When “Best I Can” is Not Enough: Welfare Managers’ Appraisal of Clients’ Mothering Practices

The “mommy wars” are a cultural narrative of conflict between mothers that amplifies the scrutiny placed on mothering practices. While mothers at all social locations face criticisms for their choices surrounding parenting, mothers in poverty lack the resources to enact many socially mandated parenting practices and contend with additional scrutiny through participation in programs like welfare-to-work. In this project, I examine the parenting expectations mothers on welfare must navigate. I use 69 semi-structured interviews with welfare-to-work program managers in Ohio from 2010-2011 to examine which mothering ideologies they encourage and discourage clients to adopt. I find that managers are highly critical of clients’ (perceived) parenting practices and instead promote a combination of intensive mothering and economic nurturing. Managers promote intensive mothering and meeting children's needs—so long as it does not interfere with the work requirements of the program. Economic nurturing simultaneously allows managers to express concern for children and promote clients participating in the work requirements of OWF, implying that work and family needs are aligned and can be met via work.     

Motherhood,homeschooling, and mental health

Homeschooling fits neatly under the umbrella of intensive mothering, a prominent parenting style in the United States. Intensive mothering has been shown to increase the emotional distress of mothers, which may be exacerbated when mothers take on the additional burden of being responsible for the formal education of their children. Given that intensive mothering ideologies negatively impact maternal mental health, it makes sense to examine how homeschooling may exacerbate this outcome. In this paper, I examine the literature on intensive mothering, homeschooling, and mental health to demonstrate a need for further exploration to show how homeschooling mothers, encouraged by intensive mothering ideologies, may be putting their mental health, and more, at risk in their endeavors to be both “good mothers” as well as “good teachers.”     

“What Would a Loving Mom Do Today?”: Exploring the Meaning of Motherhood in Stories of Prenatal and Postpartum Depression

Prenatal depression (PD) and postpartum depression (PPD), experienced by up to one-quarter of pregnant women and new mothers, are associated with maternal impairment and disruptions to children’s behavior, development, and health. Women experiencing PD/PPD must cope with negative feelings and detrimental outcomes that stand in contrast with cultural conceptions of how (ideal) mothers feel and act (i.e., the discourse of intensive mothering), thus furthering stigma and negativity surrounding the PD/PPD experience. The present study, couched in relational dialectics theory, aims to explore how women, through naturally occurring online narratives, make sense of motherhood in light of both PD/PPD experiences and cultural expectations/understandings of mothers. Throughout the narrative corpus, the culturally dominant Discourse of (Self-)Sacrificing Blissful Moms (DSBM)—which expands on the discourse of intensive mothering—is de-centered, albeit never fully delegitimated, by the Discourse of Mothers as Whole People (DMWP). Rather than closing down the DSBM, the DMWP works to expand meanings of what “good” mothers can feel and do. This finding holds both cultural/theoretical and practical implications, as discussed by the authors.     

Integrated Motherhood: Beyond Hegemonic Ideologies of Motherhood

Existing research assumes that hegemonic mothering ideologies influence U.S. mothers' work and family decisions. These ideologies assume that childrearing is a mother's duty, that mothering occurs within a self‐sufficient nuclear family, and that paid employment conflicts with motherhood. Even when mothers do not conform to these ideologies, scholars find that they continue to influence mothers, as exhibited by mothers' efforts to reframe, redefine, or actively reject the ideal. This study expands on research that challenges the dominant influence of these ideologies on all mothers. Through analyzing the accounts of 24 middle‐ and upper‐middle‐class African American mothers employed in professional careers, three different cultural expectations about motherhood emerged. Participants assumed that they should work outside of the home, be financially self‐reliant, and use kin and community members as child caregivers. Together, these cultural expectations form the basis of an alternative ideology of mothering that the author terms integrated mothering.     

