motherhood and the machine

babies are un-hackable

Let’s start by getting this out of the way: I have not been a mother long.¹ You can stop reading now if you feel that disqualifies what follows.

Next, let’s state the not-hot-take, the truth universally acknowledged: that motherhood is hard. Birthing and raising humans will always require much of us.

Then, allow me to say that I truly love this sh*t. I’ve found—baked in with the hard—much goodness, meaning, satisfaction, and delight.

On top of my own experience, I’m in a season of life where many of my friends are also having their first babies. Through various mom groups, I’ve been in embodied, close contact with 25ish first-time moms over the last two years.

In this new-baby-new-mom milieu, in the year of our Lord 2025, a few things have become apparent: yes, motherhood is good, yes, motherhood is hard, and unfortunately, there are forces making motherhood harder than it needs to be.

We could call these forces a lot of things. But I’ve decided to go with Paul Kingsnorth’s concept of “the Machine.” He describes it thus:

The ultimate project of modernity, I have come believe, is to replace nature with technology … to fulfill the most ancient human dream: to become gods. What I call the Machine is the nexus of power, wealth, ideology and technology that has emerged to make this happen.²

Living in the shadow of the Machine is not something you consciously opted into. It’s the water we’re swimming in, and we’re being carried downstream faster than we realize. But as many writers I admire³ are noodling on, yielding our lives to the ways and whims of the Machine is something that can (and, spoiler: should) be resisted.

Here’s what I will shout from my soap box: the Machine specifically and insidiously targets new mothers. It seeks to undermine their confidence and profit off the vulnerability that comes with pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood. It exploits the beautiful force of a mother’s love and her desire to protect her child.

So here’s a little 4,000-word manifesto on how this plays out, and how to resist.

To be honest, everything that follows could be summed up in the boomer bumper sticker, “let go and let God.” But please, know that I am not writing this with some naive belief that everything works out and is easy when you believe in God. No, much of my life has been marked by things not working out at all and being desperately, achingly hard. And in those storms, I have seen and tested the truth that when

“the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”⁴

The Machine wants to prey on new moms. I wrote this because I want every mom to be founded on the rock.

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The Lie

The temptation to become god is not a new one. It’s the inciting incident of The Story that exists at the center of the universe:

There is a Creator. He created the world, in all its intricacy and beauty. He created us, in all our intricacy and beauty. He is good and loving, and he wants us to experience his goodness and love. We can trust him to take care of us. But trusting him requires acknowledging that he is in control, and we are not.

Humanity’s first enemy made the promise that we could be like God. He whispered that God wasn’t really worth trusting.

We bought the lie, and it broke everything. It’s still breaking everything. This is about how it’s broken new motherhood.

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A central idea of the Machine is that technology is an unquestionable good. From being awed at my mother’s new Nokia brick phone as a young child, to attending one of the first high schools in in the country with a 1:1 student to laptop ratio, I will admit that for most of my life I accepted this narrative wholeheartedly.

As I grew into adulthood, tech continued to twine its tendrils around more and more of day-to-day life—Snapchat streaks, Find-my-Friends tracking, Instagram stories, and more made sure you could always be connected to that acquaintance you didn’t really even like. Wasn’t that a win?

These advancements seemed to make life easier, better. Right? I could do more and know more and maybe even be more. Right? Sure, there were days where Instagram left me feeling ugly or fat or lonely or poor, but there were other days where I was the one getting married or on a trip to Europe or my arms looked nice. The more we’re able to weave technology into our world, the more we flourish. Right?

Then I got pregnant.

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Pregnancy

Growing a human brings you back to the physicality of things. As I simultaneously threw up and peed my pants again and again, I felt a new connection to my body, to flesh-and-bone-and-pee reality.

The algorithms find out you’re expecting as soon as you do. You’re flooded with ads:

• 43 things every classic-art-deco-western-Parisian-cozy-neutral-farmhouse-bohemian-vintage-woodland nursery needs so your baby grows up to have refined taste like you!

• Buy my course on how to get rid of every toxic substance hiding in your home and the next five levels of the atmosphere, so you don’t accidentally poison your baby with the face wash you use!

• Check out our list of top baby products—they might be thousands of dollars but if you really love your baby you’ll give them the best, right?

• Hire me as your coach, and I’ll teach you to have a pain-free, orgasmic birth (and if it doesn’t work, it’s your fault for not breathing deeply enough)!

