Victoria season 2 is having an important conversation about motherhood
In the season 2 premiere Victoria expresses ambivalence about being a mother. Here’s why that’s a good thing.
Being a mother is hard work, probably some of the hardest work there is. In addition to, you know, actually being responsible for a tiny human being’s life, mothers are forced to answer for their every decision, their every move: Why aren’t you breastfeeding? You let your kids have gluten? You know, they say kids with working mothers grow up to be more independent. You know, they say kids with stay-at-home mothers grow up to be happier.
Motherhood is a huge undertaking, and yet you’re still supposed to love every minute of it. If you don’t, you’re not doing it right. Ambivalence is not acceptable. That’s what makes Victoria‘s season 2 premiere twofer, “A Soldier’s Daughter” and “The Green-Eyed Monster,” so unexpectedly gripping. The titular character (Jenna Coleman) is now a mother and is clearly not having a great time of it.
Throughout “A Soldier’s Daughter” there are subtle hints here and there that Victoria’s struggling to adapt to her new role. She’s visibly uncomfortable holding Princess Vicky, genuinely surprised when the baby smiles at her, and impatient to get out of the nursery and back to ruling her country. It’s not that Victoria doesn’t love her daughter — it’s obvious she does, deeply — she’s just not enchanted by motherhood, as everyone else (read: the dudes in her life) expects her to be. She’s bored and feels like everyone is judging her (which they are because she’s literally the Queen).
In the hands-down best scene from the premiere, Victoria turns to her lady-in-waiting and close friend Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland (Margaret Clunie), for advice. “Did you like them?” Victoria asks of Harriet’s children. “Straight away?” Harriet thoughtfully replies:
"Well, I was pleased they were healthy. I would have killed anyone that caused them any harm, but like them? I think that comes later, ma’am. Having a baby is a sacrifice as well as a blessing."
That right there encapsulates what Victoria is experiencing. She loves Vicky more than anything and would kill for her, but can’t really relate to her. Victoria simply doesn’t enjoy spending all her time with her child. And importantly, Harriet shows her she’s not the only woman who has ever felt that way. It’s rare enough to see two women frankly discussing the not-so warm and fuzzy aspects of motherhood on TV, but I can’t recall watching two female characters ever outright saying it took them awhile to like their kids.
Victoria is extremely relieved after her chat with Harriet, but the burden does not stay lifted. In “The Green-Eyed Monster” the young monarch finds out she is expecting again, and she dreads going through another pregnancy so quickly after having Princess Vicky. “I can’t bear it,” Victoria tearfully tells her most trusted servant, Lehzen (Daniela Holtz). “I should be pleased, I know … Oh, I feel like I’m going to prison.”
It’s impossible not to commiserate with Victoria in this moment. Just when she’s regained her independence and successfully survived childbirth (no easy feat in the 1840s) she finds herself staring down another year of courtiers and politicians treating her like an invalid. Worse still, she feels pressure to be happy about the pregnancy when she’s anything but. I found myself nodding sympathetically when Victoria admitted, “There are times I wish I had been born a man.”
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If the disparity in press coverage is any indication, Victoria is considered to be the less prestige-y younger sister of The Crown, but its season 2 premiere suggests far greater depths. In addition to being historically accurate, Victoria presenting its queen as iffy on motherhood is extremely important. It’s a road few other series are brave enough to go down lest their female characters seem too unlikable.
The truth is plenty of real-life women, like Victoria, are vocal about their ambivalence towards motherhood. Plenty of real women speak out about how being a mother was the role they were born to play. And plenty of others still are inwardly equivocal but experience too much guilt to be honest. They — all of us, really — need warts-and-all depictions of motherhood onscreen for the same reason Victoria needed to open up to Harriet and Lehzen: to be reassured that they’re not alone.