Defending Motherhood: Morality,Responsibility, and Double Binds in Feeding Children

The ideology of intensive mothering sets a high bar and is framed against the specter of the “bad” mother. Poor mothers and mothers of color are especially at risk of being labeled bad mothers. Drawing on 138 in‐depth interviews and ethnographic observations, this study analyzes the discursive and interpersonal strategies poor mothers use to make sense of and defend their feeding and children's body sizes. Food beliefs and practices reflect and reinforce social inequalities and thus represent an exemplary case in which to examine intensive mothering, its ties to growing inequality, and how individuals are called to account for it. Findings demonstrate intersecting inequalities, meanings, and contradictions in mothers' accounts of meeting intensive mothering expectations around feeding, health, and weight. In light of moral framings around feeding and weight, mothers' experiences of surveillance, and the double binds they encounter in feeding children, mothers practice what the authors term defensive mothering.     

Work,Family, and Accounts of Mothers’ Lives Using Discourse to Navigate Intensive Mothering Ideals

Despite the dramatic increase in women’s employment since the 1970s, mothers’ decisions about work remain closely scrutinized. The intensive mothering ethos in which “good” mothers are highly involved in the minutiae of their children’s lives, continues to be the prevailing parenting paradigm in the United States. This article asks: How do women use discourse to navigate the demands of intensive motherhood? First, this article reviews literature on ideologies of intensive mothering. The article then considers research on how accounts are used to navigate the moral dilemmas surrounding women’s work and motherhood. This article provides us with a better understanding of how traditional gender divides remain culturally relevant, how people use discourse to expand cultural schemas to fit their own social location, and how the process of expanding the framework of a schema through this negotiation process can allow traditional gender schemas to remain salient even while different actions are incorporated.     

Work,parenting and gender: the care–work negotiations of three couple relationships in the UK

Changes globally mean that there are now record numbers of mothers in paid employment and a reported prevalence of involved fathering. This poses challenges to mothers and fathers as they negotiate care–work practices within their relationships. Focusing on interviews with three heterosexual couples (taken from a wider UK qualitative project on working parents), the paper considers care–work negotiations of three couples, against a backdrop of debates about intensive mothering and involved fathering. It aims to consider different configurations of work and care within three different couple relationships. We found that power within the relationships was negotiated along differential axis of gender and working status (full- or part-time paid work). We present qualitatively rich insights into these negotiations. Framed by a critical discursive psychological approach, we call on other researchers to think critically about dominant discourses and practices of working, caring and parenting, pointedly how couples situated around the world operationalise these discourses in talking about themselves as worker and carers.     

Separate Mothering and Fathering: The Plurality of Parenting Within the Framework of Postdivorce Shared Parenting Norms

This article explores the components and the plurality of everyday parenting among separated mothers and fathers. Drawing on an online survey of 114 mothers and fathers, it presents a topological analysis of mothers’ and fathers’ childrearing activities and decision making; unilateral, parallel, and negotiated relationships; residence and contact; and legal orders. The findings revealed 5 mothering and fathering patterns: unilateral, traditional residential, and interchangeable mothering, and involved nonresidential and interchangeable fathering. They disclose the relational and gendered structures of motherhood and fatherhood practice and social representation that are shaping postseparation parenting within the legal framework of shared parenting.     

Re‐examining Cultural Contradictions: Mothering Ideology and the Intersections of Class,Gender, and Race

Hays argues the dominant ideology of mothering in the United States is intensive mothering. Women embracing this ideology are completely devoted to their children and cultural contradictions of motherhood make it difficult to juggle work and family. Rothman argues further that ideologies of patriarchy, technology, and capitalism shape our notions of mothering. I explore these ideologies in this paper, paying careful attention to the labor performed by mothers – paid, childcare, and reproductive. Finally, using surrogacy as an example of how these ideologies interact, I argue that Rothman’s identifications of ideologies helps explain how the cultural contradictions of motherhood vary among mothers based on race and class.     