The messages of the Machine are clear: You are not capable to be the mother you need to be. You need more stuff. You need more knowledge. You need more control. And, for the right price—of money, attention, time—you can have it!

After a few weeks of this constant input, I felt a powerful stirring in my spirit to log off. As my daughter expanded within me, I wanted, needed more room—less noise, less desire, less consumption, less comparison. I wanted to nest—not just in my home, but in my soul. I wanted to prepare a place within myself ready to receive this little life. Somewhere warm, cozy, peaceful, content. Somewhere safe, settled. I wanted to meet her with fresh stores of patience and bravery, so that she’d have the freedom to be all she needed to be.

I wanted to be attuned to God, and attuned to myself, so I could attune to her. That meant there was much I had to tune out.

So instead of an infinite scroll screaming all the things I needed to buy/do/learn to be a “good mom,” I pressed in to the God who told me a simple truth: that my daughter is an undeserved gift, and in his good plan he has chosen me to be her mother.

For nine months, I read and I prayed and I listened and journaled and walked. I grew in confidence, peace, and weight. I felt God’s nearness as he wove a miracle inside my womb. Instead of searching for the next hit of dopamine on a screen, I was awed by this sacred season within me. That’s not to say that I floated through those months in some nirvana, free of all emotion or worry. But there was a deep rootedness in the belief that me and my baby were both held by someone stronger, someone who loved us.

When we learned at her 20-week scan that my daughter had a kidney problem that might require surgery immediately after birth, I wept and I asked God for help, for mercy. I was sad, picturing a tiny baby with tiny scars—but I was not wrecked. I knew it may not all go exactly how I hoped, but I knew God was in charge and I tried to release it all to him.

The Machine says that fulfillment comes when you are god—all-powerful, all-knowing, in control, sovereign. And it sells you the idea that you can be, if you pay for the birth course, the early gender testing, the NASA-level water filter.

My unplugged pregnancy helped root me in the truth that only God is God. And wonder of wonders, he loves me, and my baby. That truth brought freedom and peace.

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Birth & the Newborn Stage

Andy Crouch writes about tech’s alluring promise of “easy everywhere.”⁵ But we know, deep down, that some things are meant to be hard—that challenges create growth, meaning, and courage. One such formative challenge is birthing a baby.

My desire was to have an unmedicated birth. I held my plan with open hands, but knew that if it was possible I wanted to really dive in to the biology, the physicality, the trial of labor.⁶ I believe God designed my body to give birth, and I wanted to experience it fully.

I wanted to feel it. I did. It hurt!

In the pain of labor, I felt a new depth of God’s wisdom in creation, of his faithfulness to give me strength, of the sacredness of blood and sweat and groaning too deep for words. I called out for his help, and he helped me. In between the intensity of contractions, I was surprised by how fully I could relax. It wasn’t orgasmic. But it started my motherhood with power and confidence: God is with me, and we can do this. He was with me, and we did this. He will be with me, and we will keep doing this.

Now, my baby was here. Praise God, she did not need her kidney surgery until she was over a year old. We spent a night in the hospital as she squirmed, ate, slept. We waited for her to poop—our ticket to go home. Finally, she obliged.

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Kingsnorth notes that the Machine labels the demands of motherhood “problematic,” because “biology and family and home and place and anything at all with borders and limits always will be.”⁷ We’re fed the message that only in full autonomy can we really be free and happy and satisfied.

Enter an infant.

My newborn daughter was a fully dependent, needy Taker. TikTok mental health experts might call her a demanding narcissist that I needed to cut out of my life, as tending to her placed many borders and limits on me.

But there, in my tiredness, with my throbbing, leaking breasts and my bleeding body, I found an unimaginably deep well of joy as I once again surrendered myself to God’s design: that now, for this season, I was wholly tied to this little lovely life. She depended on me for everything. And, while challenging, it brought me great satisfaction to give it to her.

Motherhood forces us to put others first. Society calls this a loss, something to rail against. The Machine tells us that with the right technology we could optimize ourselves out of these demands. But Jesus paints a different picture. He longs to give us more of himself, more of his peace. It is no surprise that we find more of God—the God who emptied himself and took on the form of a servant—when we are serving others. He went low, and we find him at the bottom.

The Machine says that nothing should be hard. So accepting God’s reality—that motherhood asks much of us, and that in the crucible of motherhood, God does much in us—is a blow against the Machine’s narrative. The Bible never says that laying your life down for others will be easy, but it also never describes it as something to run from or fight against.

