The Invisible Mother

Article and music by Jin Dui, MBL Volunteer

Translated from Chinese

When I first opened that assessment report, I did so with a sense of solemnity.

It was a home-visit evaluation conducted to help my child apply for a government support program at school. We had cooperated fully with the staff, hoping these words would accurately reflect the environment our child was growing up in. I thought the report would be a mere formality—a procedural outcome. I never expected it to hold up a mirror so clearly to a long-standing, yet rarely addressed, issue.

I read through the pages until my eyes stopped at the section regarding family support.

“The father is deeply concerned with the child’s growth and development…”

It was entirely about what the father did.

I paused instinctively and read it again. Then, I flipped forward and back, checking if I had missed something. Regarding the mother, there was no evaluation, no description, not even a mention. In that moment, I didn’t feel immediate anger. Instead, I felt a brief sense of bewilderment: Was there a typo? Did they leave a page out?

During the home visit, I had clearly explained that parenting in our home is not a solo burden. Whether it’s academic support, daily scheduling, or emotional companionship, it is all managed through a partnership between both parents. Yet, in this formal, cool, and seemingly objective text, the mother existed as something unnecessary to record—quietly omitted.

Initial confusion soon sharpened into a clearer realization.

I began to see that this was likely not an accidental oversight, but a deeply familiar social default. In many institutional narratives, a mother caring for her child is viewed as her "job"—a natural, background condition. But when a father participates, it is seen as an "extra" positive action, something to be specifically noted and formally documented.

It isn’t that the father does more; it’s that social expectations for him are lower. Therefore, any level of involvement is seen as "exceeding expectations."

This disparity isn’t expressed through direct denial, but through the choice of who is worth writing down and who can be skipped. A mother’s labor is naturalized and silenced, while a father’s participation is labeled and highlighted. Over time, these records reinforce our perception of what "normal" family roles look like.

Because this logic is so pervasive, we often fail to notice it even exists.

In that moment, I realized that if I said nothing, this report would be archived as an "objective text"—cited and used as a piece of reality. And a mother’s devotion, through one omission after another, would become increasingly invisible.

Later, when providing feedback on the report, I made a point of mentioning this. I told the staff that the report did not fully represent the reality of our family’s parenting division. I requested that they add a clarification: that the mother is equally involved in the child’s growth and maintains a high level of concern for their development.

I didn’t do this to seek praise or to bolster my own image. I simply wanted the record to reflect the facts. When institutional language repeatedly ignores the labor of one party, it eventually solidifies the stereotype of who is "responsible" and who is merely "assisting."

The staff listened to my feedback seriously and agreed to make the revisions. I didn’t feel a rush of emotion; rather, I felt a calm sense of confirmation: some things are "unseen" not because they don’t exist, but because they are never pointed out.

This experience made me realize more clearly than ever that a mother’s contribution is often invisible precisely because it is taken for granted. Yet, "taken for granted" is exactly what we need to re-examine most.

When we talk about families, children, and the distribution of public resources, how we write and record is never a neutral choice. It determines whose labor is acknowledged and whose role is assumed. It dictates the tracks upon which the next assessment and the next understanding will run.

Perhaps making mothers visible doesn’t always require a grand crusade. Sometimes, it starts with a calm, clear correction.

And that is a step worth taking.