Decentering intensive mothering: More fully accounting for race and class in motherhood norms

In 1996 Sharon Hays published The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood describing the ideology of intensive mothering calling upon mothers to engage in a time-intensive, expensive, and expert-informed style of mothering. In this article, I describe the historical circumstances giving rise to intensive mothering and how structural and historical realities diverge across race and class. I argue that enactments of motherhood are varied, forming a mosaic of motherhood enactments informed by mothers' social locations, including their positions in racialized and classed hierarchies. Mothers operating from marginalized locations innovate and resist intensive mothering, while also being judged by these norms, despite often lacking the resources to meet them. Privileged, primarily White mothers, have been able to harness their resources to achieve intensive mothering and redefine what constitutes good mothering to match the style of mothering they practice. Among some privileged, predominantly White mothers, I contend an even more intense version of intensive mothering is being practiced, with some moving beyond being “expert informed” to positioning themselves as the experts who possess specialized knowledge superior to that of medical and educational experts. All told, I argue that mothering enactments are more diverse than is often portrayed by the concept of intensive mothering.     

Parenting Education in Australia

SUMMARY: The provision of parenting education in Australia has increased dramatically in recent years in response to the rapid changes in contemporary society and the involvement of professionals in family life and relationships. Informed by a critical perspective which highlights the impact of individuals and society upon each other, the paper argues that the value base of parenting education programmes needs to be made clear. Parents need to be helped to consider their personal experiences of mothering and fathering in relation to the under structural tensions shaping their individual responses which impact in turn on the broader situation. A study being undertaken in Melbourne, Australia is drawn on to illustrate certain aspects of parenting education, and ways in which programmes can perpetuate dominant ideologies which can disadvantage parents, but especially mothers, are noted.     

THE PARENTING EXPERIENCES OF MOTHERS WITH DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS

This article presents a qualitative analysis of the experience of parenting of mothers with dissociative disorders. This analysis was performed to complement the quantitative analysis of problems of mothers with dissociative disorders that Benjamin, Benjamin, and Rind (1996) presented previously. They found that the functioning of these mothers, as well as their subjective experience of mothering, was poorer that that of either clinical or nonclinical control mothers. Our goal was to provide a clearer, richer picture of their problems in parenting. Using the mothers' own words, we describe how the five symptom areas of dissociation (amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity confusion, and identity alteration) impeded their parenting efforts. We conclude with a discussion of the necessity of addressing parenting in the treatment of client-mothers with dissociative disorders.     

Working‐class mothers’ school involvement: a class‐specific maternal ideal?

Recent ideological shifts, along with budgeting constraints, have made parental involvement in the schooling process necessary. Such expectations have increased the toll on working‐class mothers, who now have to assume responsibility in three time‐consuming areas: child care at home, school involvement and labour market participation. In analysing how mothers deal with this threefold expectation, research has focused on class‐specific maternal ideals and practices, but rarely directed systematic attention to how these concurrent expectations shape the maternal ideals they embrace. Moreover, few studies have examined how mothers’ maternal ideals shape their employment interruptions. The current paper considers how working‐class mothers rationalize the maternal ideals they embrace with regard to school involvement and examines how they negotiate them vis‐à‐vis other possible maternal ideals. Interviews of 48 Israeli low‐income mothers reveal that educational success is consensually perceived as critical for maximizing life chances and that this understanding evolved from the gradual realization that school involvement through extensive mothering – where women rely on others to meet their children's schooling needs – must be replaced by school involvement through intensive mothering – namely, personal presence‐based nurturing. We draw some implications relevant to the debate over class‐based maternal ideals.     

Midlife Lesbian Parenting

Summary

This study explores the experience of nine midlife lesbian mothers parenting young children. The participants live in the greater Bay Area of San Francisco.

The participants reported positive feelings about their parenting experience. They felt confident and secure in midlife, and this enhanced their parenting. Their own maturation issues, whether they were coming out or other developmental concerns, seem successfully traversed, leaving them more inner resources for mothering.

Participants experienced acceptance from the larger culture, as well as discrimination and ignorance. Participants experienced little conflict regarding nurturing with their partner and little conflict with respect to their identities as mothers.     