If it was possible to outsource the late night feeding sessions or blowout diaper changes to a robot, we would be less tired—but we would also be farther from Jesus and the work he wants to do in us. He is near to mothers. If we care to look, we do not have to look far to find him there with us. When we welcome the challenge of caring for our babies, instead of bucking against it, we’re welcoming more of him.

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Hacking Babies

The Machine has conditioned us to think that everything can be optimized, frictionless, controllable, tidy. This might work for your budgeting app or the Webkinz account you had in fifth grade, but it doesn’t translate to a human infant.

The Machine mindset tells you that a baby who spits up, a baby who gets a rash, a baby who cries is a problem to be hacked for the low price of a $103 course.

If you are a new mom, please consider getting this tattooed somewhere on your person (or at least committing it to memory): Babies are not hackable. Babies can be unpredictable. Babies are not robots.

You must remember that the so-called-experts on social media do not know you, or your baby. Next time you’re scrolling, pause and think: is someone here profiting off of making me feel like a loser mom?

If the answer is yes, log off! Don’t buy it!

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We are mammals, not machines. Conception, gestation, and lactation are distinctly biological. Sadly, most of us don’t know much about these processes until we are experiencing—or longing for—them, but the intricacy of each is truly astounding.

The Machine is trying its darndest for medical technology to infiltrate and profit off each of these processes, but it cannot yet duplicate nor control them fully.⁸ So as the Machine works toward that hellish day where every aspect of conceiving, growing, birthing, and raising babies is commodified, they’ll focus today on selling what they can: fear, worry, and the illusion of control.

I remember watching a few of my first-time-mom friends pull out an app when they started nursing. There was a timer feature, where they’d track how long the baby nursed on each side. It made a nifty little graph where you could see how the time changed over the course of the weeks or months. These weren’t preemies fresh out of the NICU with different medical conditions. These babies had been gaining weight well and meeting milestones at checkups.

But still, some moms were worried. I’d hear things like, “He only ate 9 minutes on the left side this morning instead of 15 the other day. What should I do?” I tried to gently propose an idea: what if you stopped timing? Does it really help to know, or does it just make you anxious?

The Machine tells us that knowledge is power. That we can never know enough. But just because technology makes it possible for us to have more information, that doesn’t mean that we need it, or that it’s helpful.

The Machine knows that it can catch our attention most through fear. Algorithms flood new moms with posts like “10 things you didn’t know about SIDS,” “Could your baby’s rash be a sign of something more serious?”, and on and on. I know that SIDS is real. I know that babies do get sick and hurt and worse. There is wisdom to learning about what it looks like to safely sleep, safely feed, safely load your baby in the carseat. But a doomscroll is not the best teacher. A heartrate-tracking smart sock is not your savior.

We’re sold the idea that if we have all the information, if we know about every scary thing that could ever befall our child, if we have the feeding graph and the heart rate numbers, then we can protect our baby from anything going wrong. They will be healthy and safe.

But this is a lie.

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The Machine says be afraid.

God says, again and again and again, do not be afraid.

The Machine tells you that your enemy is your limitedness. It promises to vanquish your vulnerabilities, for the small price of the very things that make you human.

God says that your enemy is sin, and sin’s consequence, death. He defeated both—offering you real freedom from your ultimate vulnerability and limitation—when he laid down his life for you and took it back up again.

The Machine says trust me, but will never—can never—deliver on its deepest promise. You will never be god. You are not in control. You can’t protect your child from everything.

Alone, that fact is terrifying. Especially for a mother. But there is good news.

There is a God. He, too, says, trust me. But unlike The Machine, he has proven his trustworthiness, his love, his provision—for you and your child.

He is in control. And beautifully, wonderfully, he is good. He is merciful and gracious and abounding in steadfast love. He purposefully, carefully, lovingly made you and your baby. He chose you for each other. He knows your background, your strengths and weaknesses, your intuitions and fears—and knowing fully who you are, he called you to be your baby’s mother.

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This is a message I’m deeply passionate about: God didn’t ask the Machine to raise your baby. He didn’t ask that mom influencer, or that author, or Taking Cara Babies. He asked you.

The internet will sell you all the ways you can “train” your baby to sleep through the night, “hacks” on how to not raise a picky eater, to be doing his own laundry by 14 months, what have you. Maybe some of it is worth trying, maybe some of it will work for you.

