I think I’d just respect her a lot more if she was honest and said, “look, I don’t particularly enjoy motherhood and its trappings. I do my job [it’s not a job but I’ll let her have it in this imaginary statement] and that pays for the house which my ex and child live in and he’s her primary caregiver”.
She’d get
tit from certain people because society is inherently sexist, but I know loads of women who’ve really not taken to motherhood, and resent the loss of their career/social life/autonomy. If Cora is getting the emotional stability that she needs from Paul and the financial support from Steph then that’s grand: men have been getting away with being absentee dads who pay child support (or in the case of my dad, pay
duck all
) for centuries. I think it’d be a really interesting way to start a conversation about the
bleeping mad expectations on women to have a career and a side hustle and also be a full-on earth mother.
In a way it’s sad that she feels the need to keep up a pretence. She’s still a preposterous person in every other respect, of course.