, it only takes a couple of taps to go from day-in-the-life reels to ‘baby sleep consultants’ selling ‘seven days to longer naps’ guides and workshops on how to beat the four-month sleep regression.

Lesley Gilchrist, a registered midwife and co-founder of My Expert Midwife, is highly sceptical of this. She warns that misinformation and questionable credentials are rife on social media, and are certainly a part of the negative posts you’re seeing online. “If you’re a baby sleep expert selling a course for mothers, for example, then you’ve got to make the case for the damage and horror that is a baby not sleeping,” she says. “And these posts about how horrific parenting is today can become self-fulfilling prophecies.”

Is motherhood really that bad? Why a generation of women are scared of having a baby