But what will not work for you is to cede the authority, the responsibility, intuition, the wisdom that God has given you (and wants to continue to grow in you!) as your child’s mother.

The Machine whispers, You can’t do this. You need me to help you.

God tells you, I made you to do this. And I am here to help you.

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Rage Against The Machine

So let’s get practical. How do we resist?

It’s not enough to just tune out the Machine. You need to replace the false narratives, alluring as they are, with the true narrative—the only one that satisfies. You need to rest in the truth, goodness, and beauty of the God who made you, loves you, died to save you, and rose again to offer you eternal life.

So if you’re a pregnant mom, or a new mom, consider your own inner nesting. Ask God to help make your soul more ready for your baby than your physical nursery.

• Pray. Talk to God about what you are feeling. Trust that he loves you and your baby, and wants to help you. Believe that he’s holding you both. Thank him that he chose you for each other. Ask him for help!

• Get in the Word. There’s not a sleep training course in the Bible, but there is wisdom and hope and joy to find in God’s story of love for his people. Plant your roots deep in his living water, so that you can draw strength from him and yield the fruit needed for motherhood.

• Talk to real humans who love you. Share your worries, your hopes, your questions with your husband, your family, your wise friends.

• Find real moms to learn from. There are so many helpful things to know. It’s just that social media and Google are not typically sources that lead to peace and mental flourishing. Do you have a mom in your orbit who seems generally peaceful and/or happy? Talk to her.

• Similarly, if you have medical or more serious questions, ask your pediatrician, midwife, lactation consultant, etc. A real one! Someone supportive, encouraging, who really listens to you, who can physically see you and your baby. Not an influencer who doesn’t know you. (An influencer’s ultimate goal is not to help you flourish in motherhood but to siphon your attention and money.)

• Take a hard look at your relationship to technology. Log off. Delete the app. Be free!!!!!!

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Yes, motherhood is hard. Conceiving and birthing and raising and loving real humans will always be messy and uncontrollable.

So give up trying to make it easy. Give up the dream to be god.

Instead of clinging tightly to tech-fueled attempts at omniscience or omnipotence, let go and be held by the only One who is truly omni-everything. The One who actually knows each heartbeat, who knows every hair on your baby’s head. The One who is abdundantly good, merciful, and loving. The One who calls out, “Let the little children come to me.”⁹ Let the moms come to him too.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” - Matthew 11:28

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Let’s end here: you know how sweet it is when your baby falls asleep in your arms? They aren’t in control of anything. They simply trust you’ll take care of them.

God wants to hold you like that. He even compares himself to a nursing mother in Isaiah 49:15: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you.”

If you’ve given birth, you know you can’t forget your nursing child. Your baby will tell you when she’s hungry (and your boobs will tell you when she’s hungry.) There are moments when you get frustrated with your baby, overwhelmed by the demands of your baby, or feel like you don’t know what to do with your baby, but you will never forget your baby. You will always have compassion.

Even more, even deeper, even stronger, is God’s compassion, his love, his care for you.

So rest in that. Stand on the rock—even if your legs are wobbling, it will hold you. Resist the Machine. Don’t make motherhood harder than it needs to be. Let him be God. He’s good at it.

1. BUT, I’ve squeezed a higher-than-average amount of babies into these two years, raising my biological daughter, two infant foster daughters who have moved to be with family, and as of last week, a new 5-month-old foster daughter. So lowkey back off, haters.

2. The Tale of the Machine

3. Some thinkers I’ve been influenced by who are writing about motherhood/womanhood specifically:

Emily Hancock

,

Helen Roy

,

Haley Baumeister

,

Leah

,

Amber Adrian

,

Radical Moms Union

. Those writing about tech’s impact on our lives more broadly: Jonathan Haidt, Andy Crouch,

Ruth Gaskovski

, Katherine Martinko, Freya India,

O. Alan Noble

.

4. Matthew 7:25

5. The Tech-Wise-Family is a must-read.

6. I don’t think this is for everyone! Please give birth in whatever way you feel strongest and most supported.

7. Keep The Home Fires Burning

8. Don’t make me write 4,000 more words about IVF, surrogacy, ectogenesis, attempts to induce lactation in biological men, the unethical marketing of formula, etc. The Machine does NOT appreciate the fact that when more mothers are conceiving without med tech, birthing without excessive interventions, breastfeeding instead of using formula, there’s less money to be made!

9. Matthew 19:14