The political act of public talk: how legislators justified welfare reform

Prior to the creation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, federal legislation primarily positioned mothers in the private sphere of parenting and men in the public sphere of work. Welfare reform changed this citizenship construction dramatically, requiring mothers to work but failing to acknowledge their caretaking responsibilities. This article presents a discourse and content analysis of the welfare reform debate that directly referenced citizenship. Findings suggest that legislators emphasized paid work as a citizenship activity while rarely portraying parenting as such. Furthermore, legislators' endorsement of paid work as a duty of citizenship, and the manner in which they paired this endorsement with the minimizing of parenting as such a duty, may have further diminished the perception of parenting as a valuable citizenship activity. Welfare reform may have been possible because the heretofore recognized citizenship work of mothering was largely ignored in the congressional debate.     

Women’s perceptions of how their dyslexia impacts on their mothering

Women with children have been depicted as struggling to justify themselves in the shadow of intensive mothering ideology. However, little is said about women who have a disability such as dyslexia, and how disability may intersect with intensive mothering ideology to present additional challenges. In this paper, life-story interviews are drawn upon to start to unpack the ways in which mothering and dyslexia may intersect. The themes discussed include: fear and perceived challenges of having a child with dyslexia; how mothers perceived their impairments manifest in their mothering, including poor organisational skills, short-term memory, reading and spelling; and how mothers may attempt to reframe the apparent contradiction between a ‘good’ mother and a mother with dyslexia by, for example, portraying themselves as a positive role-model for their child and better able to identify and cater for their child’s needs.     

‘I'm a good mother really!’ gendered parenting roles and responses to the disclosure of incest

The disclosure of incestuous abuse of a child constitutes such a departure from normative expectations of mothering that it necessitates a complete reappraisal and reconstruction of the mother's identity. This article draws on interview material with women in this situation in order to demonstrate how very traditional gendered parenting models were employed in repairing damaged identities. The ways in which such reliance on the protective and selfless aspects of mothering could contribute to the failure to recognise the abuse of their child are also discussed. In conclusion, motherhood as a source of power for women within the family is critically examined. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Online product research as a labor of love: motherhood and the social construction of the baby registry

This article examines how women engage in online product research as a means to negotiate their transition into motherhood. Drawing upon data from in-depth interviews with 32 expectant mothers, we demonstrate how the process of constructing baby registries is mediated by intensive online product research. By exploring the role of online resources in consumer decision-making and the different strategies that women employ to meet the perceived challenges of consumption, we show how expectant mothers work to gain entry into the social world of motherhood in an age of intensive mothering and risk society.     

Empathy and Self‐Regulation as Mediators Between Parenting and Adolescents' Prosocial Behavior Toward Strangers,Friends, and Family

The current study examined the role of empathy and self‐regulation as mediators between positive parenting (mothering and fathering) and early adolescents' prosocial behavior toward 3 targets (strangers, friends, and family). Data were taken from Time 1 and Time 2 of the Flourishing Families Project, and included reports from 500 families with an early adolescent child (mean age of child at Time 1=11.29). Analyses suggested that predictors of prosocial behavior toward the 3 targets differed, with empathy (as reported by mothers only) and self‐regulation mediating the relation between positive parenting and prosocial behavior toward strangers and friends, but not toward family. Positive mothering was the only variable that was significantly related to prosocial behavior toward family. The discussion focuses on the need for continued research examining a relational approach to prosocial development.     

Maternal Experiences of Parenting Girls who are Perceived as Overweight or at Risk for Becoming So: Narratives of Uncertainty,Ambivalence and Struggle

This work explored U.S. mothers’ experiences of parenting young adolescent girls who are perceived by their mothers as overweight or at risk for becoming so. Data were collected via in‐depth interviews with 13 mothers and were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. Many mothers experienced socializing their daughters about issues of the body, weight, diet, and health as marked by uncertainty, ambivalence and struggle, particularly relative to four subthemes: mothers’ embodiment as challenge to ‘good mothering’, negotiating a dilemma of the ‘healthy mind’ versus the ‘healthy body’, managing discipline: how much to intervene?, and the challenge of interpersonal dynamics.