By Julie Bogen, Image: Katie Martin/The Atlantic/Getty Images, The Atlantic, May 9, 2022
You may have seen it on TV, in your workplace, or at school drop-off. Maybe you’ve had firsthand experience, been warned of its impending arrival, or met someone who’s had it themselves. It’s both a neurobiological phenomenon and an institutional failure. I’m talking about the malady—and the misconception—of “mom brain.”
When women invoke “mom brain,” they’re typically describing the experience of feeling scattered, distracted, forgetful, or disorganized as a result of being pregnant or having children. It’s frequently used as an apology (“So sorry I left my keys in the front door! I was juggling the groceries and our toddler! Mom brain!”). Obviously, parenthood comes along with sleep deprivation, especially in the newborn phase, and losing track of time or tasks is an expected side effect. There’s also evidence that pregnant women undergo shrinkages in the volume of gray matter in their brain that may be permanent, though many experts consider those shifts to be more of an adaptive “pruning” than a dulling.
Research has also shown that the brains of fathers and nonbiological parents change with caregiving experience, but one never hears about “dad brain”—there must be some kind of miraculous dad hormone that makes them immune to the affliction. And even though many neurobiological changes are beneficial, the connotations of “mom brain” are almost always negative. Pop culture is full of the stereotype of the harried, forgetful mom—like Kate McCallister from Home Alone, forgetting her youngest child in the chaos of trying to get out the door on vacation with four others. Mothers in real life use “mom brain” as an explanation or to apologize for when they drop balls or mismanage things on their to-do list. But much of the time, what’s really happening is that mom brains—like all other brains—short-circuit when they are overwhelmed.
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